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The unsung development miracles of our time: Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria

25 points by cwan 16y ago

candre717 16y ago
These countries demonstrate "a willingness to depart from the conventional wisdom of the day and experiment with their own remedies." Sounds like a startup mentality in a diplomatic setting. It's interesting to note as well the author's observation on the lack of democratic progress in these countries. I think the reason that the tone of the article is that of surprise is that these countries think and act differently from Western counterparts. It is hard to imagine progress can impact others who don't follow the same principles as yourself.
- rdtsc 16y ago
  I am wondering if by "wisdom of the day" he means the standard IMF and World Bank policy + loan packets for developing countries, that often lead to an increase of GDP but a decrease or stagnation of social indices. As for "democratization" , it seems somehow there is the unspoken assumption that a country has to go through it and it should the first on the list. It usually comes along with liberalization of the markets to the outside products and companies. My guess is that most people in developing countries would rather quickly opt for access to healthcare, education, jobs, low crime rate, and peace, even if it means losing democracy.
  - eru 16y ago
    Democracy is actually not that important. At least for smallish countries, I'd say. Singapore, Hong Kong, and, say, early Britain did fine without democracy. The rule of law and proper markets strike me as much more important. They do often go hand in hand with democracy, though.
lkrubner 16y ago
Interesting: "Only Tunisia among the three is a high growth country, underlining one of the report’s main findings that economic growth and human development often diverge significantly, even over as long a time frame as 40 years."
- narag 16y ago
  Morocco's emigration to Europe and foreign companies establishing there might be two factors to take in consideration.
- takriz 16y ago
  they are all dictatorships based on political corruption and oppression.
wazoox 16y ago
The best book I've read about development is "Bad samaritans". Damn interesting, indeed, and flies in the face of conventional wisdom, like these countries apparently do.
klbarry 16y ago
"What is somewhat puzzling, as Rodriguez and Samman also note, is that these countries have not made nearly as much progress in democratization." You can read more on this phenomena in Fareed Zakaria's excellent book, "The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad"
- muhfuhkuh 16y ago
  I never thought it possible, but I think it's actually cogent to quote Jackie Chan in an HN thread! "I’m gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we are not being controlled, we’ll just do what we want." In alot of ways, there are some cultures to which democratization is simply incompatible, like those with 1.5 billion people. Even here in the US, we're finding that our rights to move freely must be tempered by TSA searches, PATRIOT act and other impingements in the name of security, so why is it so surprising that countries can increase their quality of life and economic standing while still holding onto "antiquated" notions of freedom? What if that is actually the end-run for civilization and it's actually the US that is behind the political ideology curve? We seem to be moving inexorably toward China-like "freedom with caveats" direction, and the electorate actually seems to prefer it (if this past mid-term election can be deemed any indication).
  - AjJi 16y ago
    I guess you won't be saying that if you were the blogger arrested for stating an opinion, or the guy who was killed by a police officer because he was asking for his motorbike and nothing happened after that, even the local media ignored the incident. (I'm from Morocco and these are real events which happened lately, and not just once)
  - scythe 16y ago
    If you total the number of people living in Western democracies, you get more than 1.3 billion, the current population of China. You can prove this easily, if you count India as a Western democracy, or harder, if you don't (US + South America (except for Venezuela) + Mexico + Western Europe). >there are some cultures to which democratization is simply incompatible There's no evidence at all to believe that democracy wouldn't work in China, as it's never been tried. On the other hand, if you look at the downfall of the Soviet Union, Russia's experiment with democracy has been quite a success, even if it's not so perfect a freedom as we're party to in the US. It's certainly not Stalinist and the very existence of organized resistance movements in Russia, something that would have been entirely unheard-of thirty years ago, is a sign that they've made huge strides in the right direction, and their global standing seems to have benefited. >Even here in the US, we're finding that our rights to move freely must be tempered by TSA searches, PATRIOT act and other impingements in the name of security If by "security" you mean "security theatre", then sure. The vast majority of academics disagree with the new restrictions, and most people I know think they're absurd. >What if that is actually the end-run for civilization and it's actually the US that is behind the political ideology curve? Let's all hope not! I cannot understand this argument, as there seems to be no substance to it. There's a weight of literature on the value of freedom (e.g. John Locke, Voltaire), and little inquiry in this regard. >We seem to be moving inexorably toward China-like "freedom with caveats" direction, and the electorate actually seems to prefer it I have no idea how you could come to this conclusion. The vast majority of tea party anxiety over Obama was that he was restricting freedom too much. The main issue of the protesters was that their freedom was threatened, at least in their perception, and whether the candidates they chose are actually working to improve freedom is not quite so relevant as the reasons they chose such candidates. Quite the contrary, just two weeks ago the US state of California came closer to legalizing marijuana than has any other entity for the past thirty years. A general movement toward restricted freedom, indeed. We're seeing such major gains such as legalized abortion and gay marriage even in highly religious regions such as South America and, aparently, Tunisia, and many countries with a long history of human rights violations, e.g. Bangladesh, Vietnam, Nicaragua, have improved markedly in recent years -- the current state of affairs is close to the freeest many such countries have ever seen. You don't hear about all the good things happening in the world in the news as much, but they're happening. The doctrine that freedom of speech is an inalienable human right may have been implemented in the US some 234 years ago, but it only became international law 60 years ago. Progress, indeed.
eru 16y ago
Why did the author put scare-quotes around `facts'?
takriz 16y ago
tunisia is shit, it's a tough dictatorship where free expression means prison, torture and repression, and if you dare to publish that online it gets censored. that's our case since august 2000 and needless to say youtube, dailymotion and all video sharing sites for that matter are blocked while facebook is filtered and the net lives on DPI. takriz

25 points by cwan 16y ago

These countries demonstrate "a willingness to depart from the conventional wisdom of the day and experiment with their own remedies." Sounds like a startup mentality in a diplomatic setting. It's interesting to note as well the author's observation on the lack of democratic progress in these countries. I think the reason that the tone of the article is that of surprise is that these countries think and act differently from Western counterparts. It is hard to imagine progress can impact others who don't follow the same principles as yourself.

rdtsc 16y ago
I am wondering if by "wisdom of the day" he means the standard IMF and World Bank policy + loan packets for developing countries, that often lead to an increase of GDP but a decrease or stagnation of social indices. As for "democratization" , it seems somehow there is the unspoken assumption that a country has to go through it and it should the first on the list. It usually comes along with liberalization of the markets to the outside products and companies. My guess is that most people in developing countries would rather quickly opt for access to healthcare, education, jobs, low crime rate, and peace, even if it means losing democracy.
- eru 16y ago
  Democracy is actually not that important. At least for smallish countries, I'd say. Singapore, Hong Kong, and, say, early Britain did fine without democracy. The rule of law and proper markets strike me as much more important. They do often go hand in hand with democracy, though.

lkrubner 16y ago

Interesting: "Only Tunisia among the three is a high growth country, underlining one of the report’s main findings that economic growth and human development often diverge significantly, even over as long a time frame as 40 years."

narag 16y ago
Morocco's emigration to Europe and foreign companies establishing there might be two factors to take in consideration.
takriz 16y ago
they are all dictatorships based on political corruption and oppression.

wazoox 16y ago

The best book I've read about development is "Bad samaritans". Damn interesting, indeed, and flies in the face of conventional wisdom, like these countries apparently do.

klbarry 16y ago

"What is somewhat puzzling, as Rodriguez and Samman also note, is that these countries have not made nearly as much progress in democratization." You can read more on this phenomena in Fareed Zakaria's excellent book, "The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad"

muhfuhkuh 16y ago
I never thought it possible, but I think it's actually cogent to quote Jackie Chan in an HN thread! "I’m gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we are not being controlled, we’ll just do what we want." In alot of ways, there are some cultures to which democratization is simply incompatible, like those with 1.5 billion people. Even here in the US, we're finding that our rights to move freely must be tempered by TSA searches, PATRIOT act and other impingements in the name of security, so why is it so surprising that countries can increase their quality of life and economic standing while still holding onto "antiquated" notions of freedom? What if that is actually the end-run for civilization and it's actually the US that is behind the political ideology curve? We seem to be moving inexorably toward China-like "freedom with caveats" direction, and the electorate actually seems to prefer it (if this past mid-term election can be deemed any indication).
- AjJi 16y ago
  I guess you won't be saying that if you were the blogger arrested for stating an opinion, or the guy who was killed by a police officer because he was asking for his motorbike and nothing happened after that, even the local media ignored the incident. (I'm from Morocco and these are real events which happened lately, and not just once)
- scythe 16y ago
  If you total the number of people living in Western democracies, you get more than 1.3 billion, the current population of China. You can prove this easily, if you count India as a Western democracy, or harder, if you don't (US + South America (except for Venezuela) + Mexico + Western Europe). >there are some cultures to which democratization is simply incompatible There's no evidence at all to believe that democracy wouldn't work in China, as it's never been tried. On the other hand, if you look at the downfall of the Soviet Union, Russia's experiment with democracy has been quite a success, even if it's not so perfect a freedom as we're party to in the US. It's certainly not Stalinist and the very existence of organized resistance movements in Russia, something that would have been entirely unheard-of thirty years ago, is a sign that they've made huge strides in the right direction, and their global standing seems to have benefited. >Even here in the US, we're finding that our rights to move freely must be tempered by TSA searches, PATRIOT act and other impingements in the name of security If by "security" you mean "security theatre", then sure. The vast majority of academics disagree with the new restrictions, and most people I know think they're absurd. >What if that is actually the end-run for civilization and it's actually the US that is behind the political ideology curve? Let's all hope not! I cannot understand this argument, as there seems to be no substance to it. There's a weight of literature on the value of freedom (e.g. John Locke, Voltaire), and little inquiry in this regard. >We seem to be moving inexorably toward China-like "freedom with caveats" direction, and the electorate actually seems to prefer it I have no idea how you could come to this conclusion. The vast majority of tea party anxiety over Obama was that he was restricting freedom too much. The main issue of the protesters was that their freedom was threatened, at least in their perception, and whether the candidates they chose are actually working to improve freedom is not quite so relevant as the reasons they chose such candidates. Quite the contrary, just two weeks ago the US state of California came closer to legalizing marijuana than has any other entity for the past thirty years. A general movement toward restricted freedom, indeed. We're seeing such major gains such as legalized abortion and gay marriage even in highly religious regions such as South America and, aparently, Tunisia, and many countries with a long history of human rights violations, e.g. Bangladesh, Vietnam, Nicaragua, have improved markedly in recent years -- the current state of affairs is close to the freeest many such countries have ever seen. You don't hear about all the good things happening in the world in the news as much, but they're happening. The doctrine that freedom of speech is an inalienable human right may have been implemented in the US some 234 years ago, but it only became international law 60 years ago. Progress, indeed.

eru 16y ago

Why did the author put scare-quotes around `facts'?

takriz 16y ago

tunisia is shit, it's a tough dictatorship where free expression means prison, torture and repression, and if you dare to publish that online it gets censored. that's our case since august 2000 and needless to say youtube, dailymotion and all video sharing sites for that matter are blocked while facebook is filtered and the net lives on DPI. takriz