FP’s Paul Collier writes a Pro and Con list as if he were an authoritarian leader (Egypt’s Mubarak was his inspiration). He evaluates the different avenues available to dictators whose power is subject to upheaval. Here’s a brief excerpt:
Option 1: Turn over a new leaf and embrace good government
Pros: This is probably what most people want. I might start feeling better about myself, and I might even leave a legacy my children could be proud of.
Cons: I haven’t much idea how to do it. The skills I have developed over the years are quite different—essentially, retaining power through shuffling a huge number of people around a patronage trough. My God, I might have to read those damned donor reports. And even if I worked out what needed to change, the civil service wouldn’t be up to implementing it. After all, I’ve spent years making sure that anyone who is exceptional or even honest is squeezed out; honest people cannot easily be controlled.
Worse still, reform might be dangerous. My “friends,” the parasitic sycophants with whom I have surrounded myself, might not put up with it: They might decide to replace me in a palace coup. They would probably dress it up to the outside world as “reform”!
But suppose I did it. Suppose I actually delivered good government. Would I get reelected? I start to think about all those rich-country political leaders who over the years have met me, often lecturing me on the need for good governance. I do a rough tally: They seemed to win their own elections only about 45 percent of the time.
So, even if I pull it off, I’m still more than likely to lose power. Best to cheat. But how?
It’s a bit silly, but points out the intense skepticism with which “elections” have come to be regarded in contexts where democracy is modified by words like “young” “emerging” or even “un”. As Collier remarks at the end of this piece, only the truly paranoid resist holding elections, because there are so many possible ways to manipulate the results. I found this part above, though, especially clever, because it points out how entrenched the behaviors of authoritarian governments are. Collier puts it in Mubarak’s voice to be funny, but the authoritarian tradition in Egypt didn’t start with Mubarak and in all likelihood will not end with him. The institution itself may be site of entrenchment here, not the personality of this man:
President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak
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