Quotes About Governance

An educated, healthy & confident nation is harder to govern

In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: "What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?" If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.

Man is a deeply illogical being, and must be ruled illogically. Whatever that frigid prig Bentham may say, there are innumerable motives that have nothing to do with utility.

Who rules well is always hated.

Politics is the art of controlling your environment.

Laws are important precisely because in a democracy they reflect the attitudes and aspirations of those they govern.

When the barons and local elites recognize that political power will be increasingly more centralized and that this process is hard to stop, they will make demands to have a say in how this centralized power is used.

los líderes de los países pobres son ignorantes. La consecuencia es que las políticas no se adoptan ni se implantan, o se implantan solamente de nombre.

Under inclusive economic institutions, wealth is not concentrated in the hands of a small group that could then use its economic might to increase its political power disproportionately. Furthermore, under inclusive economic institutions there are more limited gains from holding political power, thus weaker incentives for every group and every ambitious, upstart individual to try to take control of the state.

will refer to political institutions that are sufficiently centralized and pluralistic as inclusive political institutions. When either of these conditions fails, we will refer to the institutions as extractive political institutions.

In Sierra Leone and many other sub-Saharan African nations, diamonds fueled conflict between different groups and helped to sustain civil wars, earning the label Blood Diamonds for the carnage brought about by the wars fought over their control. In Botswana, diamond revenues were managed for the good of the nation. The

poor countries are poor because those who have power make choices that create poverty.

what rules society ends up with is determined by politics: who has power and how this power can be exercised.

poor countries are poor because those who have power make choices that create poverty. They get it wrong not by mistake or ignorance but on purpose.

the iron law of oligarchy.

Denominaremos instituciones políticas inclusivas a aquellas que están suficientemente centralizadas y que son pluralistas. Cuando falle alguna de estas condiciones, nos referiremos a ellas como instituciones políticas extractivas.

The powerful and the rest of society will often disagree about which set of institutions should remain in place and which ones should be changed.

Tradicionalmente, la economía ha ignorado la política, pero la comprensión de la política resulta esencial para explicar la desigualdad del mundo.

La política es el proceso mediante el cual una sociedad elige las reglas que la gobernarán

Now, you and I both know that if you can control the flow of information, you can control everything.

The media can be controlled.

have under his thumb powerful congressmen, senators, even the vice president himself

a president views, interviews, and reviews everything he presides over, if he's doing his job in the correct manner.

What a terrible era in which idiots govern the blind.