Reforming Democracy

                  This post is a summary of three articles. The first with the incomplete title above and was published in June of 2014 at  http://www.theglobalist.com/reforming-democracy-and-the-future-of-history/, The second was published at https://www.ndi.org/citizen-participation . The third is a review of the book, "Reforming democracies," written by Douglas Chalmers former director of the Institute of Political Science at Columbia University and was published in January of 2013 at.  http://cup.columbia.edu/book/reformingdemocracies/9780231162944

              In 1975, a report, "The Crisis of Democracy," prepared by the Trilateral Commission, signaled the pessimism and defeatism prevailing in Western democracies at the time about the future and sustainability of democracy. The report reflected a deep economic downturn, as well as social and political turmoil. The crisis of democracy was tightly connected with concerns about "monopoly capitalism," rampant materialism and corruption. Four decades later, democracy is again in a state of crisis. This comes as somewhat of a surprise, given that successive waves of democratization have touched every region of the world over the past 40 years.  What is becoming evident now is that an opposite trend has emerged. In the early 1990's, the end of the Cold War had brought the revalidation of democracy with greater vigour as the most representative form of government. Yet this exuberance has been counterbalanced with criticism of its failings and shortcomings. Democracies guarantee political freedom, the rule of law, human rights and a platform for citizens to engage in the political process. Yet, in practice, democracies feature numerous inadequacies. Inequality, disempowerment, lack of opportunity, infringements of civil liberties, ethnic, social and cultural discrimination, corruption and opaque honor titles systems are all present, and apparently not antagonistic to democracies. As Joseph Stiglitiz, economist professor at Columbia University has noted, "the rich do not need to rely on government for education or medical care or personal security, they can buy all these things for themselves. In the process, they become more distant from ordinary people, losing whatever empathy they may once have had." Corporate financing of political campaigns have reinforce this, hijacking the democratic process. It further alienates voters who feel they are excluded from a process that is beyond their control. The role of money in politics is worth as a major problem with democratic governance. Its effects are truly worrisome, especially when there is little transparency and regulatory mechanisms to limit the distorting role of money in politics. Finally, the sense of disillusionment with democracy in its current form has been reinforced with disclosures of large-scale government surveillance, violations of privacy and civil liberties. The claim of sweeping authority over the right to collect personal data is harmful to core liberties. Overseeing the overseers and keeping states' need to know in balance with the safeguard of privacy and civil liberties remains a challenge. Opinion polls across many continents reflect this current dissatisfaction with democracy. These forms of disillusionment indicate the need to embrace a paradigm that goes beyond political freedom and addresses the human need for dignity. Democracy guarentees political freedom and rights. A greater emphasis on human dignity and a governance model that places dignity at the center can halt the current disenchantment with democracy. Dignity means more than absence of humiliation. As a basis for government, it commands institutions and policies that comply with nine dignity needs: reason, security, human rights, accountability, transparency, justice, opportunity, innovation and inclusiveness. Creating institutions that upholds these needs would better address three key attibutes and motivators of human nature: emotionality, amorality and egoism. To make this work in practice requires recommendations to amend current democratic systems. To make them more sustainable requires a stronger focus on, and application of, eight criteria of good governance: 1)Participation. 2) equity and inclusiveness. 3) The rule of law. 4) Separation of powers. 5) Free, independent and responsible media. 6) Government legitimacy. 7) Accountability and transparency. 8) Limitation of the distorting effect of money in politics.

               Deepening democracy so it can provide tangible improvements to people's lives is an overarching objective of citizen participation. Making democracy work requires informed and active citizens who understand how to voice their interests, act collectively and hold public officials accountable. Citizens must understand ideas about citizenship, politics and government. They need knowledge to make decisions about policy choices. They also need to have the desire to exercise their rights, and they need the political space to do so without unreasonable resistance or harassmment from authorities or others. Any citizen participation program, including support of civic and voter education, budget oversight and government monitoring, help citizens master the techniques needed to initiate action, solve complex problems and become leaders in their own right. It is need programs to activate and empower citizens and civic groups, establish strong civic cultures and achieve an appropriate balance of power between citizens and government. Citizens around the world desire accountable and responsive political institutions. It is important share experiences and offers a range of options, so that leaders and activists can select those practices that work best. Also is important promoting solidarity among democratic activists and helping them share lessons with one another. Democracy's credibility and sustainability depends, to an degree, on how it works in practice, and what it delivers. Democracies must be able to move beyond elections and forming institutions and begin to successfully tackle issues related to security, jobs, human rights, well-being and human development. Democracy should facilitate economic growth and deliver the means for people to achieve a better life, while protecting fundamental rights and ensuring that citizens are free from oppression and arbitrary government intrusion. Helping democracy deliver requires a greater focus on the practice of democracy. Democratic practice emphasizes collective action and inclusive, evidence-based decision making. It also emphasizes access to information, a voice for citizens and accountability measures and mechanisms. Government planing, budgeting and spending are potential opportunities for citizens to participate in government. Citizens should be able to access information, influence priorities and hold public officials accountable. To help citizens participate, processes begin with citizens advocating for freedom of information legislation to create mechanisms through which budget information can be accessed. Citizen participation programs usually involve assistance to NGOs or community organizations. Programs also helps groups that organize themselves around issues, such as good governance, health, education, or public safety. 

               In Reforming Democracies, Douglas Chalmers offers a thoughtful and challenging critique of the basic concepts informing our understanding of 'liberal democracy.' He begins with questions about the interests that should be represented, including those of no only citizens but also 'quasi-citizens' who play a critical role in the functioning of the politics. He challenges us to move beyond the conventional analysis of party and interest-group linkages between the people and decision makers and to take into account dynamic and informal relationship outside of these traditional channels. Finally, he urges us to look more directly at decision-making as a deliberative as well as a bargaining process. Underlying all of these challenges is an affirmation that 'democracy' should be conceived not only in terms of procedural norms but also in terms of its capacity to govern in the public interest. In this book, Chalmers builds on decades of teaching and writing as a political philosophy too. He takes us to neglected places in the democratic decision-making process and argues that we need new institutions to regulate these places, to facilitate action, benefit the people, and adapt continually through linkages that convey information and accountability. These new ideas will make you think.

Raising Student Learning in Latin America: The Challenge for the 21st Century - Part II

                     This post is the summary of the part II and part III, from the same book of last week. The book with the title above published  in 2008 at  http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLAC/Resources/Raising_Student_Learning_in_LAC_Document.pdf

              Acknowledging the significance of student learning is only the first step toward improving it. The real challenge lies in understanding how student learning is achieved and identifying policies that can improve it. Learning hinges on myriad factors that can touch on seemingly unrelated variables, from a parent´s education and societal values regarding education to school infrastructure. Historically, education policy has focused on providing easily quantifiable inputs (money, infrastructure, textbooks) to schools and systems. But improving educational inputs does not necessarily guarantee that learning will take place. Empirically identifying the extent to which and how different variables contribute to student learning is difficult, for multiple reasons. Factors influencing learning may fall on the student side or the school side, or they may be part of the education system as a whole. These factors are numerous and complex and may affect students differently. Moreover, they may interact with one another to produce unexpected outcomes. Researches have used education production functions to try to measure the complex relations betweeen individual, family, school, and institutional characteristics on the one hand and endowments and learning outcomes on the other. By identifying which school inputs, or combination of inputs, may be most effective at improving school quality and outputs, this research has great potential utility for education policy makers. To date, however, it has not offered as much guidance to policy makers as originally hoped. Little consensus has emerged over how to create accurate models for education quality. This report approaches the issue of raising student learning by examining student-side, school-side, and system variables. Student arrive at school with a series of endowments and behaviors that influence their learning.The endowments and behaviors of student are influenced by their families and households, those of school are affected by teachers and administrative authorities. The economic, social, and political context of a country provides the background for these interactions. Student performance tends to be higher in wealthier countries, but the relation between GDP and average scores is not very strong. The lesson to be drawn fom this evidence is that how resources are spent on education seems to be much more important than how much is spent. The debate on education financing underscores the difficulty researchers have had in identifying exactly what contributes to students learning. Of course, money must matter, students need access to a minimum standard of resources and materials. Political commitment to student learning affects not only funding but also the types of educational policies put into place. Elected officials often care about showing results while they are in office. While progress in expanding access to schools can be achieved in relatively short periods of time, improving student learning outcomes is a medium to long-term proposition. Thus, unless they are under pressure from the electorate, elected officials are not often willing to be held accountable for improving student learning. Education systems are a mirror of society: Latin America's inequities are reflected in who gets educated, what students learn, and how students and teachers interact. How parents and communities value education can affect how decisions are made at the school level and beyond. Parents' and students' appreciation of good-quality education can not be taken for granted. However, parents do not always educate themselves about their children's schooling or necessarily value school quality over other factors. The social value of education is also reflected in the value placed on the teaching profession, the prestige of teachers in the community, and in turn, the training and salaries teachers receive and the profile and number of people entering the teaching profession. In Latin America the teaching profession carries little prestige. Research has found that student-side factors explain most of the variation in learning outcomes. Some of these endowments are inherent characteristics. Others, such as early literacy, are more flexible and responsive to the decisions and actions of parents, communities, and governments. Household factors and the support students receive at home have been viewed as having the greatest effect on success in school. Research shows that parents' education and occupation are strongly related to their children's learning in the classroom. Such effects can vary according to context. Books in the home have a consistently strong and positive affect on student performance. According to the OECD, an increase of one standard deviation on the PISA Test index of home educational resources and cultural possessions is associated with an average increase of 12 points in reading. Studies examining student and household factors all point to the same conclusion: family background have the largest effects on student performance. This finding calls for policy interventions that mitigate the effects of disadvantageous family background on educational performance. Researchers and policy makers have tried to understand just how school-side factors affect student achievement by examining differences across classroom, schools, and countries. Two categories of factors can influence how schoolaffect student learning: school characteristics (such as class size, materials, and time spent in school) and teacher characteristics (such as teacher behavior, knowledge, and teaching methodologies). A teacher's impact on student learning outcomes is cumulative and long lasting. An ineffective teacher potentially reduces a student's performance for years, several ineffective teachers in a row may compound such an effect. Latin America lags behind OECD countries in the quality of its initial teacher education and ongoing professional development, according to a study carried out by World Bank. While countries such as Chile and Uruguay have made efforts to attract talented students to teaching through schorlarship programs. Ensure that all school have effective teachers, for this many kinds of incentives exist. These include, among others, adequate school infrastructure and educational materials, the internal motivation to improve students' lives, the opportunity to grow professionally, and nonsalary benefits such as pensions, job stability. In most countries, teachers cite working conditions as one of the critical factors affecting their performance. Many teachers-education policies in OECD countries, describe below, reflect these new concepts of quality. These policies can help guide countries in the region as they focus on upgrading initial education, improving in-service opportunities, and collecting information on results. 1) Create a profile of teacher competencies to guide teachers in their learning and facilitate alignment of teacher education, development, and certification. 2) Treat teacher education as a career-long process. 3) Understand the value of flexibility. 4) Recognize that new teachers need special support. 5) Integrate teacher education with school development. 6) Promote professional learning communities. 7) Evaluate programs in a systematic manner. The promise that ICTs can expand access to education and improve teaching and learning process has contributed to their rising profile in education among developing and developed countries. Computer use at home is associated with better test performance. Studies find weak albeit negative effects of student-teacher ratios on achievement, and these affects become even weaker for higher student-tecaher ratios. OECD finds that as the student-teaching ratio rises above 25, there is a continuous decline in school performance in all PISA subjects. In contrast, a study by OECD does not find a performance advantage of smaller student-teacher ratios. The way in which schools and schools sytems are organized and administered can have a bearing on how much students learn and on the equitability of student learning opportunities. The factors that influence student learning are complex and difficult to measure. Moreover, because every child is different, as is every classroom, school, community, and nation, no single intervention will meet the needs of all students, schools. Some common lessons can nevertheless be drawn from the most recent research on student learning in Latin america and the rest of the world. Which policies can raise student learning? 1) Prepare student for primary school. 2) Provide conditional cash transfers. 3) Provide merit pay, evaluate teaching policies, and review the assignment of teachers to schools. 4) Use resources effectively. 5) Give schools more autonomy. 

Raising Student Learning in Latin America: The Challenge for the 21st Century

                      This post is a summary of the first and second chapter of the  book with the title above published in 2008 at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLAC/Resources/Raising_Student_Learning_in_LAC_Document.pdf

                 Countries in Latin America consistently perform poorly in international assessment even after controlling for per capita GDP. Performing is not only weak, it is also declining relative to other countries with similar income levels. Standardized test results are very useful for policy makers, for a variety of reasons: 1) They provide a quantitative measure of certain skills and knowledge that can be tracked and compared, allowing success in meeting learning goals to be tracked across time and schools. 2) They can provide teachers and schools with information about their own strengths and weaknesses and alert them to areas that need improvement. 3) They can provide parents and students with information about areas in which students are excelling or struggling. Learning hinges on myriad factors, from a parent's education and societal values regarding education to school infrastructure. These factors can be grouped into three categories. Student-side factors, school-side factors, and systemwide factors; which interact to produce student learning. in order to craft policies that raise both the quality and the equity of education, policy makers need to understand how these three sets of factors affect student learning. Ensuring that all students learn requires both a theory of action for providing education and strong alignment of the roles and responsibilities of all participants in the education system. Education has long been viewed as wielding powerful transformative powers. Achieving universal primary education has been on the global agenda since the UDHR affirmed children's right to free and compulsory education in 1948. Almost all countries in the region have achieved universal primary enrollment, and access to secondary and higher education is also on the rise . Average public spending on education increased, raising from 2.7% of GDP in 1990 to 4.3% in 2003. These accomplishments are impressive, but have left other goals, including learning, behind. Policy makers in the region now need to focus on equalizing access to secondary and tertiary education, reducing socioeconomics inequalities, and above all, ensuring that all children learn. Many challenges remain. Millions of students are failing to meet minimum learning requirements and to acquire basic skills. Almost one-fifth of children who enter primary school repeat grades or drop out of school. Among those who begin secondary or higher education, many do not finish. What and how much students learn is a policy concern for reasons that range from ensuring human rights to improving individual life outcomes, raising competitiveness, economic growth, to development outcomes. Several studies have shown a relation between student learning and labor market returns. The returns are especially great in fast-growing countries with open economies that enable the absorption of highly skilled workers. Researches has shown that the returns to education in lower-income countries are higher for low-skilled individuals. This finding represents a strong argument for investing in education in developing countries in order to promote economic equality. Education is a prerequisite for reducing poverty. But ensuring a child's right to education goes beyond simply providing access to schools. It involves guaranteeing all students an equal opportunity to learn. Effect of Learning on Individuals' Labor Market Outcomes. Education has been shown to be inextricably related to individuals' labor market outcomes. Until recently, most studies on the return to education focused on the relation between the quantity of education and income. These studies find a strong link between years of schooling and personal economic returns.     Several studies have shown a relation between student learning and labor market returns. The returns are especially great in fast-growing countries with open economies that enable the absorption of highly skilled workers. Researches has shown that the returns to education in lower-income countries are higher for low-skilled individuals. This finding represents a strong argument for investing in education in developing countries in order to promote economic equality. Education is a prerequisite for reducing poverty. But ensuring a child's right to education goes beyond simply providing access to schools. It involves guaranteeing all students an equal opportunity to learn. Effect of Learning on Society as a Whole. Both educational attainment and learning are tied to a number of development outcomes beyond individual outcomes. Education has been shown to affect health outcomes, infant mortality, age of marriage, civil participation, and reducing in violent and risky behaviors, such as criminality and teen pregnancy. The social returns to education thus exceed the private returns. How cognitive skills relate to all of these social outcomes is an important area for future research. Effect of Learning on Economic Development. The relation between education and economic growth can imply even greater gains for society as a whole. The gains are thought to occur through the accumulation of benefits to individuals, the increase in rates of invention and innovation, and the introduction of new technologies and improved production methods. Amost all studies have found a positive relation between education attaiment and growth rates, a relation that is widely accepted in development circles.New research on the relation between education quality and growth suggest that years of education may be less important contributing factor to economic growth than the quality of education. They argue that improving the overall literacy skills of society has a greater effect on growth than  developing a highly educated elite. In examining the relation between cognitive skills and economic outcomes, it is important to remember that cognitive skills do not stem only from schooling. Some cognitive skills are developed in the home, from family, and friends, and through the media. Schooling is only one way in which people acquire knowledge, but it is the one that policy makers can most readily influence. Effect of learning on Inequality. Evidence is increasingly showing that education quality, not just quantity, may be responsible for perpetuating income inequalities, improvement in the quality of education of the poor could thus potentially reduce them. Consider, for example, the evidence on private returns to education. This book uses student test scores as a measure of student learning. It examines the performance of Latin America based on international assessment, such as the PISA, which test 15-years-olds in a number of cross-curricular competencies. Among participating countries, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Peru ranked 34th, 35th, 36th, 37th and 41st respectively, in reading in 2000. Math results were similar. Educational performance in the region is low even compared with countries with similar per capita GDP, with the exception of Uruguay. In most countries in the region, individuals from disadvantaged background are not spending as many years in the education system, despite having equal access to school. Poorer students leave school earlier. While this gap in dropouts rates may be attributable in part to the effects of socioeconomics status and household factors, there is evidence that the poor have access to lower-quality schools and are therefore less inclined to stay in the system.

Principles For 21st Century Government

                This post is a summary of two articles. The first with the title above was published in 2014 at http://www.codeforamerica.org/governments/principles/. The second with the title of, "Principles for good governance in the 21st century." was published  at  http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UNPAN/UNPAN011842.pdf

                Governments through the use of technology and new ways of working can deliver a more effective, efficient, and fair governance for the 21st century. Through these, we have identified seven principles that we believe are critical for governments of any size, strucuture, or political persuasion in serving their communities. Governments should learn and apply these principles to any problem. 1) Design for people's needs - Government's purpose is to serve residents, and we can do this best when we deeply understand who we are working for. When government services are designed to treat all residents with respect, emphaty, and dignity, a transformative trust can be gained. Begin all projects by conducting research with the people to understand who they are and what they need. Design policy, and services around those needs, continuously returning to residents to get feedback. 2) Make it easy for everyone to participate - Serving everyone means working with, not just for, a true cross-section of the community. Governments should proactively collaborate with the community and seek participation from all residents in decisions that affect them. Communicate using language that is easy to understand. 3) Focus on what government can do - Government can not and should not do everything alone. With limited resources to solve complex problems, they should prioritize the work they can have most impact. Develop relationships with partners working towards similar goals, like universities to share skills and resources. Make it easy for others to build on their work by offering data with clear documentation. 4) Make data easy to find and use - Open data helps make government better. Governments hold a lot of information that is valuable and sometimes critically important. A 21st century government makes public data available so that others can use it in meaningful ways. Gets the relevant data at the right time, in a format that is easy to undestand for all. 5) Use data to make and improve decisions. - Good decisions are informed by data, and as we gather more information by testing assumptions, we can make better decisions. 21st century governments use data tools to get a more complete understanding of problems. Start with small solutions, test them to gather more data, and make improvements based on what is learned. Make this data publicy available to drive transparency, civic engagement, and accountability. 6) Organize for results - The successful governments have been those that challenge and reform policies and practices that are outdated and inefficient. This is nothing but the transformation of government, with technology and new processes working together. 21st century governments work in an agile way, continuously improving existing processes. Support new approaches to problems. Invest in staff to build skills, as well as hiring new talent. Acknowledge and reward good work. Recognize that once service has been delivered, continuous improvement must be in place.

                Defining the principles of good governance is difficult and controversial. The United Nations development Program (UNDP) enunciates a set of principles that, with slight variations, appear in much of the literature. There is strong evidence that these UNDP principles have a claim to universal recognition. In grouping them in five broad themes, we recognize that these principles often overlap or are conflicting at some point, that they play out in practice according to the actual social context, applying such principles is complex, and that they are all about not only the results of power but how well it is exercised. 1) Legitimacy and Voice - All men and women should have a voice in decision-making, either directly or through intermediate institutions. Good governance mediates differing interests to reach a broad consensus on what is in the best interest. 2) Direction - Leaders and the public have a broad and long-term perspective on good governance and human development. There is also an understand of the historical, cultural and social complexities in which that perspective is grounded. 3) Performance - Institutions and processes try to serve all stakeholders. Effectiveness and efficiency so the processes and produce results that meet needs while making the best use of resources. 4) Accountability - Decision-making in government, the private sector and civil society organizations are accountable to the public, as well as to institutional stakeholders. This accountability differs depending on the organizations and whether the decisions is internal and external. Transparency is built on the free flow of information. Enough information is provided to understand. 5) Fairness - All men and women have opportunities to improve or maintain their well-being. Legal frameworks should be fair and enforced impartially, particularly the law on human rights. Of the five principles, "Legitimacy and voice" and "Fairness" have the strongest claim to universal recognition based on over a half century of U.N. accomplishments in the field of human rights. Fairness is about the rule of law, among other things, this principle encompass an independent judiciary and right to seek legal remedies. Governance opens new intellectual space. It provides a concept that allow us to discuss the role of government in coping with public issues and the contribution that other players may make. It opens one's mind to the possibility that groups in society other than government many have to play a stronger role in addressing problems. The central conclusion is that a universal set of principles for defining good governance can be fashioned and that the strength of their universality rests to the body of international human rights. In addtion, these principles can be usefully applied to help deal with current governance challenges. Finally, the nature of governance, both the means and the end, needs to be understood. Only then it make sense to elaborate the principles in order to create a meaningful analytical tool.

What is Gone Wrong With Democracy

                     This post is a summary of an essay with the title above.  And was published  at  http://www.economist.com/news/essays/21596796-democracy-was-most-successful-political-idea-20th-century-why-has-it-run-trouble-and-what-can-be-do

                  The protesters who have overturned the politics of Ukraine have many aspirations for the country. Their fundamental demand is one that has motivated people over many decades to take a stand against corrupt, abusive and autocratic governments. They want a rules-based democracy. It is easy to understand why. Democracies are on average richer than non-democracies, are less likely to go to war and have a better record of fighting corruption. More fundamentally, democracies lets people speak their minds and shape their own and their children's futures. That so many people in so many parts of the world are prepared to risk so much for this idea. In the seconf half of the 20th century, democracies had taken root in the most difficult circumstances possible, in Germany, which had been traumatised by Nazism, in South Africa, which had been disfigured by apartheid. Decolonialisation created a host of new democracies in Africa and Asia, and autocratic regimes gave away to democracy in Spain and most Latin America countries. The Chinese Comunist Party has broken the democratic world's monopoly on economic progress. China's critics rightly condemn the government for controlling public opinion in all sort of ways, from imprisoning dissidents to censoring internet discussions. Building institutions needed to sustain democracy is slow work and has dispelled the once-popular notion that democracy will blossom rapidly and spontaneously once the seed is planted. Although democracy may be a universal aspirations, it is a culturally rooted practice. Western countries almost all extended the rights to vote long after the establishment of political systems, with powerful civil services and constitutional rights, in societies that cherished the notions of individual rights and independent judiciaries. In recent years the institutions that are meant to provide models for new democracies have come to seem dysfunctional in established ones. The U.S. has become a byword for gridlock, obsessed with partisan point-scoring that it has come to the verge of defaulting on its debts twice in the past two years. Its democracy is also corrupted by gerrymandering. This encourages extremism, because politicians have to appeal only to the party faithful, and in effect disenfranchises large numbers of voters. Nor is the E.U. a paragon of democracy. The E.U. has become a breeding ground for populist parties, which claim to defend ordinary people against arrogant elite. Greece's Golden Dawn is testing how far democracies can tolerate Nazi-style parties. A project designed to tame the beast of European populism is instead poking it back into life. From below come equally powerful challenges: from would-be breakaways nations, such as the Catalans and the Scots, from American city mayors. All are trying to reclaim power from national governments. there are also NGOs and lobbyists, which are disrupting traditional politics. The internet makes it easier to organize and agitate, the machinery and institutions of parliamentary democracy, where elections happen only every few years, look increasingly anachronistic. Adjusting to hard times will be made even more difficult by a growing cynism towards politics. Party membership is declining across the developed world: only 1% of Britons are now members of political parties compared with 20% in 1950. The result can be a toxic and unstable mixture: dependency on government on the one hand, and disdain for it on the other. The dependency forces government to overexpand and overburden itself, while the disdain robs its legitimacy. At the same time, democracies in the emerging world have encountered the same problems as those in the rich world. They too have overindulged in short-term spending rather than long-term investment. China's stunning advances conceal deeper problems. The political elite is becoming a self-perpetuating and self-serving clique. The 50 richest members of the China's National People's Congress are collective worth $94.7 billion, 60 times as much as the 50 richest members of the U.S. Congress. At the same time, as Alex de Tocqueville pointed out in the 19th century, democracies always look weaker than they really are: Being able to install alternative leaders offering alternative policies makes democracies better than autocracies at finding creative solutions to problems. The most striking thing about the founders of modern democracies such as: James Madison and John Stuart Mill is how hard-headed they were. They regard democracy as a powerful but imperfect mechanism: something that needed to be designed carefully, in order to harness human creativity but also to check human perversity, and then kept in good working order, constantly adjusted and worked upon. The need for hard-headedness is particularly pressing when establishing a nascent democracy. One reason why so many democratic experiments have failed recently is that they put too much emphasis on elections and too little on the other essential features of democracy. The power of the state needs to be checked, for instance, and individual rights such as freedom of speech. The most successful new democracies have all worked in large part because they avoided the temptations of majoritarianism, the notion that winning an election entitles  to do whatever it pleases. India and Brazil has survived as democracies for the same reason: both put limits on the power of the government and provided guarantees for individual rights. Robust constitutions not only promote long-term stability, but also bolster the struggle against corruption, the bane of developing nations. Conversely, the first sign that a fledgling democracy is heading for the rocks often comes when rulers try to erode constraints on their power. Foreign leaders should be more willing to speak out when rulers engage in such illiberal behaviour, even if a majority supports it. but the people who most need to learn this lesson are the architects of new democracies: they must recognise that robust checks and balances are just as vital to the establishment of a healthy democracy as the right to vote. Even those to live in mature democracies need to pay attention to the architecture of their political systems. The combination of globalisation and digital revolution has made some democracies look outdated. Established democracies need to updated their own political systems both to address the problems they face at home and to revitalise their image abroad. But reformers need to be more ambitious. The best way to constrain the power of special interests is to limit the number  of goodies that the state can hand out. And the best way to address popular disillusion towards politicians is to reduce the number of promises they can make. The notion of limited government was integral to the relaunch of democracy after the second world war. The U.N. and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights established rights that countries could not breach, even if majorities wanted to do so. These checks were motivated by fear of tyranny. But today, the dangers to democracy are harder to spot. One is the growing size of the state. The relentless expansion of government is reducing liberty and handing ever more power to special interest. The other comes from the government's habits of making promises that it can not fulfil. Modern tech can promote civic involvement and innovation. Tech and direct democracy can keep each other in check. Several places are making progress towards getting this mixture right. The most encouraging example is California. Its system of direct democracy allowed its citizens to vote for contradictory policies. But over the past five years California has introduced reforms. Similarly, the Finnish government has set up a non-partisan commission to produce proposals. At the same time it is trying to harness e-democracy: parliament is obliged to consider any initiative that gains 50,000 signatures. But many more such experiments are needed, combining tech with direct democracy its to zigzag its way back to health. Democracy was the great victor of the ideological clashes of the 20th century, But if democracy is to remain as sucessful in the 21st century, it must be both assiduously nurtured and carefully maintained.

Gerrymandering - alter the boundaries od a constituency  to favour one political party in an election.
Anachronistic - a thing belonging to a period other than the one in which it exist.
Hard-headed - tough and realistic.
Relentless - never stoping or weakning.
Zigzag - a line of course or path, or progression characterized by alternate turns to one side and then to the other.

Manufacturing the Future: The Next Era of Global Growth and Innovation - Part II

               This is post is a summary of the chapter 5,with the title of, "Implications for policy makers." From the book with the title above, the same book of last week. Published in November 2012 at http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/manufacturing/the_future_of_manufacturing

                 Governments around the globe are under pressure to find ways to economic growth. Facing weak domestic demand, many policy makers have shifted focus to exports and to manufacturing. This has led nations to consider more active measure to support specific industries and sectors. As a result, we see increasing intensity in the already fierce competition among governments to attract and retain manufacturing companies and activities. In this chapter we conclude our analysis of the future of manufacturing with recommendations for how nations can develop policies and address the circumstances of their economies and the manufacturing industries they have or can attract. Good manufacturing policies are grounded in facts, performance and benchmarking data that establish a nation's starting point in global competition and an objective assessment of how trends in demand and other factors are influencing diverse manufacturing industries within the economy. We begin with a realistic diagnosis of what strengths a nation or region brings, as well as the weaknesses it needs to overcome and opportunities that can be exploited. A nation's comparative advantage are influenced by its endowments: its natural resources, the quality of its labor force, its energy, transportation, and finance systems. While certain physical endowments (e.g., iron ore and gold deposits, or geographic proximity to large markets) are immutable, many attributes evolve over time, reflecting the impact of government policy and companies actions. The depth of a nation's talent pool or the quality of its infrastructure is often a direct outcome of its policies. Endowments also shift as nations become wealthier. As incomes rise and low-cost labor is no longer a advantage, a nation's manufacturing mix shifts from labor-intensive industries to those that are R&D-intensive. Taiwan, followed this pattern and planned for the sequence in their industrial strategies, invested in creating a skilled labor force with strong engineering capabilities and introduced strong intellectual property protection. By themselves, however, good endowments do not guarantee strong performance and competitive advantage. How nations use their endowments and how they develop new capabilities often matter more. Japan, for example, lacks endowments of domestic energy assets, but policy has compensated for this gap. To help their manufacturers make the most of emerging demands trends, governments have several options. They can continue to provide financing for exports to developing economies. They can also play a role in connecting their exporting manufacturing companies to fast-growing markets by upgrading shipping or air-freight infrastructure negotiating trade agreements or helping to attract skilled talent. Governments can also help industry develop knowledge that will enable companies to succeed in new markets. Historically, manufacturing innovation has been the largest contributor to productivity growth across economies. Standards setting is a tool that governments can use to help commercialize innovation. Auto mileage standards and regulations on carbon emissions can provide the catalyst for products such as eletric vehicles or the adoption of green techniques. The skill challenge is already apparent in many sectors and is expected to get worse. With the increasing speed and complexity of industries, the need for more high-skilled workers is growing and shortages of workers with training in technical and analytical specialties are appearing. In the U.S. auto industry, 70% of executies surveyed, said they had trouble finding engineering and technical talent in 2011, up from 42% in 2010. In addition to efforts to improve public education, policy makers can help steer students into the appropriate fields. This can be done by providing accessible information about what workers at different occupations can expect to be paid, and how quickly new graduates are likely to be employed. Governments can prepare young people for emerging manufacturing jobs, develop vocational training that leads to industry and nationwide certification. A critical step is to build alignment around the economic goals. Governments at all levels have increased the odds of success by building solid private-sector support. When there is alignment by companies, workers, investors, and communities, strategies can have great impact. The German success in global automotive leadership, for example, depends in no small measure on broad support from governments, auto and auto parts companies, research institutions, employees, and the public. Tiny Oulu in Finland built a global mobile tech cluster through close collaboration between city government, local universities and Nokia. As the global economy continues to recover from recession, growth strategies are critically important. The damage inflicted on national balance sheets by debt crisis makes it more important than ever to spend public funds wisely, in this environment, ineffective and ill-conceived investments by governments will be doubly costly. 

Manufacturing the Future: The Next Era of Global Growth and Innovation

                 This post is a summary of a book with the complete title above, published in November 2012 by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), the business and economics arm of McKinsey&Company http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/manufacturing/the_future_of_manufacturing  

                  The MGI undertook this research to gain a better understanding of how manufacturing contributes to developing and advanced economies in the 21st century. We find that manufacturing stll matters a great deal, driving innovation and productivity in advanced economies and economic advancement in developing ones. The factors we describe point to an era of truly global manufacturing in both advanced and developing economies. The new era of manufacturing will be marked by highly agile, networked enterprises that use inoformation and analytics as skillfully as they employ talent and machinery to deliver products to diverse global markets. As long as companies and countries understand and act on the powerful trends shaping the global competitive environment, they can thrive in this promising future. Manufacturing has always included a range of activities in addition to production. Over time, service-like activities, such as R&D, marketing and costumer support, have become a larger share of what manufacturing companies do. A new era of global manufacturing is ahead, driven by shifts in demand and by innovation in materials, processes, ICT and operations. The prospect is for more "global" manufacturing industry, in which developing economies are the source of costumers as well as the source of low-cost production. Some forces are already being felt: the shift of global demand toward developing economies, the proliferation of products to meet costumer demand, the growing importance of value-added services, and rising wages. Other trends are now becoming more pronounced, such as a growing scarcity of technical talent, and the use of greater intelligence in product design and manufacturing to boost resource and track activity in supply chains. Innovations create new possibilities. These innovations include new materials such as carbon fiber and nanotechnology, advanced robotics and 3-D printing, and new ICT that can generate new forms of intelligence, such as big data and the use of data-gathering sensors in production machinery and in logistics. Taken together, the opportunities and challenges have the potential to shift the basis for how companies pursue new markets and how they will expanf their production and R&D footprints. However, for most manufactures, the more pressing workforce issue likely will be the struggle to find well-trained talent. Manufacturing is increasingly high-tech. The global supply of high-skill workers is not keeping up the demand, and MGI projects a shortage of 40 million high-skilled workers by 2020. New ICTs, and new methods will require new tools, talent and mindsets. To respond quickly to changes and meet the demand for faster product cycles, companies will need to build integrated systems of suppliers, reseachers and partners. And the productivity will expand beyond capital/labor trade-offs to include resource productivity. Manufacturers have to fight hard to win the war for talent, everything from experts in big-data to skilled production workers. In many places, manufacturers will need to get more involved in building a talent supply. For example, Siemens is implementing apprenticeship program in Charlotte, North Carolina. Apprentices graduate from the work-study program with degrees in mechatronics. The role of policy in manufacturing is largely about enable and creating an environment for competitive and innovative companies to flourish, helping create sustainable conditions for local manufacturing. They need to remove regulatory barriers (from red tape to trade barriers) and strengthen underlying enablers by supporting R&D and investing in infrastructure. A key policy for manufaturing is education and skill development. The basis of competition in most sectors is shifting and access to diverse talent pool is critically important. Companies need to build R&D capabilities as well as expertise in data analytics and product design. They will need qualified, computer-savvy workers and agile managers. In addition to continuing efforts to improve public education, policy makers need to work with industry and educational institutions to ensure that skills learned in schools fit the needs of employers. Building an industrial base is necessary for economic development, we are not aware of a nation that has skipped the industrial stage and moved up to wealthy-nation status. So, for example, even as India has jumped ahead into services exports with a successful business-services outsourcing industry, it continues to follow the traditional development path, too, building up physical infrastructure to support industry and removing barriers to enable manufacturing to expand. In addition to its contribution to productivity and consumer surplus, manufacturing is a disproportionately important driver of R&D. Many innovations and tech that are developed in manufacturing also can be used in other sectors, multiplying the benefits beyond this sector. Among a small set of countries that we analyzed, manufacturing shouldered between 67% and 89% of business R&D expenses in 2008 and in Germany, Japan and the U.S. manufacturing companies registered between 53% and 73% of all patents between 2007 and 2009. Even in industries where innovation and production are tightly linked, companies do not automatically relocate R&D to their offshore production sites. Food companies must tailor their products to local taste. Yet Nestlé develops many of its products in Europe. Makers of mobile phones and other consumer eletronics products need to engage with dozens of parts suppliers that cluster around Asia production sites. Even so, Apple continues to come up with its innovative iPhone designs in California. And German automotive companies are among the most global players, yet Volkswagen maintains most of its platform development in Wolfsburg. New tech and innovations as well as new sources of demand provide the opportunity. In the coming years, countries will have a rising need for high-skill production workers, engineers who have the training to work in cross-functional specialties (e.g. eletric power trains in autos) and workers familiar with new materials and ICTs. Companies that can maintain or improve access to highly skilled talent, particularly in R&D will have a competitive advantage. To fill talent supply, companies are working individually or with other companies to partner with universities on training.In addition to technical skills, global manufacturers face a shortage of leadership talent, particularly in developing economies. Companies must create leadership opportunities in emerging markets, even if they have not spent time working in a developed economy. In Brazil, the mining giant Vale SA found that it lacked managerial talent and needed to train current workers as well as build a talent supply. It approached public universities in the states in which it had operations, and together they created graduated programs in disciplines directly related to its business. University professors teach the curriculum, and Vale executives work as part-time teachers and consultants. Vale has also invested $12 million in professional training centers outside the company to reach people.