Word: authoritarianism
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...voices at home, exemplified by the arrest this week of anti-Kremlin media mogul - and erstwhile Primakov backer - Vladimir Gusinsky has been widely interpreted as a signal that domestic dissent will not be tolerated by the Kremlin's new leadership. But while Western leaders may have expected a more authoritarian regime from Putin in the wake of his ruthless handling of Chechnya and his staring down of Western criticism of same, his vigorous foreign-policy offensive against Washington has caught them off guard. Not only has Putin refused to accede to U.S. demands to renegotiate the Antiballistic Missile Treaty...
...preferred heir, Sanjay, died in a plane crash - Bashar may have had no choice after his elder brother, Basil, died in a car crash. Like Rajiv Gandhi, Bashar had been educated in Britain before returning home to reluctantly fill a deceased parent's shoes. And Syria's brutal authoritarian tradition certainly offers Bashar plenty of reason to sweat over the possibility that, like Rajiv, he could be removed from the scene by an assassin...
...ignore the linkages between economic, political and social deprivations. Advocates of authoritarianism ask a misleading question, "Is political freedom conducive to development?," overlooking the fact that political freedom itself is part of development. In answer to the wrongly asked question, they respond with a wrongly given answer: "Growth rates of GDP are higher in nondemocratic countries than in democratic ones." There is no confirmation of this oft-repeated belief in extensive empirical studies. Sure, South Korea might have grown fast enough before the re-establishment of democracy, but not so the less democratic North Korea. And democratic Botswana certainly grew...
...economic issue of importance. Reducing political deprivation can indeed help diminish economic vulnerability. There is, for example, considerable evidence that democracy as well as political and civil rights can help generate economic security, by giving voice to the deprived and the vulnerable. The fact that famines occur only under authoritarian rule and military dominance, and that no major famine has ever occurred in an open, democratic country (even when the country is very poor), merely illustrates the most elementary aspect of the protective power of political liberty. Though Indian democracy has many imperfections, the political incentives generated by it have...
...India in several respects, such as the spread of basic education and health care, had the largest famine in recorded history in 1959-62, with a death toll that has been estimated at 30 million. Right now, the three countries with continuing famines are also in the grip of authoritarian and military rule: North Korea, Ethiopia and Sudan...