To the extent that any single accountability factor determines development progress, an independent media stands out. Of all 87 democratizers considered, only Cambodia and Angola have realized economic development in the late 1990s at a rate faster than their regional norm without also establishing at least an intermediate degree of press freedoms. Therefore, while a free press is often invoked for its importance in strengthening democracy, its contribution to material progress may be equally relevant.

More informed deliberation prior to the adoption of a policy, heightened scrutiny and pressure to rectify policies producing poor results, and strengthened market confidence created by the greater transparency fostered by a free press all contribute to this phenomenon. In other words, an independent media creates an environment in which democracy's self-correcting mechanisms can come into play. The end result of this is a more pragmatic set of development policies.

A free press may also be indispensable to the realization of the other accountability structures. Consider the rule of law. Without the transparency and scrutiny fostered by independent media, the scope for misuse of public monies by government officials is substantially greater. This, in turn, affects the prospects for a competitive private sector. The recent experience of the petroleum industry in India is indicative of this phenomenon. Only after an investigation by the newspaper Indian Express was it discovered that in state after state, the bulk of licenses for gas stations were going to members of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party and their friends and relatives. The scandal forced Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to cancel the allotments for more than 3,000 gas stations, resulting in greater economic competition and lower prices for consumers. In short, it was the transparency generated by the independent media that invigorated the rule of law.

Accordingly, Vladimir Putin's systematic efforts to disembowel an independent media in Russia will likely be self-defeating. His effort to control the flow of information diminishes the rule of law, the autonomy of the private sector, and checks on the executive branch. While he certainly enjoys additional maneuverability under a state-owned media, this advantage is destined to be fleeting. In the process, he is inexorably undermining his stated priority of establishing a strong foundation for Russia's sustained economic growth. As tales of government extortion and intimidation of entrepreneurs increase, foreign direct investment will dwindle further.

Pseudo-Democratizers

The realization that democratizers with relatively stronger institutions of shared power tend to grow more rapidly raises important issues over how we categorize democratizers. The classic litmus test—holding multi-party elections—is increasingly unsatisfactory. With the evolving international norm of according legitimacy only to those leaders that have been democratically elected, heads of authoritarian states have craftily attempted to co-opt the language and trappings of democracy so as to make the grade without ever seriously intending to share power. President Hosni Mubarak's Egypt is the prototypical case. Presidential elections are held every six years and opposition parties, a civil society, and a free press are ostensibly allowed. However, these democratic processes are heavily circumscribed. Political opponents are frequently harassed, licenses of civil society organizations critical of the government are regularly rescinded, and strict self-censorship is imposed. Political power comfortably remains within the hands of Mubarak. Similarly, Rwanda went through an electoral charade late last year in order to anoint Paul Kagame as president. Opposition parties were allowed but were frequently prevented from holding rallies or appearing on state-sponsored television. Not only were supporters afraid to show up at opposition rallies but, intimidated by government threats, opposition candidates themselves would at times preemptively cancel planned gatherings. Some recent examples of autocrats trying to masquerade as democrats in order to attain a degree of international credibility include Azerbaijan's transition of power from father to son in the guise of elections, Robert Mugabe's manipulation of democratic procedures in Zimbabwe, Iran's Guardian Council (representing the unelected clerical hierarchy) barring of 2,400 moderate candidates from running in parliamentary elections, and General Pervez Musharraf's elaborately staged national referenda in Pakistan, to name a few.

This more sophisticated class of "pseudo-democratizers" has learned that they can often avoid international scrutiny so long as they maintain some of the more visible rituals of democratic governance. And to a large extent, they are right. In addition to setting fuzzy and embarrassingly low standards, the international community has yet to figure out how to deal with authoritarian states dressed up in democratic regalia. Arguments for constructive engagement, patience for the slow pace, and a misguided focus on the "glass half-full" argument continue to be convincingly made. The neo-authoritarians have played on this ambiguity to suggest real change is taking place, when all the while, they are, in fact, tightening their grip on power. Unsurprisingly, the democratizer-growth relationship for electoral democracies is only one quarter as strong as when the extent of a democratizer's accountability structures is taken into consideration.

Including this collection of pseudo-democratizers in the broader class of countries undergoing genuine political change, predictably obscures our understanding of the democratizers' development track record. The challenge to the international community is to match the sophistication of the democratic charlatans by devising methods to better discriminate which states are making real, if incremental, progress towards greater political participation and power sharing. Assessing the extent to which accountability institutions have been created provides a potential lens to do so.

Democracy and Accountability

As one would expect, democracies and countries on the road to democracy generally have stronger systems of accountability in place than autocratic states. This creates the self-correcting processes that allow political institutions to moderate and facilitate positive economic and social welfare outcomes. Those democracies and democratizers with relatively stronger accountability institutions within their respective income or regional cohort have typically excelled in their developmental outcomes. Interestingly enough, the same principle applies when we look at groupings of authoritarian countries. Those authoritarian regimes with relatively stronger accountability structures have realized more rapid growth. In other words, the pattern of strong accountability institutions and steady economic development is consistent regardless of whether a country is democratic, democratizing, or authoritarian. It is just that democracies have a considerably higher likelihood of creating such accountability structures.