Wars, Guns, Votes Democracy in Dangerous Places Book Analysis

Wars, Guns, and Votes Democracy in Dangerous Places written by Paul Collier examines the role of democracy in the world's most impoverished nations. Collier has termed these impoverished nations as the "bottom billion" and advocates that democracy has increased political violence instead of reducing it. He begins by assessing the role of democracy and the role of ethnic diversity which then follows with a section dedicated to guns, wars, coups and uses Cote d'Ivoire as a case study to summarize his arguments. The final section of the book focuses on Collier's recommendations for policy changes and his suggestions for steps that the "bottom billion" can take to ensure the development of proper governance and accountability in the future. The core proposal of this book is a strategy whereby a small intervention from the international community can harness the political violence internal to the societies of the bottom billion.1

In the first chapter of the book, "Votes and Violence," Collier asserts that democracy does not produce political stability but rather increases political violence. "Bottom billion" nations that undertake democracy are susceptible to political violence because illegitimate governments are produced through anti-democratic practices such as lying to electors, scapegoating minorities, bribery, intimidation, restrict the field to exclude the strongest candidates and miscounting the votes.2 Under these conditions, farcical electoral democracy have led to widespread corruption and economic underperformance. Therefore, Collier concludes, the much touted spread of democracy after the end of the Cold War has not actually made the world a safer place.

In "Ethnic Politics", Collier examines the effects of ethnic diversity in the "bottom billion". "Bottom billion" governments predominately run their political campaigns and shape their policies based on their ethnic background and the interests of their ethnic groups.3 Additionally, public services tend to be worse in ethnically diverse countries where politicians plundered the economy and transferred the proceeds to their own ethnic groups.4 Collier explains that in order to eliminate ethnic divisions, leaders need to create a national and historical identity such as in the case with president Julius Nyerere of Tanzania.5

The second part of the book, "Facing Reality: Nasty, Brutish and Long" begins with Collier discussing the issue of guns in the "bottom billion". In "Guns" Collier states that eleven percent of aid donated by Western nations is used towards the purchase of guns by the "bottom billion".6 "Bottom billion" nations use this aid in order to prevent future rebellion, military coups or to protect themselves against dangerous neighbours.7 Collier states that Western nations have a responsibility to police arms embargoes and make them more effective by becoming more responsible with the provision of aid and to link aid allocations to a chosen level of military spending.8

In "Wars", Collier denounces the popular belief of how civil wars are likely to occur. Collier discusses several issues such as the economy, history, social structure, geography and politics of a country and notes that all of these factors might be correlated with warfare but not significant in determining the occurrence of civil war. Therefore, Collier explains that rebellion determines civil war. The feasibility hypothesis explains that rebellion is the main factor in the emergence of civil war as well as the availability of guns, money and volunteers to make a rebellion more threatening.9

The following chapter entitled "Coups", states that coups are a helpful method in removing a troublesome dictator.10 He notes that a coup is a surgical strike and is not nearly as devastating as a civil war. The problem is that coup leaders often get a taste for power and don't deliver election as promised or they may be greedy and power hungry and not necessarily seeking better governance. In fact, Collier notes, from a statistical point of view, coups are as likely to occur in democracies as they are in autocracies and therefore, they are less likely to throw out a truly bad government than they are to oust an acceptable and functioning regime.11 Coups are undertaken due to poor economic circumstances or usually one coup follows another.12 Collier maintains, that if things are sufficiently desperate, a coup is to be welcomed. A coup is sometimes the only bloodless way of deposing a disastrous and illegitimate regime, and in such circumstances military officers do have a responsibility to take action.13

In the next chapter entitled "Meltdown in Cote d'Ivoire", Collier uses Cote d'Ivoire as an example to demonstrate how democracy had nothing to do with the country's economic superiority in West Africa but through the economic measures of autocrat President Houphouet-Boigny.14 From independence until 1980, Cote d'Ivoire was a huge success. Houphouet-Boigny built a strong economy through a 1950s-style French model: strong state institutions supporting private sector growth.15 Collier then outlines how Cote d'Ivoire encountered a severe economic shock which led to the development of anti-immigrant sentiment and identity polarization in the country. In a very short period of time, the country experienced two military coups, a sham election and a rebel uprising which saw civil war erupt to devastating consequences.

The final part of the book entitled "Changing Reality: Accountability and Security" begins with Collier examining the importance of state and nation building. In "State Building and Nation Building" Collier insists that the answer to eliminating ethnic tension amongst the "bottom billion" lies in nation building which will lead to accountability. Once again he refers to the case of President Nyerere of Tanzania and how he built a strong national identity in a previously fractured country.16 Collier asserts that once petty ethnic divisions are neutralized within a country, can public goods be supplied on a national scale. Embarking on elections before national identity and accountability are in place is and will remain to be disastrous.17

In "Better Dead Than Fed", Collier lists his three-part proposal for ensuring accountability and security in the "bottom billion". Collier states that we need to harness the threat of violence in order to ensure democracy. This means that a voluntary international standard for the conduct of elections must be developed whereby the international community will assist countries in assuring free and fair elections.18