WARS, GUNS AND VOTES: DEMOCRACY IN DANGEROUS PLACES

Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places

Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places

About the Author

Paul Collier is a renowned Professor of Economics. Collier is popular for his vision of economics and his working for the relationship of democracy and economics. Collier remains one of the most important political and economic intellectual of the era. He works really hard for the economic development predicaments of poor countries. He remained the director of the Development Research Group of the World Bank from 1998 to 2003. Paul Collier is known for debating on the pros and cons of providing developmental aid to the developing countries (Lambert et al 2010 PP. 25-30).

About the Book

The book “Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places” seems to talk about the eradications of war for the next generations. Paul Collier has been witnessed talking about the various distinct possibilities related to the warfare. In his book, he has attempted to talk about the significance of future. The book basically attempts to suggest that there will be less invasions, values and movements of international borders in the times to come. The book intends to talk about the impacts of wars on the poorest countries of the world.

The author has suggested that the chilling prediction related to the atrocities of Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia is firm indicator of the past wars. Moreover, Collier also predicts that the increasing number of genocides and ethnic warfare will remain unaccountable and illegitimate mainly because of the fact that governments will be revolving around the bottom billions. The political side of bottom billions has been discussed throughout the book by Paul Collier. The author has challenged various underlying principles and beliefs related to the politics of bottom billions (Filipec, 2010 Pp. 61-66).

The author has written the book in the most beautiful manner by dissecting the role of democracy and the impacts of ethnicity to the warfare. Moreover, he has also allowed various sections of the book to focus on the dangerous impacts of guns and wars. The most significant case study throughout the book was about Cote d'Ivoire. The author has ended the book by providing some significant recommendations in relation with the policy changes for the purpose of enhancing the governance and accountability in poor and developing countries.

Book Review

The book is divided into three distinct parts. The first part is “Denying Reality: Democrazy.” In this part of the book, the author has described the notions of revered democratic elections. This part suggests that democratic elections must remain the end point of the political process. Various researches and case studies have been cited throughout the part. The author asserts that democracy remains the most important prospect of internal peace; however, it also promotes the political violence (Filipec, 2010 Pp. 61-66).

The main argument against the democratic setup used by the author is related to the fact that democracy does not positively impact the process of accountability in the legitimate ...