Authoritarianism And Economic Development

In the past decades, politicians had believed authoritarian regime would only hinder economic development. However, there are successful cases demonstrated by authoritarian countries that it may not be the case. It raised a heated debate on whether authoritarian regime will help or hinder economic development. Before addressing the question, definition of keyword are needed to be clarified. Authoritarianism refers to “Political systems with limited, not responsible, political pluralism, without elaborate and guiding ideology, but with distinctive mentalities, without extensive nor intensive political mobilization, except at some points in their development, and in which a leader or occasionally a small group exercises power within formally

Discussion
The main argument supporting authoritarianism help economic development is the state can enjoy autonomy in drawing development policy which face less resistance force from the public and more public interests oriented.
When countries are developing its economy, huge investment is needed to start-up the economy and state will cut off the current consumption. The party insist for a “better future” will never win in the election. As a result, the country will never have enough resources accumulate for future economic development (Rao, 1984, p.75 as cited in Prezworski A. and Limongi L., 1993, p.54). In this sense, authoritarianism has its own advantage as it can draw and execute policy beneficial to economic development without facing the objection from citizens. State can then make policy which are less favourable to citizens but beneficial to economic development, for example, country may adopt an economic contractionary policy in order to save enough money for future investment. Although the policy cause decrease in demand and have negative

It can draw and execute development policy without the objection from the citizens and policy can be more public interest oriented. Although some scholar viewed that authoritarian regime will over-intervene the economy and open market economy cannot be practised. In fact, suitable government intervention is necessary to economy, especially in the early stage of economic development. Besides, some may also think that authoritarian regime lack monitor from citizens that may cause corruption this worsen economic development. As mentioned in the essay, most authoritarian regime have strong mechanism and penalty in monitoring the discipline and corruption that will not cause bad impacts in economic