This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, November 27, 2007.

I'm Caleb Brown.

What do the tools of economics have to tell us about the prospects for imposing democracy

around the world? In a new book, After War, the world.

In a new book, After War, the political economy of exporting democracy.

West Virginia University Economics Professor Chris Coyne takes the analytical tools of economics and applies them to the successes and

failures of spreading liberal democracy.

I spoke with him after a book forum yesterday.

Germany and Japan are, as you say, the benchmarks against which other post-war reconstructions are

gauged. Given the relative success of those, is that essentially the reason why U.S.

policymakers are confident in their ability to engage in these types of

reconstructions to spread democracy?

Well that's definitely part of it. I mean these successes of post World War II, Japan and West Germany, I think gave a false sense

of optimism to policymakers about the ability of the U.S. to export liberal institutions.

But what I emphasize in the book is that more recent efforts and the countries that pose

a threat to the United States now, mainly weak and failed states are extremely different than Japan and West Germany in terms of

development, in terms of culture, and in terms of the context of war and occupation.

So while they've definitely given policymakers a sense of

optimism I think they're extremely poor benchmarks for current and future

reconstruction efforts. You suggest that there exists a bias towards short-sighted policies.

Of course, in domestic policy, that's a well-known insight from public choice economists,

but what are the implications of that insight for those who might like to

...