Democracy it’s a form of government for the people and through this government power is vested by the people and exercised by them through voting an eligible person or electing representatives in a political party, through free electoral system. In democracy there is equality and freedom and all the citizens of the state are equal before the law.
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State led development is defined as where a government leads to the development of the country, through decisions, policy making, and investment undertaken.
Democracy is the precondition for development, because with democracy there is openness, security, peace, political rights, cultural development, and stability of low crime rates and also because many countries who exercise democratic rule, have had high rates of economic growth, as for example India.
Democracy has played an important role in the economic developments to some countries. But also the governments of such democratic counties also plays an important role, their attitudes plays an important role in the economical development, through the way the government regime has ruled the county. Democracy’s economic growth has not been successful in some democratic states, because some government have pilfered the economic resources of their own societies, failing to stimulate growth and facilitating transfer of wealth into hands of unproductive elites (Atul Kholi, 2004), if a state has a corrupt government, its economic growth will become stagnant. For example, Nigeria has a lot of natural resources, it has oil and Agricultural commodities, but Nigeria is one of the under developed countries with bad roads, very high rates of crime, poverty, power failure, and corruption, this is because of the government or the people governing the state, they are very corrupt and they do not concentrate on how to promote development of the country, and also they have no strategies or ways or knowledge of how to develop the country. Atul also argued that the way state power is organised and used has decisively influenced rates and patterns of industrialization.
Regime type matters in democracy and also in every economical development. We have seen that India has always had a democratic government but it had no economic development, India was one of the most underdeveloped governments, it hard high rates of poverty, illiteracy, but after a change in government, India became one of the fastest developing countries.
Joseph Siegle and Morton Halpern think that democracies are consistently out-performing non-democratic on most indicators of economic development and social well being, so promoting democracy should be prior to expanding economic development.
In development the government plays an important role, and for a government to achieve this aim, it most possesses a good leader. Democracy has built in mechanism by which leaders are made responsive to the priorities of the general public and also incentives to act on those preferences. Democracy is based on rule of law that is the power for the people and by the people, democracy is transparent and it also protects investors.
Democracy is influenced by political change, economic performance and development. State-led development is compatible with democracy but not always, in the case of china and other cohesive-capitalist countries, we can see that we don’t necessary have to have a democratic government to have a high economic development. There are nine authoritarian governments and have sustained economic growth for a decade now with democracy, this capitalist state are characterised by the top leadership equating rapid economic growth with national security, a highly centralized and penetrating public authority, state controlled political society, and a highly interventionist state, with the growth oriented cohesive-capitalist states pursued their commitment to high growth by developing trade and industries with well designed, consistent and thoroughly implemented state intervention, they have created such political economies turning their countries into state guided corporations of sorts, they have tendered to be the fastest growers in the developing world(Atul Kholi, 2004).
Huntington argues that although economic growth creates preconditions and opportunities for developing countries to evolve towards democracy, political structure or political transformation under authoritarian and totalitarian regimes do not necessarily keep pace with economic “take off”, the request of opening political participation and demands of dramatic changing society “political decay” and instability take place since these regimes do not have institutions to digest or to respond to the request and demands from discontent middle class and social groups.
Political leader’s attitudes affect the expanding political participation. Democracy can be affected by democratic institutions or government, and democracy can be related to socioeconomic development. It is understood that most high economic growth countries are democratic regimes and because it’s a democratic regime, most of them have high level of development. Rustow summarizes the 3 analytical approach of democracy, the first type proposed by Seymour Lipset , Philips Curtright and others, are arguing that the stability of democracy certain economic and socio economic background conditions and , such as high GNP and GDP per capita, wide spread of literacy and high educational level, high level of urbanization, and the second type is ‘certain beliefs and psychological attitudes of people, Daniel Lerner and other scholars argue that shaping ” civil culture” and encouraging citizens to participate in public affairs are important in establishing democracy, and the Third is the Social and political structure (Rustow1970, pp. 337-338).
The neo patrimonial states mostly have democratic government, but it has been lacking behind in economic development, this is because they have weak centralized and also have weak legitimate structures, poor bureaucracies, despite their abundant resources, but their development is stagnant, this is because the government of such country are selfish, corrupt, and their task setting is undermined by their self interest and the people around them, not thinking about the country as a whole and how to develop it. State-led development under the auspices of neo patrimonial states has often resulted in disasters, mainly because both public goals and capacities to pursue specific task in these settings have repeatedly been undermined by personal and narrow group interest for example, Nigeria.
Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore Prime Minister said that, I believe what a country needs to develop is discipline more than democracy, the exuberance of democracy leads to indiscipline and disorderly conduct which are inimical to development, like the neo patrimonial states.
The more reason why democratic states are developing is because openness has direct benefits for economic efficacy. Markets in which buyers have more access to independent sources of information will definitely generate confidence and trust, and also the political competition give the leaders incentives to create new ideas, and create new strategies in which to enhance their economic development, and most political leaders want their regime to be referred to has the regime with a better governance, so the leader tries to make good policies, in order to improve the economic growth of the country. Once a government is growth oriented,
CONCLUSION
Though democracy tends to produce stronger system of check and balances, independent media, rule of law, openness and other system of governance, the reason why democratic government are developing is because of the factors I mentioned above and also because of their legitimacy and accountability of the government. I think democracy has a great impact in economic development, but I also think the state government are the drivers of the economic development, because they are the ones that create the initiatives for the development, growth and development is higher where there is democracy, but autocratic states are also successful in economic development, they are able to generate accountability mechanism in the absence of the factors that democratic government have such as openness, because of their good leadership.
Governance refers to both internal and external political and economic power and good governance implies that the state is enjoying both legitimacy and authority derived or given to them by the government. Bank defines good governance as the “exercise of political power to mange a nations affairs”. Good governance includes, an efficient public service, an independent judicial system and legal frame work to enforce contracts, the accountability of public funds, an independent in public auditor, responsible to a representative legislative and respect of human rights at all levels of government, a pluralistic institutional structure, and a free press in the case of democracy. But China’s economy has also demonstrated with its high economic growth that, non democratic and repressive government does not necessarily need a democratic system of government to acquire high level of development.
Yes the fastest developing worlds are the countries with democracy but it is the good leadership, good governance and the state capacities and construction in which it is aimed at promoting economic growth of that country. In Hang Asian Miracle he argued that, democracy promotes growth because it imposes constraints on the rulers and reassures private entrepreneurs have the safety of their assets and fruits of their labour. Development of a country works together with both the government and the regime type of the country, so state-led development is compatible with democracy.
