War, guns and votes

Colombia: "El éxito de tomarse el poder político por las armas es hoy del 25%, y hace 25 años era tan sólo del 1%".

War, guns and votes by Paul Collier
(see review here at the marginal revolution)

Is spreading democracy a good thing? No, if it is incomplete. It is actually adverse when it comes to just an election device says Paul Collier. A whole lot of checks and balances have to be implemented as as well. Any economic growth without that "threshold of governance" is bound to be short-term only.

The tragedy going on now in some parts of South America, including Colombia, is that the election mechanism itself has been deviously turned upside-down to get rid of fragile checks and balances. And so they mess up in the name of democracy....and they keep us bound to be a part of the bottom billion.