Over the past few decades, scholars seeking
to examine the relationship between authoritarian governments and trade and
development have increased relatively. Despite the ballooning of democratization,
it is evident that authoritarian regimes in both emerging economies and the
third world ones unlikely to become extinct in the near future. Courtesy of
that assertion, it is therefore paramount to fully understand how these regimes
affect trade and development of an economy. This term paper seeks to dissect
authoritarian regimes to ascertain how their dictatorial leaders bring down
national economies. In addition, the paper seeks to analyze the effects of such
regimes on the trade and development of a nation.
According to
Bingman (2006), authoritarian regimes are those governments whose rulers
or decision makers cannot be expunged from power through a well-defined
democratic process. Authoritarian rulers often mutilate the constitution of their
countries to enable them exercise undue ruling over its subjects. Authoritarian regimes can be divided into a
number of groups’ i.e. Single party dictatorial regimes, monarchies and military
juntas (Umpleby, Medvedeva, & Oyler, 2004).
A number of scholars assert that an
institutionalized authoritarian government tends to adopt more progressive and
open trade policies. This is often an antic employed by the primary decision
makers in an authoritarian regime to enable them stay in power. The move to open
up the economy to trade is often directed towards blinding a dissenting public.
Institutionalized autocratic regimes often factor in the opinions of dissenting
groups thereby increasing the numbers of those in the ruling system. The
aforementioned move increases the number of individuals to be satisfied, it
subsequently becomes relatively difficult to satisfy all political actors in
the regime through trade contraction measures i.e. protectionist policies. Instead, authoritarian leaders must embrace
open trade, whose impacts can be fully felt by a wider section of the society. However, that is relatively different in
non-institutionalized regimes i.e. single party or dictatorial regimes where
the interests and plight of the common citizens are considered less important.
Perception that leaders of emerging nations
and those of third world countries ruling failed or almost failed economies is
ripe. These perspectives grounded on authoritarian regimes assert that African
leadership and that of Asian economies vary from criminalization to reelection
of elites who are keen to manipulate power and utilize state resources to
magnify their political and economic prowess. Despite enjoying the fruits of
sovereignty i.e. internal and external sovereignty, internal sovereignty has
taken a new twist as political leaders of the west inject funds to these
economies to spur unrests through organized crimes for their personal benefits.
The move by west political leaders to influence negatively the affairs of third
world economies hampers trade and development of these economies. This is so
because they play a major role in the formulation and subsequent implementation
of retrogressive policies that discourage free engagement between states.
Often, authoritarian rulers are driven by selfish interests and are keen to
consolidate power by smashing their opponents and the support from political
leaders of the west glues these interests together. From the aforementioned it’s evident that
authoritarian rulers mess up national economies courtesy of their selfish
interests. In addition, adopted policies often retrogressive impede trade and
development. This is because protectionist polies lock out free trade between
economies. Failure to adopt sound trade
and development policies results into low growth and development rates. Given
the insensitivity of authoritarian rulers and their governments it might be
relatively hard for developing economies to realize millennium development
goals by the year 2015 (Pike, Andres, &
Tomaney, 2006).
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