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Don't Bank on Democracy in Afghanistan
Friday, January 11, 2002
By Robert J. Barro
BusinessWeek Online / Economic Viewpoint

The likelihood is that entrenched foreign aid will become part of Afghanistan's problems, rather than a piece of the solution. We can already see how warlords are stealing much of the grain being sent, bolstering their positions in the country. This will only get worse over time.

The military successes in Afghanistan have demonstrated the awesome technological prowess of U.S. air power. However, as the campaign evolves into a nation-building operation, we shall find that our skills in the social and political arena do not match our military talents. The U.S. vision for a postwar Afghanistan relies on the familiar recipes of democracy and massive foreign aid. Unfortunately, neither is likely to work effectively.

The Western ideal for representative democracy involves free, multiparty elections and maintenance of civil liberties. As Aristotle realized, and as the evidence from a large number of countries demonstrates, democracy is almost never sustained in a country that has income and education levels as low as those in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, Washington always recommends democracy, even to the poorest nations, and the results have included such failures as the new Congo and Haiti.

Freedom House's latest ratings place Afghanistan in the lowest categories for electoral rights and civil liberties. This lack of democracy corresponds to the predictions that I would make from the country's economic and social conditions. Given where Afghanistan is today, my statistical analysis implies that the chance a midrange democracy -- characteristic at present of countries such as Turkey and Indonesia -- will exist five years from now is less than 1%.
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