Achieving democracy

Abstract

Fledgling democracies may be able to improve their stability through constitutional amendments that bar future unconstitutional governments from borrowing in the country’s name and from conferring ownership rights in its public property. Such amendments would render insecure the claims of those who lend to, or buy from, dictators, thus, reducing the rewards of coups d’état. This strategy might be resisted by the more affluent societies, but such resistance could perhaps be overcome if many developing countries pursued the proposed strategy together and if some moral support emerged among the publics of the affluent societies.