The following paper compares government type and economic performance among sixteen countries in the eight regions of the world. Generally, it is believed that democratic countries are likelier to have better economic growth and performance. It is important to note that there are specific countries that are exceptions to the rule, but for the most part, government and economic performance have a reciprocal effect on each other. The relationship is more of an interdependence than a direct result of the government’s sole influence on the economy.
Beginning with the European Region, Belgium’s form of government is a Federal Parliamentary Democracy under a Constitutional Monarchy. This form of government is considered a democracy, in that the people elect officials in their government. The King, however, is appointed for life and is “hereditary and constitutional” (Central Intelligence Agency, 2013). According to the Index of Economic Freedom (2014), Belgium scores a 69.9 on economic freedom, making it the 35th freest economy in the world. Although Belgium is ranked 17th among the 43 countries in the Europe region, and its overall score is above the regional and global averages, its economic freedom has remained economically stagnant over the years. In the latter half of the 2000’s, Belgium’s economy was considered “mostly free”, but since 2011, has moved to “moderately free”. The CIA World Factbook addresses this change as a result of Belgium’s lack of natural resources, causing them to import substantial quantities of raw materials and export a large volume of manufactures. This, unfortunately, leaves the economy of Belgium extremely vulnerable to the instability of world markets (Central Intelligence Agency, 2013).
Italy, also i...
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...that government form is extremely influential on economic performance. Though some countries are exceptions to the rule, there is a general sense of predictability between democratic-like governments and better economic performance.
Works Cited
Central Intelligence Agency, U. S. (2013). The World Factbook. Retrieved from: https://www.cia.gov/index.html, 03 Feb. 2014.
Freedom House, Regions, Retrieved from: http://www.freedomhouse.org/regions, 03 Feb. 2014
The Heritage Foundation, 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, Country’s Rankings, Retrieved from: http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking, 03 Feb. 2014
Michigan State University, Global Edge, Global Insights by Country, Retrieved from: http://globaledge.msu.edu/global-insights/by/country, 03 Feb. 2014
This Nation, Is the United States a Democracy?, Retrieved from: http://thisnation.com/question/011.html, 03 Feb. 2014
The World Fact Book. (n.d.). Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved August 12, 2011, from https://www.cia.gov (Primary)
"Country Policies and Embargoes." PMDDTC.state.gov. The Office of the Executive Director, Technology Division, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation (ISN/EX/TD), 4 Oct. 2013. Web. 26 Oct. 2013.
United States Census Bureau. "Top Ten Countries with which the U.S. Trades, For the month of December 2009." December 2009. United States Census Bureau. 1 March 2010 .
An Economic Freedom Index has been designed to identify various factors that make a country economically free, by using a compendium of 23 freedom factors based on objective data or independent surveys. It is a ranking of 123 countries according to the extent to which they are free.
The American government is considered the most successful economy in the world as a democratic nation. It has had its ups and downs but always finds a way to have solution and bring itself up from a recession. However, the American government is not headed to a great future. It is more likely with the events happening that the government system will slowly collapse. Democracy will be lost in the United States. An American government that is influenced by John Locke philosophies has been working so far, but in the future presidential democracy will die off. A hard hit to the economy will hurt the country, in which it would lead to a downfall in the government system. Political Parties are becoming more ideologically polarized and polarized behavior is growing within the parties. The current economy is not very stable government shutdowns, polarization, and hard solutions will hit the country hard in which the government system will not be able to solve and would cause the end of democracy.
According to Przeworski, the fundamental difference between democracy and dictatorship is that in democracy, leaders are selected through competitive elections. While there exists this fundamental difference between democracy and dictatorship, democracy has also been proved to be related to the state of economic development. According to evidence presented by Seymour Lipset, economic development is much higher for the more democratic countries compared to those characterized as ‘less democratic’ or authoritarian. Although the fundamental difference between democracy and dictatorship that Przeworski presents is competitive elections,
“The World Factbook”. Central Interlligence Agency. Central Intelligence Agency. 13 May 2014. Web. 17 May 2014.
Economics have a very high correlation to democracies. Typically states with high Gross Domestic Product (GDP) tend to be democratic. Both the Rowen
Wantchekon, L. (1999). Why do Resource Dependent Countries Have Authoritarian governments? NewHaven: Yale Universiy Press.
The economics of Haiti has deceased in the last 4 years after the devastating earthquake that struck it 4 years ago. The Haiti economy has become very poor and one of the poorest country in the south, Central America and Caribbean region making it ranked 24 out of 29 countries in this area and its overall score is below average. Haiti’s economic freedom is 48.1 making it economy the 151st freest country while in the last several years Declines in the management of government spending, freedom from corruption, and labor freedom make its overall score 2.6 points lower than last year. Recovering from the disastrous earthquake in 2010 with the support of the U.S. recovering efforts “Haiti’s post-earthquake reconstruction efforts continue, assisted by substantial aid from the international community. Governing institutions remain weak and inefficient, and overall progress has not been substantial. The parliament has not renewed the mandate of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, which had been tasked with overseeing reconstruction efforts but was unpopular.”( .heritage.org). The open market of Haiti trade weighted to be 2.1 this is because the lack of tariffs hamper the trade freedom of Haiti. Foreign investors are given national treatment but the investment is small and the financial sector is remained underdeveloped and does not provide any adequate support.
There have been enormous efforts to spread democracy as a political system throughout the world by the developed democratic countries and the international development organizations including the World Bank. By the late 1990s the United States alone spent over a half billion dollars to promote democratic expansion throughout the world (Diamond, 2003). These were done considering that the democratic system leads towards development. As a result in the late 20th century we saw a huge political transformation towards democracy. During the last few decades a huge number of countries adopted democracy as their political system. However, it retain a big question how far democracy is successful in bringing development of a country? At this stage, some people also criticizes the effort of democratization arguing that it is done without considering the context of a country, sometimes democracy is not ideal for all countries and it is an effort to extinct diversity of political system. In studying the literature regarding the debate, we found a paradoxical relationship between democracy and development. Some argue that democracy has failed to ensure expected outcomes in terms of development. While others confronted that democracy has a considerable impact on development. Another group of people argue that form of political system actually does not have any impact on development process. On the verge of these debates, some development institutions and academics throw light on why democracy is not working properly, and what measure should be taken to make it more successful in bringing effective development of developing countries. Consequently, this writing is an effort of revisiting the different views about impact of democra...
Actually, democracy is deemed to be a difficult form of government regardless if it is favourable circumstances or not. It seems to be all the more difficult when society’s economic environment is weak, civil society is still developing, and finally ...
The next important attribute to consider is the government’s ability to implement policies that they have passed. If these policies are against public opinion they will have a difficult time implementing them since they do not have an authoritarian or absolute rule. The government mus...
The objective of this paper is to make an economic development and economic growth comparison of these four countries. The comparison will be multi-faceted. It will compare monetary perform...
The link between democracy and human rights has been recognized by many scholars. For example O’Donnell (2004) summarized the quality of democracy as: Quality of Democracy = human rights + human development. This viewpoint indicates that democracy encapsulates human rights. Several research findings strongly support the idea that states with higher levels of democracy, regardless of their election rules, are more respectful of human rights (Davenport 1997; Poe, Tate, and Keith 1999).