The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence

by Gary A. Haugen

As David Brooks of the New York Times has opined with characteristic common sense and clarity: You can cram all the nongovernmental organizations you want into a country, but if there is no rule of law and if the ruling class is predatory then your achievements won’t add up to much…In short, there’s only so much good you can do unless you are willing to confront corruption, venality, and disorder head-on.68 As Crisis Group board member Lord Paddy Ashdown, UN High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, stated, “In hindsight, we should have put the establishment of the rule of law first, for everything else depends on it: a functioning economy, a free and fair political system, the development of civil society, public confidence in police and the courts.”