MAY 2007
Extra Credit
Dictators Often Regarded as Lesser Evil
While dictatorships are associated with armed force and even terror, many survive because of deep ethnic divisions in the general populace that act as insurance to keep dictators in power, says research by Assistant Professor Gerard Padro i Miquel.
The deep ethnic divisions found in much of Africa, he argues, are life insurance policies for dictators, depriving residents of human rights while at the same time looting their countries so openly that they have become known as “kleptocracies.” Efforts by the developed world to aid these economies are often sabotaged by corrupt bureaucracies that siphon off a huge percentage of external development money. Uganda, for example, at one point derived roughly 20 percent of its budget from foreign aid, without noticeable benefits to the population at large.
While African dictators generally are not well liked, they represent specific ethnic groups whose members fear that a new leader from a different ethnic group would be much worse for them. “The fear of falling under an equally inefficient and venal ruler that favors another group is enough to discipline supporters,” Padro says.