What is the success (or put it another way, the failure) rate of US-led efforts to export democracy and reconstruction projects in
foreign countries? In his new book, After War, Christopher Coyne compares
reconstruction projects from West Germany and Japan (after World War II) to
more current examples in Haiti, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Coyne's analysis shows that, in general, the odds of failure
in these operations have been all too high (without taking account of the obvious differences in political motivations across these projects). 
Of course, this comes as no surprise
to even a casual political observer these days. But what is startling, as Coyne's analysis reveals, is how grim
the numbers look. The US success rate is at a mere 28% after five years (roughly
the length of the current operation in Iraq). The picture improves only
slightly to 39 percent after 15 years (presumably long after direct US
involvement in the country's affairs has ended). Tyler Cowen cites these numbers in a
discussion of the book on the blog, Marginal Revolution. And writing for the
Atlantic, Matthew Yglesias points out that these outcomes should give us pause
before we undertake armed democratization projects against countries that are
labeled "dubiously democratic" by the U.S. state department.
So how does one alter expectations on the ground to make the
reconstruction "game" a cooperative one and at an early stage in operations? Coyne invokes an economic
argument to make the point that successful social change requires finding and
establishing a set of incentives that would make citizens prefer a liberal
democratic order over available alternatives. He remarks "occupying regimes can
increase their chances of success if they create a new set of opportunities
that were not there prior to the occupation. These opportunities might include
the ability to vote, open a business, worship in the church of one's choice, or
utilize the legal system, among other possibilities." Professor Coyne will be giving a public lecture on this book at the Cato Institute on November 26th.
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