Some interesting comments about Rwanda on my last post. I'm not going to touch this particular poverty vs human rights debacle with a barge-pole. In any case, I don't buy the argument at all that autocracy is in general in any way good for development (the data just doesn't support it). But I think you can make a reasonable case that you need to look at the change in governance as much as its absolute level in order to understand its impact upon the economy.
This chart shows trends in Rwandan governance, as measured by the Polity IV project. Positive on the scale is democratic and negative is autocratic. Above 6 gets you full democracy status and minus 6 full autocracy. Kagame came to power around 2000 (update: officially 2000, but effectively 1994?).
3 comments:
I think a few facts may help. Kagame has indeed been in control of Rwanda since 1994. Bizimungu (President from 1994 to 2000) was a straw man. And Bizimungu was persecuted by Kagame as soon as Kagame didn't need him any longer. Kagame is a ferocious tyran who resorts to assassinations. He does so even in foreign countries: it has been so in Kenya and poorly organized operations by his murderers have been discovered in the UK and in South Africa.
First commenter is right - Kagame was considered to be the man in charge through most of the post-genocide 90s.
"
change in governance as much as its absolute level in order to understand its impact upon the economy"
We should be cautious about reverse causality here - I'd be curious what moves first if you graphed this against economic growth.
Isn't the real issue here that it was never very good to begin with (and still isn't - that chart will definitely continue the downward trend into 2011-12)?
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