Politicians in a poor democracy must take measures a rich democracy need not bother with.
When I spoke with him two years ago, he nattered on about economics, market programs to help the poor, democracy and corruption.
To the illiterate poor, democracy is nothing but a bourgeois concept that has benefited only the middle- and upper-income groups.
But both miss the point that in a poor democracy, inclusiveness, crucially coupled with the perception of inclusiveness, is the only politically feasible way to press ahead with economic growth and development.
If Mr. Singh is forced to reverse course again on the economic measures, or should his government fall before the end of its mandate in 2014, many could conclude that sound economic policy remains politically impossible in a large, populous and still relatively poor democracy like India.
Turkey, with its questionable human rights standards and poor democracy and as a destination and source for refugees like from Kurdistan, can be seen as prime example for a semi-peripheral transit state in the European-Middle East theatre.
Furthermore, notwithstanding a poor democracy record in absolute terms, Kazakhstan is the region's second most democratic country after Kyrgyzstan (EIU, 2017), thanks to which the EU, guided by the principle of "not put[ting] all Central Asian countries within the same authoritarian basket" (Anceschi, 2014: p. 16), tends to somewhat close its eyes on electoral fraud in that country.
Adding to the glamour, Mayor Ford proposes eliminating fluoride from the city's water supply to pinch a few more pennies, making toothlessness no longer the exclusive right of the poor: democracy in action!
Azerbaijan's large investment in hosting the Eurovision contest was widely discussed in Western media as an attempt to "mitigate misgivings about its poor democracy and human rights record".
