Infrastructure and Democracy: Oil and Water?

Looking at the rapidly rising merchandise trade to and from Asia, particularly goods destined for USA, it is easy to foresee various infrastructure bottlenecks. While Shenzhen, Shanghai-Yangshan, Busan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai ports seem to have efficient buttery-smooth infrastructures, the ports in South Asia, India in particular, are highly underdeveloped and lack the land infrastructure. On the other side of the oceans, key west coast ports in USA - particularly Long Beach - are congested and constrained in terms of expansion possibilities and hours of operation. The rail and road infrastructure in USA, connecting to the ports, is at capacity or constrained by the lack of human resources.

It seems command economies, managed with top-down processes, have come up with massive, smooth-functioning ports and other infrastructure. Hobbled by public accountability and interest group tussles, the infrastructures of democratic India is evolving at a snail's pace and that of democratic USA is lagging. Like oil and water, democracy and infrastructure just don't seem to mix too well in the contemporary, rapidly globalizing world.

Of course, abandoning democracy is not the answer. India is trying the route of privatization, with massive plans to open up privately owned and managed Special Economic Zones (SEZs), many of which would have their own seaport, airport, and land infrastructures. The politics of these SEZs have proved to be highly contentious, especially since large tracts of farm and other productive land often needs to be acquired to build the SEZ.

USA is quite at a loss about the political processes required to expand and modernize its aging infrastructure.

What are the political possibilities? What would stir things up, mixing oil and water and spices to create lively democratic salad dressings? This is going to be one of the huge challenges of the 21st century.

Nik Dholakia
University of Rhode Island