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Authoritarian leaders are seen as far more trustworthy than politicians in more openly democratic countries across the emerging world, according to data compiled by the World Economic Forum.
Leaders in Singapore, the Gulf states and Rwanda are rated as having the highest ethical standards in the emerging markets, closely followed by their Chinese and central Asian counterparts.
In contrast, politicians in democracies such as Brazil, Paraguay, Nigeria, Mexico and Romania are seen as exhibiting the lowest ethical standards.
Overall, among the 20 emerging market countries rated as having the most trustworthy politicians in the 2016 survey, 13 are rated as "not free" by Freedom House, a US government-funded non-governmental organisation, with three classed as partly free and just four classed as free.
Among the 20 emerging markets whose politicians are seen as having the lowest ethical standards, not one is classed by Freedom House as not free, with six free and 14 partly free.
https://www.ft.com/content/79d1ce36-8ca9-11e6-8aa5-f79f5696c731
Might be paywalled, but I got in using my normal combination of noscript, self-destructing cookies, and referrer spoofing (from google.com).
Text without charts: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/world/2016/10/1823541-polls-show-low-approval-of-the-ethical-standards-of-leaders-in-latin-america.shtml
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:02PM
This is simply not true. There have been many dictatorships and authoritarian regimes in history which have been ranked as excellent for their citizens. Marcus Aurelius of Rome was one, Elizabeth I of England was another: these rulers were considered by historians to be excellent rulers who made things better for their people. There's many, many more too.
Their successors didn't stay that way as you note below. And they had their victims too. Catholics for Elizabeth I's reign and Germanic tribes for Marcus Aurelius's reign.
Most people with any knowledge of history acknowledge benevolent dictatorships as the very best forms of government. We see this too today with private companies, open-source projects, etc: authoritarian rule leads to much more efficient results (or it leads to abject failure if the leaders suck, but then their competitors win and we forget about them).
Notice that it is simple to move to a different company with different policies. And the feedbacks of profit and worker flight provide a ready way to temper the abuses of authoritarian rule.
Dictatorships like this are demonstrably better than democracies. They don't have the problems with corruption, nor the problems with bureaucracy nor political infighting that characterize democracies. When you have one leader with a singular vision and everyone having to follow his rule, things are simply much more efficient. Democracies are extremely inefficient, by design. They cannot compete.
Actually, the very regimes you mention did have these problems with corruption, bureaucracy, and political infighting. A considerable portion of Elizabeth's early reign was consumed dealing with a Catholic insurgency and a rival queen. Marcus Aurelius's empire already had a massive bureaucracy which would haunt the empire for centuries to come. And as you note in democracies, we can have the advantages of authoritarian rule without a good portion of their disadvantages via businesses. Democracies have on several occasions outperformed authoritarian governments (such as Athens versus Sparta or the US versus the USSR).
The real problem with authoritarian regimes is: what happens when the good dictator dies? Usually, they seem to get succeeded by a shitty heir and everything goes down the toilet. Democracies seek to avoid this kind of instability (where the health of the nation is dependent on the health of a single ruler) by spreading the power out and giving the people the power to choose the leadership to an extent so that one really horrible leader like Caligula or Commodus doesn't inherit the throne and wreak havoc. (In real life, unlike the movie, Commodus was so awful that he was assassinated in his bathtub by his guards.)
I see you anticipated me there. And that's a real problem. A competent, beneficial ruler is great. An incompetent, malicious ruler is terrible. And two or three incompetent, malicious rulers vying for power in the midst of a bloody civil war is a disaster. Another problem here is that authoritarian governments have a somewhat greater tendency to create followers not leaders.
But this doesn't prevent people in democracies from making awful choices. We've seen it in the middle east recently, such as with Egyptians electing the Muslim Brotherhood after they overthrew their dictator Mubarak. And we're seeing it right now in the US with two horrible candidates, both severely disliked by the majority of the population (though this could lead to an argument about how much of a "democracy" it really is when the election system allows this kind of result). In fact, democracies' major problem seems to be that they can easily lead to a "tyranny of the majority", wherein minority groups are oppressed because they don't have enough votes.
Rights can be useful in any government, but they seem baked into democracies.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday October 19 2016, @09:34PM
Catholics for Elizabeth I's reign and Germanic tribes for Marcus Aurelius's reign.
I clearly stated before that authoritarian rule can be better for their citizens. The Germanic tribes were not citizens, and you not that for Elizabeth, the Catholics were involved in an insurgency and supporting a rival ruler, so I don't see how my statement is invalid there. Even the best ruler has to use force to exert their power when some segment of the population rebels.
And as you note in democracies, we can have the advantages of authoritarian rule without a good portion of their disadvantages via businesses.
Businesses only control things within their own sphere, and do not control things like social policy and overall government spending. We wouldn't have a military defense at all if it were up to businesses, because it would be seen as a cost center and not useful for quarterly profits. Same goes for roads to get to and from work.
Democracies have on several occasions outperformed authoritarian governments (such as Athens versus Sparta or the US versus the USSR).
I never said all authoritarian governments were great or superior. The USSR was a poster child of horrible government and why command economies don't work. (An authoritarian government doesn't necessitate a command economy, that was something unique to "communist" states in the 20th century.) Ancient Rome did just fine for centuries with a free-market economy and emperors. Of course, it did eventually collapse, but it also lasted a lot longer than any modern democratic government has. No one's come up with a form of government that doesn't collapse yet; they all have at some point.
Rights can be useful in any government, but they seem baked into democracies.
In western ones, sure. But they didn't have that in Egypt, and they had to have a military coup to get rid of the Muslim Brotherhood that the people elected. The military government doesn't seem to be very good either, but it doesn't seem any worse than the democratic Islamist government that it overthrew either.
A competent, beneficial ruler is great. An incompetent, malicious ruler is terrible.
Yep, that's the problem with such governments: they're life-limited because the competent, beneficial ruler doesn't live forever. However, I can't point to very many democratic governments that have lasted all that long either without plunging into a nasty civil war or being overthrown. The US is probably the second longest-lived one, at about 155 years since its civil war. Switzerland is probably the longest-lived one, though it's also a very small country, smaller than many cities here in the US population-wise.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 19 2016, @10:01PM
I clearly stated before that authoritarian rule can be better for their citizens.
Ok, I guess so. But it tends to be rather easy to lose citizenship status in an authoritarian government. For example, there were way too many proscription lists bandied about (death if captured and seizure of property being a usual consequence, if you were on the list) during the transition from Roman Republic to Roman Empire and later.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday October 20 2016, @02:25AM
The oldest democratic republic is San Marino, founded in 301, with its current constitution dating to 1600 (an update from the one from circa 1300). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marino#History [wikipedia.org]. Though it is small.
Whether America is a democracy is questionable, especially this cycle where the powers that be have presented a green runny turd and a brown runny turd and Americans seem to really believe those are the choices and are willing to fight for their turd. I'd think in a democracy, the people would vote for anything but a turd.