Business
Africa: An economic lion emerges
For example, Mohamed Keita, Africa advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists, argues that in countries that are cracking down on freedom of the press, such as Ethiopia, economic growth deflects attention from authoritarianizm rather than undermining it.
This is the Putin model, or the Beijing model: Forget about ephemeral concepts such as free speech and pluralism in exchange for a swiftly increasing gross domestic product(GDP). It is not only impoverished domestic electorates that are tempted by this siren song. Western investors and many Western governments find it equally convincing. But the emerging market lions – and the tigers and the Siberian bears – should ask themselves how long authoritarian growth can be sustained.
