In rich countries, democracy makes life more peaceful and prosperous; in poor ones, it makes life more dangerous. So argues Oxford economist Paul Collier in his bold new book Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places, which extends the discussion he began in his celebrated 2007 study of the world's poorest nations, The Bottom Billion . Collier's not the first to point out that elections, unsupported by robust institutions, are simply political fetishes. But his analysis, delivered with clarity and wit, digs deep into how they increase the risk of wars, uprisings and riots for the world's poorest. In rich democracies,...
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