Got the following comment from TheJew in the Can the Army escape the fate over their overweight Hummers? thread:
I'd really like to hear what [Tom] thinks about Daron Acemoglu's new book Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy available here. A positive review which contains a summary was posted by Brad Delong a couple days ago.Not only is self-linking of pertinent content welcome, but Tom posted an answer:And if the reader will indulge my self linking, I have written something about it as well.
Acemoglu's book strikes me as reasonable. Some countries are able to open up domestically (democracy) before externally (globalization). I think islands pull this off better, and remote colonies with big inlands to integrate (Canada, US, Australia, NZ, and India).Most countries, though, will open up externally first (China model) and stay authoritarian until the dynamics he cites work their way through the system.