Wars, Guns, and Votes

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution discusses Paul Collier's book,Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places:

The key point of the book is how and why democracy doesn't work so well for the bottom billion. The early discussion of the incentives facing quasi-democratic governments is dysfunctional societies is brilliant. It's the best discussion I've seen of why "produce better government" is not the prevailing incentive in such societies. You can learn why ethnic diversity lowers the value of public sector activity but raises private sector productivity, why skills for construction are often a binding constraint in very poor societies, why the social returns to peacekeeping are so high, why Kalashnikovs are cheaper in Africa, why there are fewer civil wars in larger countries, and how the Ivory Coast went from development model to disaster...[continue reading]