COMMENTARY: After Aquino - Time for 'Effective Governance' in the Philippines

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"No democracy can survive without possessing an effective, impersonal Weberian bureaucracy, which is capable of delivering public goods, ensuring public safety, and autonomously pursuing collective interest. This is precisely the lesson that many developing democracies such as the Philippines tend to overlook. Charisma, free elections, and freedom of expression can't make up for weak, fragmented state institutions and the absence of rule of law."

Read the commentary by Richard Javad Heydarian in The World Post (A Partnership of The Huffington Post and Bergruen Institute on Governance).

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