Democratization, Human Rights and Economic Reform: The Case of China and Russia.

This article analyses the dramatic contrast in outcomes from the reform process in China and Russia. This experience sheds new light on the old debate about the relationship between political institutions, economic progress and human rights. It explores the arguments of principle involved in the debate about democratization in the communist countries. It examines the political setting within which the economic reforms were enacted in China and Russia. It argues that political choices made by the respective leaders were important factors determining the respective economic outcomes. It argues that in large reforming communist countries democratization of politics may damage economic performance and hence, have a deleterious effect upon a range of human rights other than the right to vote in elections. In such countries the link between political democratization and human welfare seems to have been inverse. This is an extremely important and largely unexpected result which goes strongly against the grain of a large body of Western social science thinking in the recent past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]