Question

Evidence shows that in practice, many democracies did not fulfill the expectations of producing economic development in the country. Validate the statement with the help of relevant example.

Answer 1

(i) If we consider all democracies and all dictatorships for the fifty years between 1950 and 2000, dictatorships have a slightly higher rate of economic growth.

(ii) Economic development depends on several factors: country's population size, global situation, cooperation from other countries, economic priorities adopted by the country, etc.

(iii) However, the difference in the rates of economic development between less developed countries with dictatorships and democracies is negligible.

(iv) Overall, it cannot be said that democracy is a guarantee of economic development. But we can expect democracy not to lag behind dictatorships in this respect.

(v) With such a significant difference in the rates of economic growth between countries under dictatorship and democracy, it is better to prefer democracy as it has several other positive outcomes.

For example: North Korea has higher rate of economic growth than India.