Democracy Promotion as an EA Cause Area

bryanschonfeld

44

Really interesting post--thanks for writing it.

I think there's a different line of argument, involving moral uncertainty and option value, that might also favor democracy promotion. The idea is that liberal democracies are best-suited to hosting the 'marketplaces of ideas' where it's likeliest that we'll eventually discover the right moral views (if such views exist at all).

For lots of reasons, we shouldn't be confident that we've already landed on the right moral views. Moreover, it'd be extremely bad for the longterm future if a big portion of humanity locked-in to extremely wrong moral views. So it's important to think about two questions: (1) How can we increase the odds that we eventually identify the right moral views? And (2) how can we decrease the odds that we permanently lock-in to the wrong moral views in the interim period?

With respect to (1): Liberal democracies protect freedom of inquiry and freedom of speech. These freedoms tend to promote the discovery of truth. So promoting liberal democracy will tend to promote the discovery of moral truths.

With respect to (2): Liberal democratic societies tend to allow for ideological pluralism--both in their formal laws and in their cultural norms. Pluralism works against the kind of conformity that could produce a dangerous ideological lock-in. So promoting liberal democracy might also help decrease the odds of a bad lock-in scenario. (Ideological pluralism might also generate a lot of option value by keeping our menu of possible moral views large.)

These arguments are only rough sketches, but, if fleshed out more carefully, I think they might also favor the position you advocate here.

bryanschonfeld

6y

8

I think this a really strong argument in favor of democracy promotion. Thank you for your comment!

SamuelKnoche

6y

20

Thanks for the post. I agree that the promotion of democratic institutions as an EA cause area is worth a closer look. I think you might find this EA Forum post by Ben Kuhn interesting: “"Why Nations Fail" and the long-termist view of global poverty.”

Though I'm skeptical. A lot of the benefits from democracy require liberal democracy. For example, both Iran and Russia are technically democracies, yet neither seems like a force for domestic welfare or international peace. In The Great Delusion, John Mearscheimer also casts some doubt on the democratic peace theory, pointing out that the US has toppled a number of democratically elected governments: “Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Brazil in 1964, and Chile in 1973.” He also references a 1994 paper, “Kant or Cant: The Myth of the Democratic Peace”:

Perhaps the most damning evidence against the case for liberal democratic norms is found in Christopher Layne’s careful examination of four cases where a pair of liberal democracies marched to the brink of war, but one side pulled back and ended the crisis. He carefully examines the decision-making process in both Britain and the United States during the 1861 Trent Affair and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1895–96, the Fashoda Crisis between Britain and France in 1898, and the 1923 Ruhr Crisis involving France and Germany, and convincingly argues that liberal norms had little to do with settling these crises. There was substantial nationalist fervor on each side, and all four outcomes were primarily determined by strategic calculations involving the balance of power.

I don’t know how strong these objections really are, but I would take the democratic peace theory with a grain of salt.

Then there is China. Acemoglu and Robinson argue that China’s model is unsustainable in the long run, that it will end up having to liberalize in order to maintain economic growth, but this is disputed. China seems to be quite unique in terms of competence among authoritarian countries. Human rights would definitely improve if China were to become a liberal democracy, but the effects on long-term growth seem less obvious.

One issue is that the evidence in this area is fairly weak. See Kuhn’s post for more details on that.

With respect to neglectedness and tractability, I think it is best to do an analysis on a country by country basis. Promoting democracy in China for example seems not to be very tractable, and also carries some downside risk (making China hostile to EA). The question of whether promoting democracy might be an EA cause probably depends on whether it is possible to find a single country where there exists any examples of neglected and tractable interventions.

I think it is possible to find such interventions. Kuhn speculates that sponsoring independent investigative media in Senegal might be effective. Maybe there are some specific effective interventions in pro-democracy aid or election monitoring. I would love to see more research into similar interventions.

bryanschonfeld

6y

11

Thank you so much for these thoughtful comments! A few responses:

While there are of course differences of opinion on this issue outside of the research community, the social science research literature universally considers Russia and Iran to be non-democratic (see for example, the Polity IV project or the recent Acemoglu et. al. 2019 Democracy dataset). These regimes might be considered "competitive authoritarian" regimes (see Way and Levitsky) or hybrid regimes/"anocracies"--the benefits of democracy stated in the article do not apply to these states. While liberal democracy is likely preferable for outcomes like democratic peace, other outcomes like higher spending on public goods are linked primarily to electoral democracy, rather than to liberal norms.
In terms of the democratic peace--it's true that not all scholars agree with the consensus about the democratic peace--though Mearsheimer is definitely an outlier to the extent of believing power politics to be the only thing that matters (i.e. he thinks Europe isn't at war because of US troops in Germany). Scholars that have traditionally emphasized power politics (like Robert Jervis) acknowledge that the current situation-- in which powerful countries in Europe/Japan/South Korea don't even contemplate war against one another--is unique historically and likely linked to democratic norms.
I agree on China--I think pro-democracy aid can be effective when a country is in transition, like a mixed regime (and when a country actually needs aid enough to be influenced). Conditional aid can boost the fragile institutions of new democracies and make democratic consolidation more likely ( a very important long term outcome).

MichaelA🔸

5y

7

Questions about the neglectedness and tractability of this area

You write:

Another prominent source of funding for pro-democracy programs is the Open Society Foundations (OPF). According to their website (OpenSocietyFoundations.org), the organization's 2020 budget of $1.2 billion included $140.5 million to improve democratic practices, along with another $77.3 million for human rights movements and institutions.

But then you also write:

With a few exceptions, democracy promotion seems to be largely neglected outside of the promotion of U.S. foreign policy interests

Do you say that because the democracy-promotion budget of the OPF and similar actors is much smaller than that of US government bodies? Or because you see the OPF and similar actors as also promoting US foreign policy interests?

Also, regarding tractability, you write:

A review essay on the efficacy of tools of external democracy promotion finds that non-coercive tools like foreign aid that is conditioned on democratic reforms and election monitoring are effective [...]

Another effective tool of democracy promotion is pro-democracy foreign aid. [...] The bulk of the recent evidence suggests that increasing pro-democracy aid may prove to be an effective intervention for EA organizations”

Is the idea here always that pro-democracy foreign aid creates an incentive for regimes to make democratic reforms so that they get (or continue to get) that aid? Or is this sort of aid sometimes effective merely by helping prop up good institutions or things like that?

I ask because, if the benefits are always or primarily caused by the incentive effects, I'd worry about whether EA would really be able to throw enough money at this to even get noticed, when we're talking about national budgets.

What are you thoughts on that?

bryanschonfeld

5y

5

Thank you so much for this comment. The evidence from a bunch of good papers seems to suggest that it's about incentives to make democratic reforms. In terms of whether EA could contribute enough money---the Carnegie and Marinov paper I cite finds small but still noticeable improvements in democracy in response to relatively insignificant increases in conditional aid from the EU (for example, going from 20 million dollars in aid to 25 million).

bf

5y

4

I was also wondering about the ability of EA to meaningfully contribute to democracy promotion. Perhaps a less costly way than funding pro-democracy foreign aid and more feasible way than election monitoring may be the promotion of the idea that democracy is good for economic growth. There is a forthcoming paper in the American Political Science Review by Scott Abramson and Sergio Montero called ''Learning about Growth and Democracy'' showing that autocracies are more likely to become democratic at times when democracies outperform autocracies in economic growth (unfortunately the reverse also holds). This is primarily attributed to a learning effect among political leaders who look at other countries to see what the best institutional setup for economic growth is. One takeaway of the paper is that the best way to promote democracy is to encourage economic growth within democracies. Assuming (reasonably I would say) that EA cannot meaningfully alter the economic growth trajectories of democracies, another possible takeaway from the paper is that it may be helpful to promote the idea among potential leaders or relevant civil societies in autocracies or fragile democracies that democracy is helpful for economic growth.

MichaelA🔸

5y

6

Thanks for writing this! I found it quite interesting, and appreciated the clear engagement with the relevant academic literatures.

Some thoughts on the importance of this cause area

1. It seems like work to promote democracy could also be quite good from the perspective of reducing long-term risks from malevolent actors. And perhaps some interventions proposed in that post would also be good from the perspective of the other benefits of democracy. So there may be synergies between these two new/mini/sub cause areas.

2.

There are reasons to think democratization is important not only in the near term but also from a longtermist perspective. Political institutions are a stronger determinant of a country's wealth than weather or culture. [6] There is substantial empirical evidence that economic development is highly path dependent-- economic and political institutions persist for hundreds of years, and have corresponding consequences for economic development.[7] Because of long-term institutional persistence, improving democratic institutions today can lead to better institutions--and correspondingly better economic outcomes--not only in the near-term but also for the "long-term future."

I think most "longtermists" don't see increasing economic growth as especially valuable except in relation to how it affects where humanity "ends up" (e.g., via affecting existential risk, global catastrophic risk, or how wide our moral circles ultimately are). For example, Benjamin Todd from 80k writes:

One way to help the future we don’t think is a contender is speeding it up. Some people who want to help the future focus on bringing about technological progress, like developing new vaccines, and it’s true that these create long-term benefits. However, we think what most matters from a long-term perspective is where we end up, rather than how fast we get there. Discovering a new vaccine probably means we get it earlier, rather than making it happen at all.

I share that sort of view to some extent, though I think it's slightly overstated, given that I think speeding up development could affect how much of the universe we can ultimately reach (this is related to the astronomical waste argument).

In my draft series on Crucial questions for longtermists, I include the question "How does speeding up development affect the expected value of the future?", some sub-questions, and a collection of sources related to these questions. You or other readers might find those sources interesting.

(By the way, I've now added links to this post from that series, under the question "What are the best actions for speeding up development? How good are they?" and under the topic "Importance of, and best approaches to, improving institutions and/or decision-making".)

3. I have a vague sense that EAs engaging in democracy promotion, especially under an explicitly EA banner, might have downsides such as making the Chinese government averse to EA, which would seem plausibly quite bad for other issues (e.g., ability to coordinate on AI safety or to help foster animal welfare communities in China).

I'd also obviously feel quite uncomfortable about not discussing any pro-democracy efforts for fear of upsetting non-democratic regimes. And all cause areas will face some downsides. But this does seem like something perhaps worth bearing in mind when deciding how much to prioritise this cause area against other cause areas that also plausibly deserve our resources anyway.

bryanschonfeld

5y

2

Thanks for this comment Michael--I think you make a great point about risks from malevolent actors. In terms of the longermist economic growth aspect, I was thinking more along the lines of institutional quality in the 1600's explaining a lot of the more recent economic growth trajectories, with substantial consequences for global poverty.

MichaelA🔸

5y

2

Oh, yes, something I forgot to mention explicitly was that it sounded like you were talking primarily about timescales of centuries, which I don’t think is typically what longtermists are focused on. I think the typical view among longtermists is something like the following: "If things go well, humanity - or whatever we become - could last for such an incredibly long time that even a very small tweak to our trajectory, which lasts a substantial portion of that time, will ultimately matter a huge deal.* And it can matter much more than a larger 'boost' that would ultimately 'wash out' on the scale of years, decades, or centuries."

This isn't to say that economic growth isn't important for longtermists, but rather that, if it is important to longtermists, that may be primarily because of its effects on other aspects of our trajectory. E.g., existential risk. (And it's currently not totally clear whether it's good or bad for x-risk, though I think the evidence leans somewhat towards it being good; see e.g. Existential Risk and Economic Growth. Other sources are linked to from my crucial questions series.)

Though growth could also matter more "directly", because a faster spread to the stars may reduce the ultimate astronomical waste. (There are also longtermists who may not care about astronomical waste, such as suffering-focused longtermists.)

In any case, the way you made the argument felt more "medium-termist" than "longtermist" to me. I share that feeling partly because it may provide useful info regarding how persuasive other longtermists would find that argument, and whether they feel it's really a "longtermist" argument.

*If you want to be mathy, you can think of this as the area between two slightly different curves ultimately being very large, if we travel a far enough distance along the x axis.

Locke

10mo

1

Any updates on this cause area in light of, uh, recent developments?

[anonymous]

6y

4

I think the democracy-growth connection is more nuanced than suggested here. Most of the biggest growth accelerations have occurred in autocracies. In terms of total welfare produced, most of the gains in human welfare have been driven by huge growth episodes in autocracies after 1950.

"democracies do not necessarily outperform autocracies in a growth acceleration episode, though
they are likely to prevent large growth collapses. We also highlight the importance of
the type of autocracy in understanding the effects of regime type on growth. When
we disaggregate the type of autocracy, we find that party-based autocracies
outperform democracies in growth acceleration episodes, though they do not limit the
fall in the magnitude in growth deceleration episodes in comparison to democracies.

Our findings have implications for both for the previous literature on the relationship
between democracy and growth as well as the literature on democratic transitions.
They suggest that, while democracy may indeed lead to higher per capita incomes in
the long run (as has been found by Acemoglu et al. 2014) or reduce the volatility of
growth in the short run (as has been found by Mobarak, 2005), developing countries
with democratic regimes are less likely to observe the rapid growth acceleration
episodes that have been observed for certain types of autocracies, though they are
less likely to suffer from the growth collapses that are prevalent in many autocracies.
Further, our findings indicate that the transitions to democracy that we observe with increasing frequency in many parts of the developing world may not necessarily lead to rapid economic development, if the transition is from party-based autocracies to democracies. For the international development policy community, this suggests that it matters what type of autocracy is in place in a given country when pushing for democratic transition in that country."

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2893112

bryanschonfeld

6y

4

Thank you for this comment--I think one advantage of the Acemoglu et. al. (2019) paper published in the Journal of Political Economy (https://economics.mit.edu/files/16686) is that it accounts for the economic crises that generally precede transitions to democracy--democracies initially grow slowly as they emerge out of depressions, and then grow faster as they invest in capital, education and health. One reason existing studies had found mixed effects is that they hadn't properly accounted for these dynamics. I think there are also strong second-order effects on global growth of democracy because democracies impose lower tariffs on other countries--especially on other democracies--and democracies rarely if ever fight each other. Peace and trade are likely to enhance global growth--though these externalities may be difficult to properly measure.

MichaelA🔸

5y

5

I haven't read any of the papers cited here, nor am I especially well-versed in relevant areas of economics. But my initial reaction to "Most of the biggest growth accelerations have occurred in autocracies" is that that sounds like a correlation that's relatively unlikely to be explained by autocracy causing more growth, and relatively unlikely to conflict with the idea that democracy causes better growth (with all other factors held constant).

In particular, I've heard it argued that "catch-up" growth is substantially easier than "cutting-edge" growth. If that's true, then that might suggest autocracies might have experienced growth accelerations more often than democracies not because being an autocracy causes a higher chance of having a growth acceleration, but rather because:

it happens to be that autocracies have less often been on the "cutting edge" than democracies, so they've more often been able to engage in "catch-up" growth
on top of that, being an autocracy makes it more likely that a country will have deceleration episodes, which then creates additional opportunities for "catch-up" growth

A related or perhaps identical possibility is that autocracies may sometimes implement policies that actively harm their economies in major ways, such that merely removing those policies could cause rapid growth. (I have in mind the transition from Mao's policies to Deng Xiaoping's policies, though I don't know much about that transition, really.)

This is all rather speculative. I'd be interested to hear thoughts on this from someone with more knowledge of the area.

Gordon Seidoh Worley

6y

3

EA organizations are also less likely to be perceived as biased or self-interested actors.

I think this is unlikely. EAs disproportionately come from wealthy democratic nations and those who have reason to resist democratic reform will have an easy time painting EA participation in democracy promotion as a slightly more covert version of foreign-state-sponsored attempts at political reform. Further, EAs are also disproportionately from former colonizing states that have historically dominated other states, and I don't think that correlation will be ignored.

This is not to say I necessarily think it is the case that EA attempts at democracy promotion would in fact be covert extensions of existing efforts that have negative connotations, only that I think it will be possible to argue and convince people that they are, making this not an actual advantage.

MichaelA🔸

5y

5

I basically agree with this, and was going to say something similar.

Though it does seem likely that EA organisations would be somewhat less likely to be perceived as biased or self-interested than US government agencies would be. And this post suggests that the US government is "Perhaps the largest single source of spending on global democracy promotion". So it seems to me like:

it was fair for the OP to have raised this as an advantage
it'd be even better if the OP had also noted that the geographical distribution of EAs probably makes that advantage smaller than one might otherwise think, and means there may be no advantage at all compared to things like UN agencies or non-EA foundations