PSDdF Series: Why Democratic Resilience Matters for Economic Growth

Yeah, thanks a lot.

Now, when you talked about stability, I tend to want to think that maybe are we referring to having strong institutions like the rule of law, accountable governance, or is it a lot more than that?

Well, let's start by distinguishing between what we mean by institutions and organizations.

So an organization is a body of people intentionally put together to achieve a particular goal.

So the American Business Council, CIP, all organizations.

An institution is the way that things are done in a society and the rules of the game.

Okay, so my wife is from Western Nigeria, and although I'm from Eastern Nigeria, my people, the Igbo people in Eastern Nigeria, we don't bow down to anyone.

In fact, our saying...

In fact, our saying is that when any of our local gods gets too powerful, we will show him the tree he was carved from.

That's what we say.

But when I went to marry a Yoruba woman, the institution of marriage in Yoruba land is that you have to prostrate the parents of the bride.

And not just you, everybody that came with you.

Everybody, including your parents.

also has to do that.

Yeah.

So I had to weigh between my pride as an Igbo man and my wish to marry this wonderful woman.

So I had to prostrate.

But just coming back to your question, a lot of people make a lot of play about institutions.

And it's, yeah, of course, institutions are important.

They are, but it is human beings that create institutions.

It is human beings that lay down the rules of the game.

The institutions don't create themselves and they can actually also be changed.

So during President Trump's first term, a lot of people said, oh, he was constrained by strong institutions in the US.

I think he has demonstrated in his second term that a strong man can actually do a lot, even within institutional constraints.

So that's the first thing to bear in mind.