By Vestnik Kavkaza
In a recent interview the former president of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, who hopes to return to politics, admitted that he loves a book titled “Why Nations Fail” by Daron Asemoglu and James Robinson. Experts are surprised that Kocharyan, who is thought to be a nationalist, loves a book written by the well-known economist Asemoglu, who was born in Turkey. However, the questions discussed in the book are very acute for modern Armenia – why some nations are rich and others are poor, why nations have different food resources and living standards; whether it depends on culture, climate or geographical situation. Daron Asemoglu and James Robinson think that artificial political and economic institutions underlie economic success (or failure). Today Vestnik Kavkaza publishes an interview with James Robinson.
- In the world of today (since you published your book a lot happened in the world) what are the main principles that help nations to survive?
- We do not really talk about the “survival of nations” our book is about economic success and economic failure. I would say, the same principles as before, meaning having inclusive political and economic institutions help the nation prosper. I think there is a lot of evidence to suggest that that generates stability and survival as well. So, why was it that Iraq is collapsing, the Northern Iraq is collapsing? You could say that was because the type of state and the type of politics that emerged from the US invasion was not a very inclusive politics at all. It was polarized and divisive politics, discriminated against a lot of people in the society and that created a lot of grievances. I think, you can see a lot of these problems in different parts of the world stemming from that.
One of the problems in Ukraine was that after the president was ousted by this, sort of, people’s power movement, they immediately moved to eliminate Russian as an official language, which was very polarizing and not a very inclusive thing to do, given the demographic and ethnic realities of Ukraine. So, if you are talking about those nations falling apart that coincides with a very non-inclusive type of politics and actions.
- What kind of nations are more successful or have more chances to succeed (economically as well): multi-cultural, multi-national or mono-national, mono-cultural, mono-religious?
- It all depends on your institutions – look at the United States. The United States is predominantly multi-cultural and it is full of people from all over the world. So, you cannot say that the success of the United States is based on massive homogenates. It is not homogeneous at all. There are very homogeneous countries, which are very unsuccessful. I think that any society can manage and benefit from diversity but it has to have inclusive institutions to do that. Otherwise, one group will fight to dominate another group and that will create conflicts.
You can say the same thing about Canada. They are very diverse and multicultural. So, I do not think it is a problem, it is, actually, a huge benefit for the society: your bring ideas, and talents, and energy from all over the world; and any country can do that. So, I do not believe that any kind of destiny associated with multiculturalism is bad and being all-homogeneous is good. The world is a complicated place and we have to learn to live with each other.
- Would you say that natural resources which today is a major pillar of the economy of any country, is a guarantee of success?
- No, I do not think it is the main guarantee of economic prosperity. The main guarantee of economic prosperity is innovativeness and creativity of people. If you look at what drives economic growth over the long run, it is innovation and new technologies, and adopting technologies and adapting technologies, it is not natural resource wealth. Natural resource wealth can be very useful in building your society, building infrastructure, institutions. But it is not a substitute for having a society that can foster creativity, and innovation, and technological change.
China has been very well in the last 30 years not with natural resource wealth, or India to that matter, but by changing their economic institutions that allow people to innovate, give them opportunities. South Korea did it, Taiwan did it and actually, most of the very successful economies had not had resources. Some of them have: Indonesia has, Malaysia has. The trick is you need to have institutions in society to allocate natural resource wealth in socially desirable directions. Look at Nigeria, the North of Nigeria is falling to pieces, but they have huge amount of oil resources, but they do not have the political institutions, which would allocated that oil wealth in the interests of the society.
- What about those countries that do not have developed economies of their own, but they are lucky to be in geographically strategic position and enjoy donation, if we can put it this way, from other bigger countries-sponsors who would like to have them in their block, whether it is in the East or in the West? For how long can these countries survive and how successful is this type of strategy being sort of a smaller brother of a bigger one?
- I think it sounds like a very precarious position: politics change, political governments change, alliances change.
James Robinson is a Professor of Government at Harvard University. He received his BS from the London School of Economics and Political Science, his MA from the University of Warwick, and his PhD from Yale University in 1993. Some of his publications include; Why did the West Extend the Franchise?, A Theory of Political Transitions, Inefficient Redistribution, Reversal of Fortune Quarterly. However, he became world famous due to Why Nations Fail. The book was characterized by critics as a “bible of political economics.” He has just published a book jointly with Daron Acemoglu titled The Economic Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship.
