Read it and weep

This report is going to appear in Foreign Affairs (alert via Doug Ireland). It'll be taken to be an important article, mark my words. But it's another "no-shit, Einstein" study on a par with "huh? this Iraq War ain't going so well." Read Amartya Sen, anyone who's ever ventured scholarly criticism of the World Bank and IMF, listen to lots of poor people around the planet, etc. And don't forget to include the US too. From the IHT yesterday:

Economic growth has traditionally been thought to promote democratization by making strategic coordination easier, as communications technology improves, news media become more diverse and the citizenry more educated. But in recent years some savvy regimes have learned how to cut the cord between growth and strategic coordination, allowing the former without having to worry about the latter.

Their trick is to ration carefully the subset of public goods that facilitate political coordination, while investing in others that are essential to economic growth. The "coordination goods" that they need to worry about consist of things such as political and civil rights, press freedom and access to higher education. "Standard public goods" include public transportation, primary and secondary education, and public health; all of which contribute to economic growth and pose relatively little threat to the regime.