Can the rise of populism be explained as a reaction to the rule of experts?

 

In an essay written over 15 years ago I observed that we were beginning to see a populist reaction to the rule of experts in the United States and (to a lesser extent) in Australia. In more recent essays, however, I have tended to see populism as a manifestation of interest group politics. These explanations are not mutually exclusive, but it may be useful to consider how the rule of experts and populism are both entangled with interest group politics.

My 2010 essay

The essay was entitled: Does Australia also have a ruling class? It was prompted by an article by Angelo Codevilla which suggested that Democrat and Republican office-holders in recent governments in the United States had shown “a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits and opinions ... than between both and the rest of the community”. He claimed: “They think, look, and act like a class.”

Codevilla discussed several characteristics of this “ruling class”. For example, he suggested that they believe themselves to be “the best and brightest while the rest of Americans are retrograde, racist, and dysfunctional unless properly constrained”. They view the common people’s words as “like grunts, mere signs of pain, pleasure and frustration”.

I concluded that while Australia also had a self-appointed ruling class which could be identified with the public service and the political left, I didn’t think the conservative side of Australian politics was as closely identified with that ruling class as in the United States. That explains why populist politicians were not particularly popular in Australia at that time.

In retrospect, however, I think I also displayed some “ruling class” attitudes in my essay:

“In my view the words of non-experts on complex economic issues do have little more value than a grunt. Whether we are talking about economic policy, brain surgery or plumbing, I think it should be self-evident that the views of experts count for more than those of non-experts.”

I still think that the views of experts should count for more than those of non-experts, although these days I try to avoid being offensive. Apart from the tone of my comment, I should have made clear that there are reasons to doubt that some of those who claim economic expertise know what they are talking about. The claims that some economists make about the potential to regulate complex market systems to produce better outcomes deserve no more respect than the similar claims of non-experts.

In his book, Expert Failure, published in 2018, Roger Koppl brings an economic perspective to “the problem of experts”. I will briefly consider Koppl’s line of argument in the following section.

Expert Failure

Koppl acknowledges that we must rely on experts even though experts may not be completely reliable and trustworthy sources of the advice we require from them.

 He defines an “expert” as anyone paid to give an opinion. That definition leaves open the question of whether experts are reliable or unreliable.

 Koppl adopts the Hayekian view that knowledge is generally emergent from practice, often tacit, and embodied in our norms, habits, practices, and traditions. His comparative institutional approach leads to the conclusion that expert error and abuse are more likely when experts have monopoly power, and less likely in a “competitive” market for expert opinion.

I expect most economists would view that as commonsense, but it is far removed from standard practice in many fields which rely on expert knowledge. Based on his study of the use of expert witnesses in law, Koppl observes that it is common to encounter the view that it is scandalous for the opinions of men of science to be challenged, even by other scientists. It is often held that the knowledge of expert witnesses is or should be uniform, unambiguous and certain. Experts are often encouraged to come to a common understanding rather than to offer competing views.

Koppl observes that the division of knowledge makes it impossible for anyone to avoid a limited and partial perspective, which implies a parochial bias in our perceptions and judgments. That kind of bias cannot be eliminated by blinding protocols – such as the double-blind requirements used in testing of pharmaceuticals.  It can only be mitigated by multiplying the number of experts and putting them in positions of genuine rivalry.

The book contains an interesting discussion of epistemic systems design in an experimental economics laboratory. In that setting, the experimenter is in the god-like position of defining unambiguously what the truth is and examining how close experimental subjects come to it in different institutional settings. The knowledge gained of which institutional structures promote the discovery and elimination of error is relevant to the real world. Experimental systems design studies offer opportunities to test the role of network structure in producing reliable knowledge in scientific fields.

Koppl comments:

“Rather than attempting to instruct people in how to form true opinions, we might reform our social institutions in ways that tend to induce people to find and speak the truth.”

However, at the end of the next chapter, after considering the problems arising from the monopoly of expert opinion in government -  referred to as the rule of experts or the entangled deep state - the author suggests that the experimental approach of “piecemeal institutional reform (which is mostly borrowed from Vernon Smith) does not have an obvious application to the entangled deep state.”  He concludes:

“If my diagnosis of the deep state is at all correct, reform is urgently required. I freely confess, however, that I have no specific ideas on how we might attempt to roll back the deep state with a reasonable prospect of success.”

Nevertheless, Koppl offers useful insights into the nature of the problem arising from the rule of experts. His conclusion that the problem of experts “mostly boils down to the question of knowledge imposition” is highly relevant to consideration of institutional approaches to determination of public policies.

In the introductory chapter to his book Koppl explains that he values pluralistic democracy and is as much opposed to populism as to the rule of experts.  He argues for pluralism on the grounds that each of us has at best a partial view of the truth:

“In a pluralist democracy, competing partial perspectives on the truth have at least a chance to be heard and to influence political choices. Decisions in a political system – be it populist, elitist, or something else – that override or ignore plural perspectives will be based on knowledge that is at best limited, partial, biased.”

In the process of developing that view Koppl refers to an article by Christopher Bickerton and Carlo Accetti (“Populism and Technocracy: Opposites or Complements?” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 20(2), 2015) which describes populism and technocracy as two organizing poles of politics which are both opposed to “party democracy”. I will now discuss that article because it raises the question in my mind of whether party democracy has more in common with interest group politics than with pluralism.

Party democracy, interest group politics and pluralism

 Bickerton and Accetti argue that whilst populism and technocracy are usually assumed to be opposed to each other, there is also an important element of complementarity between them. Both populism and technocracy are predicated on an implicit critique of party democracy. The authors suggest that “if we accept the idea that politics is increasingly structured in terms of this conflict between populism and technocracy, then we find that even the very possibility of articulating a defense of party democracy is excluded from the political spectrum”.

I have no difficulty agreeing with Bickerton and Accetti if they are just using different words to say that both populism and the rule of experts are opposed to pluralistic democracy. Technocracy seems to correspond closely with rule of experts, but “party democracy”, as the authors describe it, seems to me to corresponds more closely to interest group politics than to the role of encompassing political groups in a two-party pluralistic democracy.

The authors define party democracy as a political regime based on two key features: the mediation of political conflicts through the institution of political parties; and the idea that the specific conception of the common good that ought to prevail and therefore be translated into public policy is the one that is constructed through the democratic procedures of parliamentary deliberation and electoral competition. The role of political parties in “mediation of political conflicts” is the focus of my concern.

The authors suggest that an important function performed by political parties is that of “integrating a plurality of particular interests” and moulding them into “an overarching conception of the common good”. When political parties aim to do such things, it seems to me that they end up cobbling together coalitions of interest groups which seek to obtain benefits for themselves at the expense of others. That is essentially what interest group politics is about.

In my view, better outcomes are produced when political parties take on the role of encompassing political groups in two-party pluralistic democracies. In discussing the importance of encompassing political groups in a two-party system of government, Mancur Olson asserted that the leader of a party “whose clients comprise half or more of the society naturally is concerned about the efficiency and welfare of the society as a whole” because this affects the party’s electoral prospects.  (See further discussion and reference here.)

 As I have explained elsewhere (for example in a recent essay on the consequences of path dependence) the growth of interest group politics has tended to contract economic freedom, constrain economic growth and increase public debt levels. As a result, voters have tended to become increasingly disenchanted with conventional politics.

It seems to me that as party politics has increasingly focused on pandering to particular interest groups it has helped to bring about a situation where more people have become more willing to listen to populists who tell them that they are being disadvantaged by the policies of conventional political leaders. Unfortunately, most of those populist leaders advance policies that are likely to produce even worse economic and social outcomes.

The ubiquity of populism, rule of experts, and interest group politics

Looking at recent politics in the United Sates, it might seem appropriate to identify the Democratic Party with rule of experts and the Republican Party with populism. However, that assignment understates the extent of populism in the Democratic Party, which tends to seek popular support by attributing economic woes to the wealthy 1% of the population in much the same way as economic nationalists in the Republican Party attribute economic woes to import competition and immigration. It also understates the extent to which the current Administration relies on commercial expertise – dealmaking – in running the government. It seems that the rule of one group of experts has been replaced by rule of another group with different expertise. The problems arising from the monopoly of expert opinion have changed their character but have not disappeared.

Roger Koppl’s reference to the “entangled deep state” reflects his awareness that the rule of experts is not immune to interest group politics. He notes that participants in the American deep state “have a variety of competing and parochial interests”. More generally, interest group politics is strongly associated with the entanglement of entrepreneurs and interests in private and public sectors.

Interest group politics seems to have attended to the pleas of increasingly narrow groups in recent years. As well as seeking support of broad economic groups such as unions, industry groups, and groups with differing social and environmental attitudes, political parties have increasingly sought the support of narrow interest groups by engaging in identity politics. The progressive side of politics has favoured groups that have previously been disadvantaged by ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. The conservative side of politics has pushed back against what they label as wokeness, while seeking support from some groups, e.g. young men, who perceive themselves to be disadvantage by it.

Another interesting development in interest group politics in the United States is the emergence of an alliance between conservative populists and the high-tech community. It is not easy to comprehend how populists who claim to be concerned about economic and social impacts of competition from imports and immigration could be complacent about the economic and social impacts of AI. Action by the U.S. government to facilitate rapid development of AI has been accompanied by a change in the economic nationalist narrative away from its populist roots to emphasize the importance of retaining technological leadership in AI in the face of increasing competition from China.

The warning of President Eisenhower, quoted in the epigraph, might now be relevant for reasons that he could not have foreseen. Public policy is not only at risk of becoming the captive of a scientific-technological elite supported by the administrative state, it is also at risk of becoming the captive of a scientific-technological elite controlling the development of powerful AI models.

However, I don’t think we should assume that a future in which AI models will have an increasing influence on social and economic outcomes will necessarily be worse than a future in which the entangled deep state retains its current influence.  It is possible that rivalry between different AI models will ensure that their social and economic impacts are relatively benign and consistent with pluralistic democracy. Even now, greater use of truth-seeking bots has potential to lessen the problem of rational ignorance, and thus to reduce the susceptibility of voters to populists peddling false narratives.

Conclusions

The rise of populism in the Western liberal democracies can be explained to some degree as a reaction to the “ruling class” attitudes of experts within governments.  I have recently tended to see populism as a manifestation of interest group politics, but it is worth considering how the rule of experts and populism are entangled with interest group politics.

The essay has outlined the views presented by Roger Koppl in his book, Expert Failure. Koppl offers the useful insight that the main problem arising from the rule of experts is knowledge imposition. Expert error and abuse are more likely when experts have monopoly power and are less likely when experts are placed in positions of genuine rivalry. Koppl argues that pluralist democracy is superior to both the rule of experts and populism because it enables competing partial perspectives on the truth to have a chance to be heard.

I have also considered the view of Christopher Bickerton and Carlo Accetti that both populism and technocracy are predicated on an implicit critique of party democracy. I suggested that party democracy, as the authors described it, seemed to have more in common with interest group politics than with pluralistic democracy. In my view, interest group politics is largely to blame for the poor economic and social outcomes that have encouraged the growth of populism.

My main conclusion is that the rule of experts, populism, and interest group politics are currently ubiquitous on both the progressive and conservative sides of politics. Populism is certainly not confined to one side of politics and populist governments don’t eliminate problems arising from the monopoly of expert opinion. In the U.S. a populist executive has continued to discourage rival views, while attempting to substitute expertise in commercial deal-making for expertise in statecraft.

The emergence of an alliance between the current U.S. Administration and the high-tech community poses a risk that public policy may become captive to a scientific-technological elite controlling the development of powerful AI models.  We should not assume, however, that a future in which AI models have an increasing influence on social and economic outcomes will necessarily be worse than one in which the entangled deep state retains its current influence. Rivalry between AI models may even have potential to produce better outcomes.

What was wrong with the Washington Consensus?

 

Just as I was reading the final chapters of William Easterly’s book, Violent Saviours: The West, the Rest, and Capitalism Without Consent, the United States government abducted the president of Venezuela to stand trial on drug charges in New York. I was pleased to see Nicolás Maduro facing justice, even if for the wrong reasons, but at the time of writing it remains to be seen whether the U.S. actions will advance the economic and personal freedom of Venezuelans.

 In the light of recent developments, Easterly’s conclusion seem to me to be excessively optimistic. He states:

“Adam Smith’s prophesied movement of “nations into some sort of respect for the rights of one another” had been partially fulfilled. The relation of the West to the Rest, previously based on coercion, was now based mainly on consent.”

Under the presidency of Donald Trump, the U.S. seems to me to be behaving like a colonial power. President Trump makes no secret of the fact that he is more interested in control of additional territory, oil, and other resources than in promoting respect for human rights, free trade, and the liberal international order.

Apologists for President Trump can claim, with some justification, that big powers have always swung their weight around in their own interests despite their rhetoric supporting the liberal international order. Nevertheless, public support for international norms of behaviour has hitherto signaled a willingness to be held to account publicly for breach of those norms.

 Easterly qualifies his statement that the relation of the West and the Rest is now based mainly on consent:

“The trend toward freedom is neither inexorable nor irreversible. As of this writing, new threats to freedom have emerged with proposed increases in US tariffs and possible restrictions on foreign students. It’s a little premature to declare the attainment of a liberal paradise.”

With the benefit of observation of recent events, however, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the world is currently moving rapidly away from the ideal of relations between nations being based on consent rather than coercion. It is possible, nevertheless, that oppressed people in some countries will manage to achieve more economic and personal freedom over the next few years. The best we can hope for is that before too long Washington will once again embrace the ideal that relations between nations should be based on consent rather than coercion.

Before I discuss Easterly’s view of the Washington Consensus, I will briefly outline what Violent Saviours is about.

The West’s conflicted view of the Rest

Violent Saviours offers a historical account of the conflict between the duelling visions that have influenced the conduct of Western nations toward the rest of the world since the 17^th and 18^th centuries. On the one hand, there are the liberal ideas of consent, self-determination, and equality that make possible positive-sum gains from commerce between groups and individuals. On the other hand, there are the opposing illiberal ideas of coercion, paternalism and racism that yielded a negative sum world of conquest.

Adam Smith was a leading advocate of liberal ideas and a critic of many aspects of colonialism. However, some well-intentioned Enlightenment philosophers (e.g. Condorcet) offered support for the “Development Right of Conquest”. Condorcet sought to justify conquest as offering the hope of eventually “civilizing” the locals.

Over the period from 1776 to 1865, the liberals were mainly on the losing side. They were unable to prevent the West’s adoption of illiberal policies such as colonial conquest and population removal (in countries such as the U.S, and Australia). However, liberals had some victories during that period; most notably, they were able to bring about abolition of the slave trade and of slavery in the United States.

Easterly suggests that over the period from 1865 to 1945 most economists abandoned liberal morality: “Commerce expands but without moral constraints on plunder”. The regression of freedom culminated in World War II, during which liberalism had to fight for its survival.

The period since 1945 has seen the partial victory of liberal ideas with the end of colonialism and a surge in commerce which has partially restored agency to people in the former colonies. Easterly notes that some economists – notably Milton Friedman, P. T. Bauer, and Amartya Sen – revived the idea of individual freedom as “an end in itself”.

It is possible to quibble with some aspects of that account, but I think the important point to focus on is the current state of the conflict between the duelling visions. Easterly writes:

“Yet the legacy of the past is still here. While obviously not equating modern development efforts with slavery, genocide, and colonialism, the question remains of what violations of consent today in the name of progress should be out of bounds.”

That provides the context in which I would like to consider the Washington Consensus.

 The Washington Consensus

The Washington Consensus was the term John Williamson, an economist, invented in 1989 to describe the set of policy reforms that the US Treasury, the World Bank and the IMF believed would be good for Latin American countries. The ten propositions of the Washington Consensus combined fiscal discipline with selective deregulation. They were broadly pro-market but did not entail a vastly diminished role for government. As an advocate of a greater measure of economic freedom than required by the ten points in the Washington Consensus, I recall being bemused to see opponents equate it with “neoliberalism” and “market fundamentalism”. John Williamson had a different reaction. As he discussed in the paper from which I obtained the epigraph, he was concerned that the term was often being used to refer to a more radical pro-market view than he had intended.

The policy ideas in the Washington Consensus were certainly applicable beyond Latin American countries and were not confined to economists in Washington DC. Those ideas were widely accepted by economists with expertise in economic policy in many different countries. I think they are still widely accepted by economists today.

As I was reading Easterly’s discussion of the Washington Consensus, the thought crossed my mind that the era in which it held sway was actually the high point in economic development policy as advocated by the World Bank. The Washington consensus seemed to show more recognition of the importance of economic freedom than subsequent policy approaches emerging from Washington.

One of the problems that Easterly mentions is that many observers thought that pro-market reforms were only desirable if they produced immediate economic gains. The reforms led to anti-globalization protests because they didn’t have an immediate positive impact on economic growth and were often associated with worsening of poverty. As time went on, however, “there was more evidence of growth turnarounds and poverty reduction correlated with movements away from extreme state control”.

As I was reading this, I tried to recollect what I had written in the 1990s about the adjustment process following an expansion of economic freedom. I wrote about some aspects of that question in an article entitled “The New Zealand Model of Economic Reform: A Review” (published in: Agenda: A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Vol. 4, No. 3 (1997), ANU Press). My work suggested that the lack of clear evidence of economic benefits in some countries that had undertaken economic reforms in the 1980s could be attributed partly to the time required for new policy directions to become embedded and for adjustment to occur: 

“Profound changes in behaviour, including changes in the willingness of individuals to learn new skills and business practices, are required as people respond to the incentives that policy reforms provide.  It takes time even for the most innovative firms and individuals to accept that new market incentives are likely to be sustained and to develop and implement new strategies.  Widespread adoption requires sufficient time for these new strategies to become demonstrably successful.”

I am pleased that I wrote that even though I missed an important point that Easterly makes. He suggests that the emphasis “on material results alone – on both sides of the debate – neglected Sen’s and others’ arguments for freedom as an end in itself”.

I don’t see freedom as an “end in itself” – freedom is necessary because human flourishing is an individualized and self-directed process. What I think Easterly means is that institutional freedom would be no less desirable if individuals chose to use it ways that made no contribution to economic growth e.g. by increasing the amount of time they spent on leisure activities.

Easterly also suggests that the manner in which foreign governments were encouraged to adopt Washington Consensus polices was problematic:

“Low and middle-income countries could get badly needed loans from the World Bank and IMF only if they agreed to reforms decreed by Bank and Fund staff. The fatal combination of foreign advisors with some coercion would keep discrediting promarket recommendations made by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in the 1990s, especially for Africa, Latin America, and Russia.”

A few pages on, however, the author notes that “the association of liberal reforms with a Washington-imposed Consensus did not turn out to be fatal”. He follows that observation with a long list of “homegrown reformers” who have pursued pro-market reforms. (I have reproduced the list here.)

Unfortunately, Easterly’s list of reformers does not include Javier Milei, president of Argentina. It was probably compiled too soon for that to be possible.

Now that I have mentioned Javier Milei it is worth noting that the U.S. government offered a $20 billion bailout for Argentina prior to the country’s recent legislative elections. The offer was apparently made with strings attached — namely, that the funds would be available only if Milei’s party won the election.

It seems to me that if the U.S. president were to promote a general policy of assisting those low-income countries whose political leaders enthusiastically expand economic and personal freedom, he might be worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.   

Conclusion

William Easterly’s book, Violent Saviours, offers an insightful account of the conflict between liberal and coercive views of economic development since the 17^th and 18^th centuries. He suggests that the legacy of the past is still with us because development economists and policy makers are still confronted by the question of what violations of consent should be out of bounds.

That provided the context in which I considered Easterly’s views of what was wrong with the Washinton Consensus – the moderately pro-market economic policies advocated by the U.S. Treasury, the World Bank, and the IMF during the 1990s. Easterly is clearly sympathetic to espousal of pro-market policies. However, he makes a strong case that such policies should be advocated to promote economic freedom rather than to promote “material results alone”.

The view that Easterly presents is consistent with the idea that liberty is desirable because it provides opportunities for individuals to flourish in the manner they choose.

What impact does political entrepreneuriship have on freedom and flourishing? Further Reading

 Some suggestions for further reading have occurred to me since I published this series of essays on political entrepreneurship. I welcome suggestions for addition to this list.

To ensure that readers are familiar with the context, I will list the essays in the series before presenting suggestions for further reading.

What impact does political entrepreneurship have on freedom and flourishing?

 Preface to a Series of Essays

Part I: How is human flourishing linked to liberty?

Part II: Can cultural values explain freedom levels?

Part III: How is political entrepreneurship similar to economic entrepreneurship?

Part IV: What incentives are political entrepreneurs faced with?

Part V: What information constraints confront political entrepreneurs?

Part VI: What are the consequences of path dependence?

Part VII: What kind of political entrepreneurship is required?

Part VIII: Summary and Conclusions

Further Reading Recommendations

Do free markets and democratic institutions lead inevitably to crony capitalism?

For an interesting discussion of reasons why that might be so, see:

Munger, Michael C., and Mario Villarreal-Diaz. 2019. “The Road to Crony Capitalism.” The Independent Review 23 (3): 331–44.

Munger and Villarreal-Diaz argue that successful capitalism creates institutions and incentives that make collusion between political power and economic power more “profitable,” in the sense of rewarding those who control that power. They suggest that cronyism and the tendency to demand redistributive state interventions should both be viewed as features of free-market capitalism.

For a thoughtful response, see:

Quintas, André and Boettke, Peter J. and Boettke, Peter J., Crony Capitalism, Populism, and Democracy (November 02, 2025). GMU Working Paper in Economics Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5696202 .

Quintas and Boettke agree that current democratic institutions breed cronyism. They suggest that in the current institutional setting there is no endogenous path out of cronyism. However, they argue that does not mean that democracy is inherently incompatible with capitalism. The authors outline an alternative vision for democracy drawing on the works of James Buchanan, F.A. Hayek, Vincent Ostrom, and Don Lavoie.

In another paper, Quintas and Boettke discuss the competing visions of cronyism of Randall Holcombe and Richard Wagner, both of whom argue that our current system is more accurately described as cronyism rather than capitalism. Holcombe views cronyism as an unintended but inevitable byproduct of capitalism, while Wagner envisages it as an inherent feature of all economic systems - a fundamental reality of political-economic entanglement. Quintas and Boettke lean toward the latter view. Once we recognize that cronyism existed long before the modern state, the relevant question is not whether capitalism creates cronyism but whether capitalism can escape cronyism’s grip. See:

Quintas, André and Boettke, Peter J. and Boettke, Peter J., Competing Visions of Cronyism within the Virginia School of Political Economy (April 27, 2025). GMU Working Paper in Economics No. 25-16, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5280451 .

In Part VII: What kind of political entrepreneurship is required?, I referred to the chapter Vincent Geloso and Alex Tabarrok in the book, Can Democracy and Capitalism be Reconciled. Some other chapters in that book may also be relevant to consideration of political entrepreneurship e.g. William Galston’s chapter on the rise of the new right and Robert Lieberman’s chapter discussing the contemporary relevance of Polanyi’s views.

Issues relevant to political entrepreneurship are also discussed in several chapters of the recently published book, Liberal Emancipation, edited by Mikayla Novak. At this stage, I can only claim to have read the introductory chapter of that book.

What can we learn from the history of colonialism and development planning?

William Easterly has made important contributions. I have now read his latest book, Violent Saviours and have written about it in a post entitled: What was wrong with the Washington consensus?  The following passage quoted from the book lists some political entrepreneurs engaged in pro-market reforms:

 "In the end, many of the promarket reforms in the Rest were led or advocated by homegrown reformers, such as Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Charles Soludo in Nigeria, Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais in Russia, Leszek Balcerowicz in Poland, Václav Klaus in Czechoslovakia, Simeon Djankov in Bulgaria, Hernando de Soto and Mario Vargas Llosa in Peru, a large number of Indian economists, and many other Latin American economists. Political leaders were often reformers themselves, like those in China and India, many other Asian countries, and many Latin American, Eastern European, and African countries."

What can we learn from Aristotle’s discussion of statecraft?

I have referred to Fred D. Miller’s book, Nature, Justice and Rights in Aristotle’s Politics. Miller has recently published another book, Aristotelian Statecraft. I have now read some chapters in that book and have written an essay on the topic: "Does Aristotle's assertion that a viable political system requires a supportive culture still have relevance today?" 

John Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies

Gus diZerega - a retired political scientist whose own work emphasizes the importance of liberal democracy as a social system - recommends John Kingdon’s book as “the most careful systematic study of political entrepreneurship”. An abstract of the book suggests that it attempts to answer the questions: How do subjects come to officials’ attention? How are the alternatives from which they choose generated? How is the governmental agenda set? Why does an idea’s time come when it does?

 Does tribalism corrupt politics even when one side is worse?

Dan Williams argues that it does in an excellent Substack article: "Tribalism Corrupts Politics (Even When One Side is Worse", Conspicuous Cognition (Dec 30, 2025). A link is here.

Is populism just as bad as the rule of experts? 

That is one of the issues discussed by Roger Koppl n his book, Expert Failure, published in 2018.  Koppl brings an economic perspective to “the problem of experts”.

I have drawn upon Koppl's views in my essay: Can the rise of populism be explained as a reaction to the rule of experts?

----

As noted above, this post will be revised from time to time to add as further recommendations.

Part VIII: Summary and Conclusions

This is the final essay of a series exploring the topic: What impact does political entrepreneurship have on freedom and flourishing? The series commenced with a Preface which provides a synopsis and explains why I think it is important to obtain a better understanding of political entrepreneurship.

——-

The purpose of this series of essays has been to explore the contribution that political entrepreneurship makes to human flourishing. A central issue is whether political entrepreneurship has a role to play in promoting a political and legal order more conducive to human flourishing.  

Each essay in this series has sought to address a question relevant to assessing the impact of political entrepreneurship on freedom and flourishing. The main points that emerge from each essay are as follows:

1. This series of essays has focused on institutions related to liberty because those institutions are strongly linked to human flourishing. The links between freedom and flourishing are conceptual as well as empirical. Human flourishing is inherently individualized and self-directed. Liberty is necessary to enable individuals to flourish in different ways without the flourishing of some individuals or groups being given structural preference over that of others.
2. At a national level, prevailing culture offers only a partial explanation of differences in economic and personal freedom levels. In several countries, political entrepreneurs and their ideologies have played an obvious historical role in bringing about economic and personal freedom levels that are substantially lower than predicted by underlying cultural values.
3. Political entrepreneurship is similar in some ways to other forms of entrepreneurship. Don Lavoie’s suggestion that entrepreneurs play an interpretive role in complex systems is applicable to all kinds of entrepreneurship. Political entrepreneurs respond to public discourse by using it as a basis for policy innovation.
4. Political entrepreneurship is largely about obtaining and using political power. Political entrepreneurs face incentives to exploit the misconceptions and irrational preferences of voters by making deals with narrow interest groups at the expense of consumers and taxpayers. Innovators among them have incentives to focus on niches in the marketplace of ideas that established parties don’t satisfy. However, political entrepreneurs who engage overtly in interest group politics are not always able to overcome opposition from other politicians who see benefits in seeking to serve broader community interests.
5. Many political entrepreneurs are motivated by a desire to pursue economic, environmental and social objectives that are widely supported in the broader community. However, even modest attempts to steer the market system toward desired economic objectives often obstruct the price signals that convey information from consumers to producers about the most advantageous use of resources. Pursuit of social and environmental objectives is usually a matter of “muddling through” in the face of unintended consequences.
6. Historically, the path-dependence of social norms has played an important role in slowing the emergence of interest group politics in the long-standing democracies. People were once more reluctant to become dependent upon government or to use the political system to obtain benefits at the expense of others than they are today. The erosion of those norms has led to increasing constraints on economic freedom, a decline in dynamism, and rapid growth in public debt. Path-dependence of social norms now poses a difficult challenge for political entrepreneurs seeking to promote policies that are more conducive to freedom and flourishing.
7. The idea that autocrats have sometimes helped to promote greater economic freedom may not be entirely fanciful but empirical evidence certainly doesn’t support the idea that democracy, and the personal freedom associated with it, is incompatible with high levels of economic freedom. It is clear, nevertheless, that the long-standing democracies are experiencing difficulties in maintaining economic freedom in the face of interest group politics. Reform-minded political entrepreneurs in those countries have a great deal to learn from previous reform experiences. The problem of ensuring adoption of government policies that more consistently advance economic and personal freedom cannot be reduced to the question of how to elect better political entrepreneurs to national leadership positions. Institutional change is a complex process involving social movements, media organizations, and interactions between individual citizens, as well as local and national politics.

 In the preface I suggested that it is important to obtain a better understanding of political entrepreneurship at this time because there seems to be increasing support in liberal democracies for leaders who propose rule changes which are likely to have detrimental impacts on prospects for freedom and flourishing. In this series of essays, I have attempted to shed some light on the ways authoritarian leaders seek to appeal to the public but have not attempted to assess the gravity of current threats to liberty.

My concluding message for those who perceive that liberty is under threat is that they should emphasize the potential for positive relationships between democracy and human flourishing. Perhaps the most important thing I have learned in writing these essays is that my previous tendency toward cynicism about democracy was not entirely appropriate. If we want institutions that are more supportive of freedom and flourishing to become entrenched, we will need more supportive citizens engaged in discursive processes at all levels of society – that means more democracy, not less. 

Further Reading

Please see the following post which offers suggestions for further reading.

Part IV: What incentives are political entrepreneurs faced with?

This essay is one of a series exploring the topic: What impact does political entrepreneurship have on freedom and flourishing? The series commenced with a Preface which provides a synopsis of the series and explains why I think it is important to obtain a better understanding of political entrepreneurship.

----

The most obvious difference between economic and political entrepreneurship is that the former is largely about creating wealth and the latter is largely about obtaining political power. It is possible, of course, for individuals to seek political power to enhance their own wealth or that of a nation, but I will leave to the following essay a discussion of the differing motives that political entrepreneurs may have for obtaining power.

This essay focuses on the choices that political entrepreneurs are faced with in considering how to obtain power, given the peculiarities of politics as a form of business. I will briefly outline the nature of these peculiarities before considering the incentives they create for political entrepreneurship.

Peculiarities of political activities

The most important peculiarities of political activities arise from differences between voting and other choices, differences between triadic and dyadic relationships, and differences in deal-making in public and private sectors.

Differences between voting and other choices

It has often been observed that when people vote they have less incentive to make well-informed choices than in the other decisions that they make. Joseph Schumpeter argued that a typical citizen who makes rational decisions in daily life at home and in business “drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field” (Schumpeter 2011, pp.261-62). He argued that citizens are prone to “irrational prejudice and impulse” in political matters and that this makes them particularly vulnerable to influence by interest groups (Schumpeter 2011, pp.262-64). As I have noted elsewhere, Schumpeter developed those views before the public choice literature enabled concepts such as rational ignorance and rational irrationality to be explored more fully (Bates 2021, pp.114-116). 

Bryan Caplan points out that for an individual voter, the cost of clinging to irrational political beliefs is negligible because there is a miniscule probability that one vote will be decisive in changing the result of an election. Caplan suggests that although citizens often talk about voting options as if they were ordering dinner from a menu, their actions tell a different tale: “They expect to be served the same meal no matter what they order” (Caplan 2007, p. 132). Few individuals take the trouble to assess relevant evidence before they form strong opinions on political issues. They have no incentive to do so. If they cling to irrational beliefs about items on a dinner menu they may experience adverse consequences because of their choices, but when they vote there is no direct connection between the individual elector’s choice and the outcome obtained.

The absence of a direct connection between individual choice and outcome, Richard Wagner argues, is the reason sentiment tends to play a larger role, relative to reason, in political competition (Wagner 2016, p.158). He notes Vilfredo Pareto’s view that ideological articulation can even induce people to support measures that they might have opposed in a market setting. Voters generally embrace policies that enable them to feel good about themselves (Wagner 2016, p.198).

Caplan has assembled evidence that widely held beliefs among the public show a systematic anti-market and anti-foreign bias (Caplan 2007, pp. 30-39, 146).

Competition for leadership

Joseph Schumpeter viewed democracy, as actually practiced, as a competition for leadership. He ended up defining democracy as “that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote” (Schumpeter 2011, p.269). That view of democracy has become increasingly relevant as party leaders have come to dominate legislatures, and decisions are increasingly made by executive order and other forms of regulation that are primarily under executive control.

Triadic versus dyadic relationships

Wagner argues that the main difference between political entrepreneurship and market entrepreneurship has to do with the difference between dyadic and triadic relationships. Dyadic relationships involve two people; triadic relationships involve three. Wagner observes that market relationships can be reduced mostly to a set of dyadic relationships where both parties benefit. Political catallactics “typically requires a set of triadic relationships” where two people exchange mutual support and a third is forced to provide financial support. (Wagner 2016, p. 122).

Use of the word “typically” is appropriate in the context of government activities but is less appropriate in a broader context, if political catallactics encompasses voluntary activity that doesn’t involve government. For example, whenever a group of people band together to buy a service that is of mutual benefit, it seems to me that they are engaging in a dyadic political activity.

It also seems inappropriate to label much of the political entrepreneurship that occurs at the local government level as triadic. The group of people who are using the service in that context may not differ much from the group who are paying for it. As discussed by Paul Aligica and Peter Boettke, in a context where people can exercise both voice and exit, “public” entrepreneurship can lead not only to better services at lower cost but also new and better forms of organization (Aligica and Boettke 2009, p.48).

Wagner illustrates the nature of triadic relationships by reference to decisions that are made about which roads to repair and which channels to dredge when roads and harbours are publicly owned. In that situation a triadic relationship is involved because the agencies responsible for road repair and dredging do not receive revenues directly from sales to the public. Those who benefit from the activities concerned have an incentive to undertake costly action, e.g., making donations to political parties to improve their positions in the queues (Wagner 2016,pp. 214-30).

Making deals

Wagner argues that little substantive work is accomplished through elections and political campaigns. He observes that while puffery is an understandable part of market competition, “electoral competition is mostly about puffery” (Wagner 2016, p.197).

The substantive work of policy choice takes place “outside electoral politics and entails the interactive elements necessary for constructing and maintaining deals” (Wagner 2016, p.198). He suggests a parliamentary assembly can be viewed as an “investment bank” because it is “a hub for making deals” involving selection and funding of projects (Wagner 2016, p.232). Wagner observes:

“Entrepreneurs are thus competing among themselves to seize the future. Successful entrepreneurship offers both fame and fortune” (Wagner 2016, p.279).

One important difference between the deal-making of political entrepreneurs and economic entrepreneurs is that the success of the latter can be measured by profit, which is usually a reliable indicator that the product meets consumers’ expectations. There is no similar indicator to enable political entrepreneurs to be held to account for the failure of policies to meet their purported objectives, let alone for any broader negative impacts on opportunities for human flourishing.

 Implications for entrepreneurial choices

Power-seeking political entrepreneurs have an obvious incentive to pander to the misconceptions and irrational preferences of voters by offering populist policies that are more closely aligned to those preferences. In my opinion, the response of some political entrepreneurs (from both conservative and progressive sides of politics) to reinforce false narratives is posing an increasing threat to economic freedom and prosperity in democracies. For example, a myth about the “hollowing out of American manufacturing” is currently supporting restrictions on economic freedom in the United States through imposition of higher import barriers. Phil Gramm and Donald Boudreaux have thoroughly debunked that false narrative (Gramm and Boudreaux 2025, pp.81-117).

There is also an incentive for political entrepreneurs to advance policies which increase the extent to which economic activity becomes subject to triadic relationships. The aim of such policies is to deliver benefits to politically powerful interest groups at the expense of consumers and taxpayers.

Observations about the prevalence of triadic relationships in politics bring to mind the definition of democracy as “two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch” (sometimes attributed to Benjamin Franklin without any supporting citation).

It is sometimes possible for political entrepreneurs to take advantage of triadic relationships and the willingness of voters to cling to irrational beliefs to pursue objectives that voters would not otherwise support. Wagner provides an outline of the process in his description of electoral competition:

“Within the triadic relationships associated with electoral competition … a political entrepreneur can construct a supporting coalition by crafting a transactional structure that entails gainers and losers, while at the same time generating a supporting ideological cover that softens and conceals the redistributive character of the transaction” (Wagner 2016, p.196).

The conceptual framework developed by Sharun Mukand and Dani Rodrik illustrates how such deceptive conduct can occur. Within that framework, political entrepreneurs discover identity and policy ‘memes’ (narratives, cues, framing) that shift beliefs about how the world works or a person’s beliefs about their identity and interests. Worldview politics and identity politics can complement and reinforce each other. In some instances, political entrepreneurs may induce a lobby group to push a particular policy because it has shaped their understanding of where their interests lie, rather than because the group has a vested interest in that policy (Mukand and Rodrik 2018).

The framework developed by Valentina Ausserladscheider also emphasizes that the strategies of political entrepreneurs are not determined solely by voters’ ideological positions. Innovative political entrepreneurs don’t offer the same policies as their competitors. They advance their political ambitions by focusing on niches in the marketplace of ideas that established parties do not satisfy, and on winning support by emphasizing the problem-solving capacities of their ideas. For example, the entrepreneurial strategy of “far-right parties” is linked to their “nationalist and nativist core ideology”, leading to policies such as immigration restrictions that are claimed to solve a range of problems. (Ausserladscheider 2022).

Ausserladscheider uses that framework to consider reasons for the political success of Jörg Haider, the leader of the Austrian Freedom Party, during the 1990s. Haider’s approach, based on a mix of authoritarian policies and policies to promote greater economic freedom, was particularly successful during a time of economic turmoil and uncertainty.

Political entrepreneurs seeking fame and fortune seem to be particularly attracted to deal making which expands public funding and regulation of infrastructure provision. The lack of clear measures of success in deal making in the political arena also makes also makes it easier for shysters and purveyors of inferior products to operate successfully in that arena.

This discussion of the incentives of political entrepreneurs to exploit voter misconceptions, promote triadic relationships, engage in deceptive conduct and participate in uneconomic deal making might cause some readers to wonder why democratic political systems have been as resilient as they have been. How is it that economic and political catastrophes have so far been largely averted in liberal democracies, given that political entrepreneurs have obvious incentives to engage in behaviour that could be expected to “kill the goose that lays the golden eggs”?

An obvious answer to that question is that political entrepreneurs often meet resistance when they seek to exploit the peculiarities of politics discussed above. Caplan has noted that established political leaders and parties have an incentive to think twice before caving in to popular misconceptions about the desirability of policies such as tariff protection because this poses the risk that they may become scapegoats for poor economic performance (Caplan 2007, pp.159-60). When voters have faith in political leaders, that allows leaders who are somewhat well-intentioned and less irrational some slack to circumvent their supporter’s misconceptions (Caplan 2007, p.181).

Mancur Olson provided an explanation by reference to the importance of encompassing political groups in a two-party system of government. He asserts that the leader of a party “whose clients comprise half or more of the society naturally is concerned about the efficiency and welfare of the society as a whole, particularly in comparison with lobbies for special-interest groups and congressmen accountable only to small districts” (Olson 1982, p.51). Party leaders certainly have an incentive to constrain deal-making that they consider is likely to have adverse impacts the party’s electoral prospects.

The next essay in this series, focuses on political entrepreneurship that occurs in liberal democracies in pursuit of economic and social objectives that have broad community support. It suggests that information constraints pose a challenge to successful pursuit of such objectives.

The adverse economic consequences of political entrepreneurship that seeks to exploit the peculiarities of politics as a form of business can also lead eventually to emergence of political entrepreneurs who propose reforms which aim to restore free markets. The scope for that to happen is explored in later essays in this series.

References

Aligica, Paul Dragos and Peter J. Boettke, Challenging Institutional Analysis and Development: The Bloomington School (Routledge, 2009).

Ausserladscheider, Valentina, “The Haider Phenomenon and the Rise of Austrian Neoliberalism,” in Culture, Sociality, and Morality : New Applications of Mainline Political Economy edited by Paul Dragos Aligica, Ginny Seung Choi, and Virgil Henry Storr (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).

Bates, Winton, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing (Hamilton Books, 2021).

Caplan, Bryan. The Myth of the Rational Voter (Princeton University Press, 2007).

Gramm, Phil, and Donald J. Boudreaux, The Triumph of Economic Freedom: Debunking the Seven Great Myths of American Capitalism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025).

Mukand, Sharun and Dani Rodrik, “The Political Economy of Ideas: On Ideas Versus Interests in Policymaking” NBER Working Paper No. 24467 (2018).

Olson, Mancur, The Rise and Decline of Nations (Yale University Press: 1982).

Schumpeter, Joseph. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Second Edition (Martino Publishing, 2011).

Wagner, Richard E., Politics as a Peculiar Business: Insights from a Theory of Entangled Political Economy (Edward Elgar, 2016). 

What does Don Lavoie tell us about the implications of the knowledge problem for the plans of political entrepreneurs?

One of the questions that I have been contemplating in recent months is whether the tariff policies of President Trump could be part of a coherent economic plan. Can his policies be rationalized in terms of revenue raising objectives, the optimum tariff argument, provision of appropriate incentives to manufacturing industries to meet defence or employment objectives, or the pursuit of foreign policy objectives? Is it possible that he is assigning policy instruments to objectives in a manner consistent with a rational plan?

The presumption underlying such questions is that it is preferable for political entrepreneurs to endeavor to ensure that their economic plans are coherent rather than unprincipled, unpredictable, and capricious. Although that may be a reasonable presumption, there is another other option that should be considered. Perhaps it is appropriate for political entrepreneurs to refrain from engaging in economic planning.

I was reminded of that while reading Don Lavoie’s book, National Economic Planning: What is Left?  Don Lavoie was an economics professor at George Mason University, where he taught from 1981 until his death in 2001. This book was originally published by the Cato Institute in 1985 and was reprinted by the Mercatus Center in 2016.

In this book Don Lavoie explains, among other things, that political entrepreneurs are confronted with a fundamental knowledge problem when they seek to plan economic activities, The epigraph quoted above (from page 181) encapsulates an important implication of the knowledge problem.

Lavoie’s explanation of the information problem begins with the insights of F. A. Hayek. The data that a planning agency would require to engage in rational economic planning resides in the separate minds of millions of people. The data exists only in a dispersed form that cannot be fully extracted by any single agent in society. The only way that knowledge can be used effectively is by relying on competitive struggles in a market system.  (p. 56)

The most obvious implication is that it is impossible for markets to be replaced by comprehensive economic planning. However, more modest attempts to steer the market towards particular outcomes also obstruct the source of knowledge which is essential to rational decision-making. (p. 56-7)

Lavoie points out that the only way we can know whether we are squandering resources by over- or underinvesting in microprocessors or steel, for example, is via “the messages contained in the relative profitability of rival firms in these industries”. He adds:

“But this is precisely the information we garble when we channel money toward one or another of the contenders. Deprived of its elimination process, the market would no longer be able to serve its function as a method for discovering better and eliminating worse production techniques. Without the necessity of responding to consumers’ wants or needs, businesses would never withdraw from unprofitable avenues of production.” (p.181)

Lavoie notes that advocates of industry policy disagree on the directions in which the market should be steered. For example, Felix Rohatyn wanted to funnel aid to sunset industries while Robert Reich wanted to funnel it to sunrise industries. He sums up:

“It is the main conclusion of the argument that I have called the knowledge problem … that there are no rational grounds on which Reich could ever convince Rohatyn or vice versa on such matters as are involved in economic change. As a result, such battles are sure to be fought with weapons other than carefully reasoned argument.” (p. 200-201)

Lavoie notes that Rohatyn and Reich both argued that it is the responsibility of a strong leader to coordinate the actions of the rest of us. (p.190) The coordination they had in mind seems to be more akin to the coordination that military leaders impose by giving orders to subordinates than the coordination among individuals that occurs voluntarily and spontaneously in a free market.

Lavoie argues that economic planning is inherently militaristic: “The practice of planning is nothing but the militarization of the economy”. In making that point he notes that the theory of economic planning was from its inception modeled after feudalistic and militaristic organizations. (p. 230)

Some would argue that a degree of militarization is a price worth paying, or even desirable, to achieve a range of national objectives. Indeed, the conventional theory of democracy seems to entail top-down direction. Prior to elections, political leaders tell voters about their plans for education, health, social security etc. and are expected to implement those plans after they are elected.  

I am not aware of anything that Lavoie wrote that discusses the legitimacy of the concept of national objectives and the question of whether planning (and militarization) may be necessary in the pursuit of social objectives. However, he provided a highly relevant discussion of the concept of democracy in a book chapter entitled, ‘Democracy, Markets, and the Legal Order: Notes on the Nature of Politics in a Radically Liberal Society’. (The book is: Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller, Jr., and Jeffrey Paul (Eds.) Liberalism and the Economic Order, Cambridge University Press, 1993.)

In that chapter Lavoie notes that Western liberals tend to view democracy and markets “as in some sort of necessary tension with one another”. We tend to think that “taking democracy too far undermines markets and that taking markets too far undermines democracy”. He attributes that view to “liberalism’s gradual drift into compromises with conservatism and socialism”.

Lavoie argues that liberalism needs to reinterpret its notions of markets and democracy so that they are seen to be essentially complementary. Our economics needs to take account of the cultural underpinnings of markets and our politics “needs to move beyond the model of the exercise of some kind of unified, conscious democratic will and understand democratic processes as distributed throughout the political culture”. The force of public opinion is best perceived as the distributed influence of political discourses throughout society rather than as “a concentrated will”.

Lavoie suggests that what we should mean by democracy is a distinctive kind of openness in society rather than a theory about how to elect the personnel of government:

“Democracy is not a quality of the conscious will of a representative organization that has been legitimated by the public, but a quality of the discursive process of the distributed wills of the public itself.” (p.111).

It seems to me that those who see merit in Lavoie’s view of democracy have good reasons to be skeptical about the worth of top-down planning to achieve national objectives. Individuals have different priorities and objectives that deserve to be recognized. National plans cannot solve the knowledge problem entailed in giving appropriate recognition to individual differences. 

Addendum

Readers might also be interested in a later series of essays on political entrepreneurship.

What role has political entrepreneurship played in changes in human freedom this century?

 

For the purposes of this exercise, I have used the Human Freedom Index, published by Cato and the Fraser Institute, to identify which countries have experienced greatest change in human freedom this century.

In my view, this index provides the best available information on the state of liberty throughout the world. The latest publication in this series, The Human Freedom Index 2024, by Ian Vásquez, Matthew D. Mitchell, Ryan Murphy, and Guillermina Sutter Schneide, provides measures of personal and economic freedom in 2022 for jurisdictions covering 98% of the world’s population. The accompanying data set enables change in personal and economic freedom to be assessed for 157 countries over the period from 2000 to 2022.

This study is associated with my recent research efforts directed toward attempting to understand the role of political entrepreneurship in institutional change. The research reported here links most directly to some previous research which suggests that levels of personal and economic freedom in some countries have been more strongly influenced by political entrepreneurship than by underlying cultural values of the people.

The idea behind the current study is that if we can identify the countries that have experienced greatest change in economic and personal freedom and know a little about the recent political history of those countries, we will better placed to make judgements about the factors responsible for institutional change. The question I ask myself is whether changes in freedom can be attributed to the efforts of a political entrepreneur with an ideological mission, as opposed to other factors such as cultural change in the broader community, responses to economic crises, and external factors including advice of foreign governments and international agencies.

In this essay, I first consider the above graph which shows changes in personal and economic freedom this century for the full data set (157 countries) and then consider a second graph showing the same data for countries with above median human freedom in 2022.

Jurisdictions with greatest change in human freedom

The human freedom index reflects the combined impact of economic freedom and personal freedom. In the graph shown above, the 10 countries with greatest improvement in human freedom are labelled and identified with a green marker and the 10 countries with the greatest decline in human freedom are labelled and identified with a red marker.

An initial point worth noting about the graphs is the relatively small number of countries in the bottom right quadrant with an increase in personal freedom accompanied by a decline in economic freedom. That result is consistent with Milton Friedman’s observation that economic freedom “promotes political freedom because it separates economic power from political power and in this way allows the one to offset the other.” Hopefully, the people in counties in the top left quadrant, who have experienced substantial increases in economic freedom under oppressive governments, will subsequently be able to experience greater personal freedom as well.

It is not difficult to identify political entrepreneurs who have made a major contribution to repression of liberty in jurisdictions that have experienced the greatest declines in human freedom since 2000. Peronism remained a dominant force in Argentinian politics in the first two decades on this century, even though Juan Peron died in 1974. The political landscape in Venezuela was dominated by Hugo Chavez and Nicholas Maduro, who have both pursued policies inimical to economic and personal freedom. In Venezuela, Daniel Ortega held the presidency for extended periods. Chad was subject to authoritarian rule by Idriss Deby Itno until his death in 2021. Iranian politics has been dominated by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei since 1989. Much of the decline in economic and personal freedom in Egypt has occurred since 2014, under the presidency of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. In Turkey, economic and personal freedom have also declined substantially since 2014, when Recep Erdogan came to power. The ruler of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, imposed substantial additional restrictions on personal freedom following the outbreak of civil war in 2011. Personal freedom in Hong Kong has been increasingly restricted since 2012 when Xi Jinping came to power in China. The decline in personal freedom in Bahrain since 2010 reflects the response of the government of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to an upsurge of political opposition.

It is more difficult to identify political entrepreneurs who have made a major contribution to expansion of liberty in jurisdictions that have experienced the greatest improvement in human freedom since 2000. That may partly reflect poor media coverage of good news stories in Africa. Substantial improvements in human freedom occurred in Liberia under the political leadership of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and in Gambia, under the leadership of Adama Barrow.

Some of the other countries that have experienced substantial improvements in human freedom have had governments that have tended to favour free markets consistently. Countries in that category include Lebanon, Armenia, Sierra-Leone and Colombia.

In some countries, including Timor-Leste, international agencies have played an important role in encouraging policies to strengthen government institutions and reduce corruption.

Many of the countries that have experienced substantial increases in human freedom have improved from a low base and still have human freedom levels well below the world average. Countries in that category include Angola, Lebanon, Laos and Sierra-Leone.

 Changes in freedom in relatively high freedom countries

 

When we focus on countries which currently have relatively high levels of freedom, a substantially different set of countries emerges as the 10 with largest declines or increases in economic freedom. Argentina is the only country with reduced human freedom which is common to both groups. Timor Leste and Armenia are the only countries with increased human freedom that are common to both groups.

Among countries with reduced human freedom, political entrepreneurs who have played a prominent role in implementing restrictive policies include Victor Orban in Hungary, Pravind Jugnauth in Mauritius, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Andrzej Duda in Poland.

The decline in human freedom in Guyana, Greece, France, UK, and USA seem to have occurred mainly via gradual slippage rather than deliberate policy. In addition, restrictions on freedom imposed in those countries during the coronavirus epidemic had not been fully removed in 2022.

It is difficult to identify political entrepreneurs who have played a prominent role in promoting economic and personal freedom in the countries with greatest increases in human freedom. However, Maia Sandu played a prominent role in Moldova. Bidzina Ivanishvili has played a prominent role in politics in Georgia since 2012, during a period of improvement in human freedom, but it is unlikely that his more recent political endeavours have had a positive influence on human freedom.

The countries with greatest increase in human freedom generally have policies which strongly favour free markets. The main exceptions seem to be the governments of Malawi and Timor Leste, which have been less supportive of economic freedom.

Conclusion

This essay has focused on countries that have experience substantial changes in human freedom over the period from 2000 to 2020 in an endeavour to assess the role of political entrepreneurship in those changes.

The Human Freedom Index, published by Cato and the Fraser Institute, has been used to identify countries with greatest changes in freedom levels. Information on the recent political history of those countries has then been used to assess whether the changes could be attributed to the influence of political entrepreneurs with an ideological mission.

The study first considered changes in freedom in the full data set of 157 countries and then at changes in freedom for countries with above median freedom levels.

My general conclusion is that, at least during the period considered, political entrepreneurship has played a larger role in bringing about substantial declines in human freedom than in bringing about substantial improvements in human freedom.

Addendum

Readers may also be interested in a later series of essays on political entrepreneurship. In this post I have reproduced a list of pro-market reformers from William Easterly's book, Violent Saviours.