Why Do We Need Human Rights? (35): Why Do We Need Democracy?

The Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755

Democracy is a human right. In the past, I’ve  listed a number of reasons why we should prefer democracy over other forms of government (here and here for example). I’ve now come across another reason, one that may not be convincing or relevant to everyone, but still it’s mildly interesting:

Lisbon, Portugal, during the great earthquake of 1 November 1755. This copper engraving, made that year, shows the city in ruins and in flames. Tsunamis rush upon the shore, destroying the wharfs. The engraving is also noteworthy in showing highly disturbed water in the harbor, which sank many ships. Passengers in the left foreground show signs of panic.

All things — including wealth — being equal, earthquakes kill more people in dictatorships than in democracies, write NYU political scientists Alastair Smith and Alejandro Quiroz Flores. The reason that democratically elected leaders prepare their countries for disaster better is because they fear they’ll be voted out of office if their governments are caught unprepared. (Dictators obviously tend to worry less about election outcomes.) A recent World Bank study backs up this argument, with an added wrinkle: institutionalized autocracies, like China’s, tend to outperform non-institutionalized or corrupt autocracies as well as young democracies when it comes to preventing earthquake deaths. Still, another study finds that politicians in democratic elections benefit even more from doling out disaster relief after a catastrophe than they do from preparing for disasters yet to come. (source)

More on democracy and human rights here, here and here. More on earthquakes and accountability.

Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (95): The Efficiency of Development Aid

From The Onion:

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI—Three months after a 7.0 earthquake rocked the impoverished island nation of Haiti, 36-year-old Brad Halder visited its demolished capital to see firsthand how his $10 donation to a relief fund was being spent. “It’s been a little while, so I just wanted to check in and make sure my money was being put to good use,” Halder told reporters while surveying the still largely devastated region. “To tell you the truth, I was kind of expecting to see a lot more new homes by now. And, I don’t know, maybe some new hospitals or something. But, jeez, did they get any of the $10 I sent them?” After noting that nearly 90 percent of the country still lived in abject poverty, Halder announced that any funds left over from his donation should probably go toward rebuilding Haiti’s infrastructure.

More serious posts on the earthquake in Haiti are here and here. The effectiveness of development aid is a highly contested topic. Here‘s one example of inefficient aid. Some even believe that we should stop giving aid altogether, perhaps with the exception of disaster relief after earthquakes and such. Dambisa Moyo is a well-known propagator of that argument (see here and here). Others believe that we should on the contrary increase the levels of development aid, while spending the money in a more efficient way (the U.S. is regularly scolded for it’s relatively low levels of development aid, and the joke above obviously refers to the U.S. in general rather than just one bloke). One way to make aid more efficient is cash transfers. Other types of efficient development aid – albeit indirect types of aid – are trade liberalization, investment, the promotion of migration and debt relief.

More jokes here.

Human Rights Quote (77): Haiti, Emergency Aid, and the Effectiveness of Development Aid

For some years now, an interesting debate is going on about the effectiveness of international development aid. The reason is, of course, the persistence of high levels of poverty in many developing countries despite huge amounts of aid (and poverty is a human rights issue). In fact, the biggest successes in the struggle against poverty have occurred in countries that receive relatively little aid (e.g. China). Some aid sceptics even propose to end development aid altogether (see here as well).

Much of the controversy revolves around semantics. If you ask whether development aid is effective, it depends on what kind of aid you’re talking about, and on what you understand by effectiveness. If by effectiveness you mean that development aid should foster economic growth, you’re probably right to say it’s ineffective. But if you say that aid should solve some very specific problems such as a disease or the consequences of a disaster or a famine, then it can be very effective. Some types of aid are obviously better than others, and it’s quite useless to talk about development aid as some homogeneous and undifferentiated whole, or about effectiveness as a purely macro-economic measure.

Take for example this quote on the case of Haiti following the recent earthquake there:

I still believe that foreign aid does not raise economic growth rates, on average. But aid can alleviate human misery, such as when a visiting doctor gives vaccines or hands out medicine. (In fact per capita income may fall, as a result, if some “weaklings” are kept alive.) I also believe that the U.S. military can make a huge difference in the immediate aftermath of catastrophes. Imagine U.S. troops liberating Buchenwald. Would any commentators say the following? “Don’t give him that blanket, sell it to him!”; “Hey buddy, get a job!”; “Moral hazard: they’ll just go get captured again.” etc. I don’t think so.

That’s one way to look at aid for Haiti, noting that perhaps as many as three million Haitians currently stand at risk. Just for a start, someone has to rebuild the port and it’s going to be a foreign effort, organized by governments. The market-oriented solution is more immigration, but even that requires a lot of governmental organization and best of all would be if Obama threw his considerable international prestige behind a coordinated effort to take in Haitian refugees. Tyler Cowen

More on the situation in Haiti is here. More on development aid is here. The aid controversy can be followed on this blog (even though it’s a bit one-sided and mostly in favor of the skeptics).

Annals of Heartlessness (1): Luxury Cruise Ship Docks On Private Haitian Beach, Just 60 Miles From Devastation

Not all suffering in the world is a human rights violation. A broken heart or an earthquake both cause suffering but neither is a human rights violation (needless to say there’s no equivalence here). We don’t have a human right that protects us against the consequences of shifting tectonic plates or against unresponsive objects of adoration. Nor should we. However, rights violations do occur in the aftermath of earthquakes. Desperate people kill each other, steal from each and abuse each other in countless ways. And then there are the outsiders failing in their duty to help. People have a right to food, shelter and survival, and others violate these rights if they don’t help when they can. Take a look at this story:

A Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines ship … made its scheduled docking at a private beach. Though the cruise ship delivered 40 pallets of relief supplies while it docked, vacationers frolicked and held a barbecue on the private area, just miles from the devastation caused by the 7.0 earthquake last week. … The decision to go ahead with the visit has divided passengers. The ships carry some food aid, and the cruise line has pledged to donate all proceeds from the visit to help stricken Haitians. But many passengers will stay aboard when they dock; one said he was “sickened”. “I just can’t see myself sunning on the beach, playing in the water, eating a barbecue, and enjoying a cocktail while [in Port-au-Prince] there are tens of thousands of dead people being piled up on the streets, with the survivors stunned and looking for food and water,” one passenger wrote on the Cruise Critic internet forum. … but others seemed determined to enjoy their holiday. “I’ll be there on Tuesday and I plan on enjoying my zip line excursion as well as the time on the beach,” said one. (source)

Luxury Cruise Ship Docks On Private Haitian Beach, Just 60 Miles From Devastation

(source, Photograph: Daniel Morel/AP)

None of this is made right by the fact that there are thousands of foreigners coming in to help. If you want to help from a distance, here‘s an overview of what you can do.

More on the role of caring, sympathy, empathy and assistance in the protection of human rights is here, here, and here.