Democracy and development

The Supreme Court last week ordered both the government and the military to refrain from any steps that could cause a delay in elections. At last, the dark forebodings of another constitutional deviation have been put to rest. It appears that all the principal state institutions in Pakistan are now united in the objective of holding the elections strictly according to the rules and stipulated in the Constitution: the military, the judiciary, parliament and the executive. This is the first time in our history that an elected government has completed its full term and is being replaced through the democratic process. While taking comfort in this collective achievement, it is time to reflect on how to consolidate democracy and initiate a development process that is meaningful.

Any political system which is associated with an economic structure in which the injustice of mass poverty is endemic, which is incapable of providing the basic services required for a dignified existence to the majority of the people, where governments combine rapacity with corruption and where widespread violence prevails unchecked, will essentially be unstable. How can democracy be deepened and the economy restructured to make the functioning of both meaningful for the people?

Deepening democracy will mean making political institutions inclusive, whereby power that is currently restricted to an elite coalition is broadened to include the middle classes and the poor. This will involve changes through which classes at present excluded can find a voice in the provincial and national legislatures. Beyond this devolution, reforms need to be undertaken whereby elected representatives of the people are empowered to govern at the local level. To prevent elite takeover of local governments, there should be an institutionalised linkage between organisations of the poor and every tier of local government at the district, tehsil and union council levels. The underlying principle here is that there should not merely be a decentralisation of administrative function but the devolution of power. The poor should be enabled to systematically participate in governance decisions that affect their economic social and environmental conditions: this means institutionalised participation in decisions regarding local resource allocation, project selection and implementation and monitoring. Such political reforms will make democracy not only representative but will involve the participation of the people in the actual functioning of governance. It will be government by the people.

At the level of the economy, there are urgent problems of declining investment, low domestic savings, inadequate export earnings and slow growth with the consequent difficulty of low government revenues. These problems are rooted in an institutional framework that restricts investment and high wage employment to the elite and generates directly unproductive rents for it by restraining competition. Consequently, there is low efficiency, low productivity, lack of innovation with a consequent inability to generate adequate exports and sustain GDP growth. To achieve sustained economic growth and rapid poverty reduction, it is necessary to shift from rent-based exclusive institutions to inclusive economic institutions. This requires broadening the base of competition, innovation, savings and investment whereby the middle classes and the poor can get access to quality education, skills, access to credit and productive assets. The inclusion of the middle classes and the poor in the process of investment, innovation and productivity increase will generate a higher and more sustained GDP growth that is based on equity. It will be growth for the people, by the people. Such an economic democracy could become a vital underpinning for the endeavour of sustaining democracy.

Apart from politics and economics, you cannot have a democracy without a democratic culture. The sensibility of tolerance and the use of logical argument rather than violence to make a point is an essential feature of democracy. The necessary condition for this is a dramatic improvement in both the budgetary allocation for education and the organisational mechanisms for converting finance into outcomes.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2013.