Poverty

The main theme of this paper is that sustained growth and longer term political stability follow democratization, including the development of civic institutions and the rule of law. Democratization and the rule of law require widespread primary and secondary education that creates a large and economically viable middle class. The secondary theme is that these processes which are education externalities are slow and long delayed. Short term arms control measures and encouragement of some but not excessive expenditures on the military as a percent of each government's budget are also found to be helpful in sustaining democratization and longer run political stability. But it is possible that there is also at the same time some reverse causation; i.e., that democracies spend less on the military.