WE BELIEVE THAT THE FINDINGS PRESENTED IN THIS book have potentially important consequences for industrial world's foreign assistance policies and programs that have democracy promotion as one of their key objectives. Specifically, we have argued that the leaders of young democracies may face great challenges in establishing their legitimacy and credibility, especially in divided societies where trust among social groups is lacking. In such cases, leaders may try to concentrate power by pursuing policies that enrich particular, targeted groups of “insiders” over the short run, but at the cost of undermining the broader public's faith in the value of democratic institutions. When weak political institutions combine with poor economic performance, democracy is unlikely to take root; in fact, when the institutions of newly democratic states are of poor quality, even relatively strong growth may not save them from backsliding or reversal, as so many recent cases (e.g., Thailand, Venezuela, and Russia) unfortunately illustrate.

Further, we have seen that the kind of economic performance may also matter to democratic consolidation. If countries enjoy growth but the wealth is not spread equitably, or in a way that promotes opportunities for socioeconomic mobility, consolidation may prove more difficult to achieve; as we have already seen in Chapter 2, highly unequal countries are less likely to remain democratic.