From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

2 POWER AND POLITICS I RULE, THEREFORE I AMto achieve legitimacy, either at home or in the eyes of the internationalcommunity. Widespread awareness of rights means thateconomic growth alone, while necessary, will not guaranteelegitimacy, much less bring about the deep transformations thatconstitute real development.THE POLITICS OF EFFECTIVE STATESStates reflect the history and nature of the society in question. One ofthe hallmarks of effective states is that they possess economic andpolitical elites willing to participate in building the nation by investingin people, infrastructure, and production. Such elites are sometimescorrupt but confine themselves to skimming off a percentage, awarethat to be sustainable, even corruption requires a flourishing economy.135 By contrast, building effective states becomes extraordinarilydifficult when elites are dominated by get-rich-quick politicians andbusiness leaders, or by those unwilling to risk investing at home andwho instead park their wealth abroad. This so-called ‘national bourgeoisiequestion’ bedevils much of Latin America and Africa.The glue that binds powerful elites into a national project can stemfrom history, fear, culture, ideology, leadership, or national pride.In East Asia, war, occupation, and defeat gave rise to nationalism inJapan and communism in China, while the uprooting of existingelites and the persistence of an external threat were important in SouthKorea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Cultural traditions of paternalismand commitment to education undoubtedly helped, although theirimportance is often exaggerated. Culture is an endlessly malleableconcept: prior to South Korea’s take-off, Confucianism’s respect forauthority and hierarchy was held up as one explanation for its failureto develop. And effective states have arisen in many cultures: ‘African’or ‘Latin American’ values cannot explain why Botswana or Uruguaywere able to build effective states while others around them did not.Successful states manage a difficult balancing act. They must keepat arm’s length groups seeking to ‘capture’ the state for their ownshort-term gain, yet must remain deeply integrated into society inorder to understand the needs and possibilities of the economy. This95