Peter Schaefer is a businessman and business consultant who has worked in over 50 countries and in the US government from time to time since 1970. In When ‘The Law’ Means ‘Corruption’, he describes how “democracy” works in the Third World:
The fact is that all developing countries are governed by autocrats, even when they are elected. Some are thugs, some are benign, even well-intended reformers, but all are autocrats. They have no choice because it is impossible to govern by the rules if there is no rule-set.In fact, it is nearly impossible to get elected without systemic corruption; so in a way, our emphasis on democracy often contributes perversely to a rise in corruption. This prevails for two reasons. First, the nearly total disconnect between people and the government means they don’t much care about the election, and so their votes are for sale. But secondly, election technology is now worldwide and high tech. TV is about as expensive in Manila as it is in New York and someone must pay. Every dime in fees that James Carville is paid by a politician in a poor country is money stolen from the mouth of some poor person, directly or indirectly.
Rule of law, adjudicated by even-handed justice, simply does not exist anywhere in the developing world and this is the real culprit that stifles development and condemns the poor to live in zero-sum societies. All developing countries are failed states to one degree or another and most of their citizens are miserably poor. In fact, calling them “developing” is misleading because it suggests an upward spiral. But these people are the great grandkids of folks who were poor a half century ago when we started giving out foreign aid in large chunks.