How much help is enough?

On zippers, business advice from Michael Bloomberg, and what it takes to make the transition to liberal democracy

It is doubtful there are many problems in the social sciences that are bigger than figuring out how best to help a country become a truly liberal democracy. We clearly haven't figured out a secret recipe yet, but the world needs one.

■ It's hard to tell whether it's better for democratic practices to take hold first, or for a classically liberal set of values to become enshrined. The unsatisfying answer seems to be that they have to gradually build on each other. But the advice that Michael Bloomberg applied to business also applies to political reform: "Humans need to see results in time frames they can handle."

■ Democracy confers legitimacy on a political system, but a political system which doesn't guarantee civil liberties is ultimately hollow. Thus, it's a bit like a zipper: Leaders and citizens have to achieve small steps in both tracks, building upon one another in a virtuous feedback loop. It cannot take place so fast that people end up feeling disoriented and powerless, but it cannot be so slow that frustration boils over.

■ And just like a zipper, any backsliding on one side ends up tending to backslide the other. If people start to question the security of their rights, they become cynical about their votes. If people doubt that their votes matter, they tend to doubt their rights are secure.

■ Benjamin Franklin once wrote, "Sudden power is apt to be insolent, sudden liberty saucy; that behaves best which has grown gradually." Yet the world is so tightly interconnected, the weapons of oppression are so fearsome, and the scale of state power is often so great, that it's really hard to imagine how "gradually" we can wait for the growth required.

■ Clearly, Russia didn't achieve the necessary escape velocity from totalitarianism in the 1990s to overcome the risk presented by an authoritarian power grab. And look at all the suffering that has wrought. Not only does that nation still need reform, but so do many others -- and no one should doubt that China will ultimately have to undergo such changes, too. How and how fast? Mechanisms and pacing both matter.