Glasshouse Forum in the media

2008-09-23:

Translation of an opinion piece, written by Sten Widmalm and Sven Oskarsson and based on the Glasshouse Forum report "Tolerance and democracy in Liberal and Authoritarian Market Economies", published on the debate page "DN-debatt" in Sweden's largest daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter, 23 September 2008 :

Swedish development assistance put out of the running by capitalist dictatorships

Research projects at Uppsala indicate a growing conflict between economic growth and the progress of democracy. Assistance intended to support liberal values is being steamrollered by neo-capitalism in developing countries. Sweden’s development assistance operations in the Third World are not keeping up in the brutal capitalist development in Asia and large parts of Africa. Economic growth does not lead to the progress of democracy in many developing countries – contrary to our hitherto prevailing optimism regarding modernisation. This is shown by two new research projects carried out at Uppsala University. As a matter of fact China’s huge investment projects in and trade with Africa, for example, help reinforce authoritarian and intolerant structures. The entire Western democratic model is here confronted with increasingly difficult challenges. It also shows that Swedish development assistance policy is becoming increasingly irrelevant, which is scarcely surprising when development agencies are being relocated out to rural areas in Sweden which have little idea about neo-capitalism in the Third World. This is the view of researchers Sten Widmalm and Sven Oskarsson at the Department of Political Science at Uppsala University.

Development assistance to poor countries has in recent years been the subject of increasingly harsh criticism most recently in Sweden with the journalist Bengt Nilsson’s thought-provoking book Sveriges afrikanska krig (“Sweden’s African Wars”). Sometimes the criticism is simplistic and misleading; in several cases it seems clear that development assistance projects are often driven by completely different agendas than those that are in the interests of poor populations.
The dramatic increase in trade exchange between Africa and Asia over the last decade provides the detractors of development assistance with even greater support for their arguments. The driving forces behind this development are primarily China and India. They have over a short period succeeded in achieving changes in Africa which development assistance has failed to do over decades. Harry Broadman, economist and adviser to the World Bank, shows how Africa’s exports to China have increased dramatically in recent years. Asia is buying just as much from Africa as the USA or the EU, the traditional African trading partners. And China is investing more in Africa than the IMF or the World Bank. Many African industries are being modernised to meet the demands of the Chinese and Indian middle classes for consumer products, semi-manufactured food, telecommunications services and products and services within the tourist sector.

If one adds to this the predominant thesis within social science of modernisation that economic development is a prerequisite for and the decisive cause of the growth of stable democratic institutions, then the picture is created of a success story. The flourishing trade with the new and powerful Asian market is leading to greater economic growth in African countries. China and India seem to be creating a lever to lift large parts of Africa out of poverty. The prerequisites for prosperity among large parts of the population are being created by market forces.

In the wake of this economic and social development it is assumed that tolerance and other norms on which a democratic form of government rests will automatically put down roots among the elites and ordinary citizens.
According to the idea of modernisation, the economic driving forces will, therefore, guarantee both the overarching goals that development assistance policy has so clearly failed to achieve during the post-war period: prosperity and democracy. If we only liberate market forces and abolish development assistance policy, their previous problems will solve themselves. That is, however, to jump to conclusions. The development described above has a downside, of course.

The problem is that it is by no means obvious that economic progress brings with it democratic progress. The Israeli political scientist Azar Gat claims that countries like Russia and China, contrary to the predictions of the modernisation thesis, are able to maintain a high rate of economic growth without needing to bother themselves with democracy, freedom of the press or human rights. Gat’s hypotheses are supported in our research where we have tested the modernisation thesis against data from a large number of countries in the latest set of international opinion polls from the World Values Survey (“The Return of the Capitalist-Authoritarian Great Powers” and “Uppsala University Working Group on Tolerance, Pluralism and Democracy”). The results show that only parts of the modernisation theory receive support. Citizens who are imbued with tolerance are clearly a prerequisite for stable democratic institutions. It is instead the connection between economic growth and the development of tolerance which comprises the weak link of the modernisation theory.

In certain countries economic progress seems to promote the spread of democratic norms. India provides an example of this. Despite problems with ethnic conflicts and a troubled agricultural sector, India has succeeded in maintaining both democratic values and economic growth. In other countries the link between economic growth and the spread of democratic norms is, however, missing. In countries like China and Russia tolerance has long been a commodity in short supply, and, what is more, has recently been on the wane despite their economic growth.  As a result we can also see that Chinese democracy is still conspicuous by its absence, and that political developments in Russia do not exactly inspire hope.

Our results show that authoritarian states can continue happily on uninterrupted with citizens who, despite favourable economic growth, still evince their old intolerant values, for example, in the form of widespread xenophobia and extreme hatred of homosexuals. Growth can, therefore, be maintained at impressively high levels whilst in principle nothing is happening which might create the necessary prerequisites for positive democratic progress.
The dilemma we are faced with is that, when there is a shift in the geopolitical fulcrums in what we have for a long time called the Third World, and new strong economies develop, those development assistance strategies which seek to support democracy, human rights and equality are scarcely effective if they ever were. Our development assistance is not keeping up, and this in particular affects those countries where liberal values are needed the most.

As long as most capitalists were not very interested in Africa or Asia, the big beasts of development assistance could move freely, with almost unlimited access to the political elite of the recipient countries. And then one day at the end of the 90s India suddenly terminated its bilateral development assistance agreement with Sweden. In development assistance circles they said, with some bitterness, that the decision was result of the hubris on the part of Hindu nationalists. No one appeared to imagine that it resulted from the fact that the Indian economy was growing at a breakneck pace. In a similar way, African leaders have also started to act. One might not begrudge a little revenge to those people who previously had to stand cap in hand. But one should also curb one’s enthusiasm. Not so long ago William Wallis wrote in The Financial Times that the scope for linking development assistance to liberal values was shrinking all the time. When today China is pursuing its trade policy in Africa, no demands are being made for the protection of democracy or human rights. And this is appreciated by many local leaders and elites. No awkward contracts. No irritating appraisals.

It is evident from this that it is far more than assistance to democracy which is at risk. It is clear that the entire Western democratic model is faced with growing challenges. The demands for competitiveness and economic growth will, to an increasing extent, be made in direct confrontation with our liberal values of political freedom. When markets in undemocratic countries are expanding, the question arises more clearly as to whether we can afford to have free trade unions, a free press, and above all representative government. Obviously development assistance strategies have to be placed under the microscope once again. Perhaps parts of the budget support should be transferred to investments in civil society, independent courts, a free press and education at both an elementary and a higher level. The question is simply whether our development agencies can pursue that agenda. Development assistance activities are today ineffectual, which one might expect when regional policy has exiled considerable parts of it to Karlstad, Kramfors and Gotland. It is a divided enterprise, which does not know how the expansion of China should be approached.

Finally, we have to turn our gaze on ourselves, and ask the question whether we are equipped for, and have the desire to, defend democratic values. In the second half of 2009 Sweden will hold the EU Presidency. This will provide an unusually good opportunity to raise this question to the top of the agenda.

SVEN OSKARSSON
STEN WIDMALM