2013/09/19

Political reforms in mature countries

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This is a copy of a comment I gave elsewhere (FM). It's not directly about defence or freedom, but indirectly it's relevant. It helps to understand the diminishing freedom of action of mature / sophisticated countries' governments. The effects of what I describe are running parallel to the Solow-Swan model's predicted effects and the resources allocation stickiness I wrote about in June.

"People seeking to reform [a country] typically search for a list of policies that will cause [the people] to rally around."
I'm not sure if this is accurate, but it would be a folly if true.

A few categories of policies:
popular & effective - done already
popular & ineffective - some are law of the land
unpopular & ineffective - very rare
unpopular & effective - rarely done yet

A country with an already mature set of policies has mostly the unpopular & effective policies left for its own improvement. The repealing of popular&ineffective policies makes up most of their other good options.
Neither is going to rally many supporters.

Next, this mini-model can be enlarged by splitting popularity between popularity among the voter base and among the sponsor base. Again, what's left are the political actions which would at least alienate one of both, for the common ground policies are already in place.

S O
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1 comment:

  1. Yours is a static model, excluding developments that open options for popular and effective measures. A state that is not on the forefront of unpopular and effective or popular and ineffective measures has a structural development retardation.

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