Larry Diamond on Democratic Emergence in Southeast Asia in the 1990's

This is a very relevant quote by Stanford's Larry Diamond as referenced by Thomas Friedman in the Lexus And The Olive Tree, Anchor Books, 2000, p.g. 187-188. Larry Diamond has written extensively on Democracy. His latest book The Spirit of Democracy discusses the  desire even among poor societies to adopt democracy and also tackles why democracy has receded somewhat in places like Venezuela and Russia.

“The Southeast Asian leaders were telling their people for most of the post-World War II era: ‘You give me your freedom and you keep your mouth shut, and I will give you the opportunity to get rich’. It was easy for people to be apolitical when all boats were rising, and people felt that they could leave political management to someone else without harming their economic well being. Well that worked fine for about thirty years, but then the growth collapsed and the distribution of riches, welfare, and benefits collapsed too. And people realized that they could not leave politics to someone else. So the bargain breaks down. As a result, what the people have said to their governments in Thailand, Indonesia, Korea… is that if you have taken away our growth, if the state cannot deliver on the previous bargain, then we want a new bargain and in this bargain we are going to have a much bigger say in how the system operates. But because we have a bigger say, we will be ready to make bigger sacrifices while the system is reformed and gets up to speed. And that is why they are ready to exhibit considerably more patience in the face of economic suffering than many people expected. Because their politics has been opened and democratized, they at least have more of a feeling that they are working through these problems with a degree of equality. They become part owners of the game”