Food Inflation and Democracy

Rising food prices have always led to revolts especially among the poor. In most poor regions of the world, food comprises upwards of 50% of Household expenditure and needless to say, most of it is in the territory of staple food - just 2 - 3 square meals a day. Food inflation has been going up especially since 2007 and despite earlier World Bank prediction that it would ebb by 2010, the rates have continued climbing upwards at an alarming pace.

The inflation rates in the developed world have been between 1- 3 % only but the problem is acute in many of the developing nations. Let us take a snapshot of the inflation rates - consumer prices for a select set of countries (2010 est). Since the discussion is also about democracy, let us see if prima facie there is any apparent correlation between having an elected government in place and inflation :

Country - Inflation Rate ("Elected" Govt in place - Yes/ No)

Venezuela - 29.8 % ..............................(Yes)
Democratic - 26.2 %.............................(Yes)
Republic of Congo
Argentina - 22 % .................................(Yes)

Nigeria - 13.9 % ...................................(Yes)
Pakistan - 13.4 % ................................(Yes)
Egypt - 12.8 % .....................................(No)
Iran - 11.8 % ..................................(Can't Say)
Sudan - 11.8% ......................................(No)
India - 11.7 % ......................................(Yes)
Ghana - 10.9 % ...................................(Yes)

Turkey - 8.7 % ...................................(Yes)
Russia - 6.7 % ...............................(Can't Say)
Rwanda - 6.4 % ..................................(No)

Algeria - 5 % .......................................(No)
China - 5 % ..........................................(No)
Brazil - 4.9 % ......................................(Yes)
South Africa - 4.5 % ..........................(Yes)
Tunisia - 4.5% ....................................(No)
Libya - 3 % .........................................(No)
Cameroon - 1.9% ...............................(No)

So far, it does not look like that the democratic developing nations are doing any better than the non democratic ones!

The full report of inflation rates for all countries as well as a comparison with their respective 2009 rates can be accessed here.

Important Note

You may wonder why I didn't use any of the established Indices of Democracy instead of this simple "elected / non- elected" definition to denote what kind of a government a country has. In my view, the indices are self fulfilling prophecies. In most of these indices, if a democracy produces bad results, it is called as flawed democracy or not a democracy at all. The indices are seemingly designed such that they preclude even the possibility of judging whether or not democracy led to good or bad results. If it led to bad results, then we classify it as not a democracy. So, how would we even assess whether or not democracy is good or bad for a country? This would make for a lengthy debate perhaps, but should you be interested , please feel free to email me - I would be glad to exchange ideas and thoughts on this. (democracyontrial@gmail.com or anuk.author@gmail.com)