The Good Ancestor by Roman Krznaric

Author:Roman Krznaric [Krznaric, Roman]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780753554524
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2020-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

The Intergenerational Solidarity Index: Measuring the Long-Term Policy Performance of Democracies and Autocracies

The problem of short-termism in democratic politics has become so acute that a growing chorus of voices has begun speaking in favour of ‘benign dictatorship’ or ‘enlightened despotism’ as the solution to our problems, especially to take the tough measures required to deal with the climate emergency. Such sentiments, mentioned in Chapter 6, have become increasingly common not only among well-known figures like scientist James Lovelock, but also among the general public; terms such as ‘eco-authoritarianism’ are beginning to appear with growing frequency in online forums and on social media feeds, while audience members in my talks on long-term thinking often suggest autocratic government as an antidote to political myopia.15 The standard argument is that we need to become more like China, which appears to have a proven track record on long-term policymaking, especially regarding investment in green technologies. Or like Singapore, which may put some limits on civil and political liberties but manages to take a far-sighted approach to everything from education reform to urban planning.

It all starts to sound very enticing: let’s just bypass those squabbling democratic politicians, who are mostly interested in advancing their own careers, and put our faith instead in authoritarian regimes that are willing and able to take concerted long-term action on the multiple crises facing humanity.

The problem with such thinking is that it cherry-picks the best policies of countries like China or Singapore, while ignoring the records of other one-party states and authoritarian-leaning regimes around the world such as Saudi Arabia, Russia and Cambodia. Examining the evidence is crucial: could it really be true that autocracies perform better than democracies when it comes to long-term public policy that benefits future generations?

Over the past decade, academics and policy experts have begun to devise quantitative indices that measure and compare the long-term policy orientation of national governments. Such indices, which focus on assessing policy outcomes rather than policy promises on paper, have been produced by organisations including the World Economic Forum and the Intergenerational Foundation, as well as individual scholars.16 The following analysis is based on what I consider to be the most conceptually coherent, methodologically rigorous and geographically comprehensive of these indicators: the Intergenerational Solidarity Index (ISI), created by the interdisciplinary scientist Jamie McQuilkin, and first published in the peer-reviewed journal Intergenerational Justice Review.17

What does the ISI look like, and what does it tell us about the virtues of democracies versus authoritarian regimes? The ISI provides scores for 122 countries each year between 2015 and 2019, and is a composite index that combines ten indicators of long-term policy practice in environmental, social and economic realms (details of its construction are set out in the Appendix).18 The environmental dimension rewards countries that have low depletion of their forests, a small carbon footprint and a significant share of renewables in their energy system. They are also penalised for high levels of fossil fuel production. On the social dimension, countries receive higher scores for small

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