Westerners have a fetish for nation-states and assume any government is better than none, but when the feasibility set does not contain liberal democracy, propping up weak or failed governments yields very bad outcomes; there is a good argument for allowing weak and failed states to fully collapse, because such governments are a pure cost on citizens benefiting only cronies, and a state weakening or collapsing signals it is not providing goods people want.

normativepending

Speaker

Christopher Coyne

Evidence Quote

what we're doing is empowering the worst governments in the world ... when a state's weak failed or it's collapsing that's a good sign of something ... it's not providing goods and services that people want

Source

Christopher Coyne on Exporting Democracy after War 04/07/2008EconTalk
Created: 6/15/2026, 9:29:02 AM

My Notes

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