Stability through diversity

This short piece Mbeki by underscores the challenge for what Collier calls the bottom billion and North labels fragile natural states. His analysis of the challenge in Sudan and Africa resonates today as he observes:

As long ago as 1975, Gafaar al-Nimeiry, Sudan’s military head of state, stated with great prescience what Sudan and Africa needed to do to achieve peace and stability. “Unity based on diversity has become the essence and the raison d’être of the political and national entity of many an emerging African country today. We take pride in that the Sudan of the Revolution has become the exemplary essence of this new hope. The Sudan is the biggest country in Africa. It lies in its heart and at its crossroads. Its extensive territory borders (nine) African countries. Common frontiers mean common ethnic origins, common cultures, and shared ways of life and environmental conditions. Trouble in the Sudan would, by necessity, spill over its frontiers, and vice versa. A turbulent and unstable Sudan would not therefore be a catalyst of peace and stability in Africa, and vice versa.”

As a leading developed, open access order the United States has institutionalized a system that at formal and informal levels supports diversity and, more importantly the flow of power from one group to another. It is this latter, open access element of our culture and power process that lends stability to our country. In the face of mounting fiscal, monetary and cultural challenges optimism can be found in this element of our social order, an order that has emerged and evolved over an extended period of time.

The path dependency of social orders, however, provides less optimism for the world as a whole. While the developed or open access societies in the world have evolved along a path that leads to stability the natural order societies have evolved in a manner that seems to have institutionalized a number of forces that move away from stability.

This is why I am looking at the recent presidential elections in Brazil with some interest. My daughter has followed the recent trajectory of Dilma Rousseff's career and her inauguration. In contrast to Sudan, Brazil may well demonstrate cause for optimism.