by Leon Aron

About the author: Leon Aron is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank that promotes limited government, private enterprise, and a strong foreign policy and national defense.

The post–cold war era has produced something new in world history: an abundance of poor democracies. There are now some seventy nations with a gross domestic product (GDP) below $10,000 per capita and with the basic attributes of democratic government. These regimes have been greeted in the West mostly with scorn and condescension. In reading about them, we learn of their economic struggles, their democratic deficiencies, their uncertain prospects. But their existence can also be seen as a hopeful sign, even a remarkable success story, and as a tribute to the universal appeal of freedom and self-government.

Until 1989, democracy...