If you have not read Paul Collier’s Wars,Guns, and Votes, I encourage you to read it. It complements his
previous book TheBottom Billion by expanding on the aspect of democracy as it
relates, in large part, to those bottom billion countries and to those
countries coming out of conflict situations. We have good examples to watch
today: Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, maybe Syria in the not too distant
future. While I have issues with the universality of Collier’s arguments, as
they apply to countries not necessarily in the bottom billion, I tend to favor
his analysis that new democracy influences new violence.
One
of the summary theses Paul Collier suggests is that, "Democracy…does not
seem to enhance the prospects of internal peace." In fact, Collier
suggests that the contrary is more so the case with the introduction of
democracy, that states are more likely to experience conflict, initially,
rather than experience peace. At first glance, his notion seems to fly in the
face of the pursuit of democracy and the good that democracy should represent.
However, from a purely technical analysis, Collier's point bears truth in many
cases. In fact, the United States suffered a rather long period of internal
fiscal, political, and social conflict lasting several decades even producing a
civil war. Arguably, some of those political and social conflicts have even
extended well into the 20th century.
