As my father recounted it to me in my youth, Halima’s resigned observation, ‘Halima Halima aitibelu: Halima nabra kedema,’ meaning that her life would remain the same despite all the political noise, captured a public intuition that political competition without material improvement is empty. Her remark, born in the 1940s when political parties multiplied but daily life remained unchanged, distilled a truth that has endured across generations: Eritreans want political voice, but they also want tangible progress. They want democracy that delivers development and development that respects democracy. Halima’s story is not a nostalgic anecdote; it is a distilled expression of a long‑standing public expectation. It is a reminder that voice without progress is hollow, and progress without voice is fragile.
Political aspiration must be anchored in lived improvement.
Eritrea at a Historical Threshold
Eritrea stands at a moment where the essential question is no longer whether the country deserves democracy or requires development, but whether it will choose to build institutions capable of delivering both. This reframing matters. Eritrea’s future will not be shaped by abstract debates about rights or growth, but by the institutional architecture it constructs in the years ahead.
For decades, global debates on development have been shaped by the dramatic rise of the East Asian economies, where authoritarian governments oversaw rapid industrialization. The East Asian Tigers appeared to demonstrate that states could achieve high growth without democratic institutions, reinforcing the notion that development precedes democracy. According to this premise, once a country attains a high level of GDP, it becomes more likely to embrace democratic governance.
This experience gave rise to a long-standing question in comparative political economy: does development lead to democracy, or does democracy lead to development? One school of thought argues that development must come first. In this view, economic transformation creates the social conditions, an educated middle class, diversified interests, and rising expectations that eventually demand democratic institutions. Others contend that democracy should precede development, insisting that the well-being of citizens is better protected in democratic systems and that accountable governance provides a stronger foundation for sustainable growth.
Yet this narrative, while influential, is analytically incomplete. It overlooks a quieter but equally consequential reality: several countries, including Mauritius, Botswana, and others, demonstrate that democracy and developmentalism are not adversaries but mutually reinforcing pillars of national transformation. Their pathways show that capable institutions, strategic planning, and disciplined governance can emerge within democratic settings, and that democratic legitimacy can strengthen the developmental order rather than hinder it. In practice, democracy and development are not separate dimensions but inextricably linked dimensions of national progress.
The feasibility question for Eritrea is therefore not theoretical. It concerns whether the country can design institutions capable of sustaining both legitimacy and structural transformation.
National direction is ultimately determined by institutional design.
Initial Conditions: Constraints and Possibilities
Any realistic assessment must begin with Eritrea’s historical constraints. Decades of liberation struggle, followed by prolonged militarization and centralized governance, produced a state with strong command authority but limited institutional depth. The post‑conflict limbo further entrenched a pre‑existing security‑first mentality, giving the regime continued justification to weaken civilian institutions and sideline administrative development. These legacies narrowed Eritrea’s policy bandwidth and delayed the emergence of autonomous institutions capable of managing complex developmental tasks.
Institutional fragility, thin bureaucratic capacity, limited regulatory coherence, and the absence of constitutional activation define the baseline from which any democratic developmental order must proceed. These constraints are real, but they do not predetermine Eritrea’s future; they simply define the starting point from which institutional reform must begin.
At the same time, Eritrea possesses strategic advantages: a strong national identity, disciplined social foundations, strategic geography, and a globally connected diaspora. These assets make a democratic developmental pathway not only feasible but necessary.
It illustrates that beginnings are shaped by constraints, but long‑run patterns are shaped by institutions.
Developmental Preconditions: The Material Foundations Democracy Requires
Democracy cannot endure without material foundations that give citizens confidence in the future and trust in the state. Development becomes a democratic stabilizer when it generates jobs, expands opportunities, and delivers public goods.
Economic transformation: modernizing agriculture, developing manufacturing, leveraging ports, and investing in human capital anchors democratic participation in rising living standards.
Public goods delivery: health, education, water, energy, roads, and digital connectivity strengthen democratic legitimacy by improving daily life and demonstrating the state’s capacity to meet collective needs.
A national vision provides narrative coherence. Democracies without such coherence drift into short‑termism and factionalism, losing the strategic focus required for sustained development.
Institutional discipline ensures that national priorities are implemented consistently, regardless of political turnover, protecting long‑term plans from fragmentation or politicization.
Democratic stability is sustained not only by political voice but also by shared and rising prosperity, the lived improvements that make democratic governance meaningful and durable.
Democratic Preconditions: The Governance Foundations
A democratic developmental state cannot emerge without political institutions capable of generating legitimacy, accountability, and predictable governance. These democratic preconditions are functional requirements for sustaining long‑term development.
The rule of law transforms authority from personal discretion into institutional capability. Constitutional activation, judicial independence, and legal predictability are essential for protecting national plans from arbitrary disruption.
Citizen participation must be structured, inclusive, and aligned with national priorities. Eritrea must avoid the pitfalls of the 1940s, when political competition produced noise but not progress.
Accountability mechanisms such as independent audits, parliamentary oversight, and transparent budgeting ensure that public authority remains aligned with national priorities rather than narrow interests.
A meritocratic bureaucracy is the operational engine of a democratic developmental state. Eritrea must shift from loyalty‑based appointments to competence‑based recruitment, from informal directives to institutional procedures, and from personalized authority to administrative professionalism.
Democracy is not only about voting to elect a government; it is about a participatory process that shapes all dimensions of national development. It entails institutional transformation in which individual growth and welfare are treated as integral components of the developmental undertaking.
Democratic legitimacy rests on institutions citizens can rely upon, the very institutions that give developmental governance its coherence, credibility, and long‑term sustainability.
The Strategic Synthesis: Democracy and Developmentalism
Democracy without development becomes noise without progress. Development without democracy becomes coercive and unstable. Eritrea cannot afford either path.
The fusion of democracy and developmentalism creates a system in which legitimacy and discipline reinforce each other. Democratic institutions generate trust, which increases compliance with national priorities. Successful development strengthens democratic legitimacy by delivering tangible improvements in livelihoods. This mutual reinforcement transforms democracy from a source of fragmentation into a source of stability and transforms developmentalism from a technocratic undertaking into a shared national commitment.
Mauritius and Botswana demonstrate that small states can combine democratic governance with strategic development. Eritrea’s structural conditions mirror these cases more closely than the authoritarian East Asian model.
Legitimacy and performance must advance in tandem if Eritrea is to build a democratic developmental state capable of enduring.
Pathways for Transition: Sequenced and Realistic
Eritrea’s transition is not an event but a sequence. The order of reforms determines whether change produces stability or fragmentation.
Institutional sequencing must begin with professionalization, rule‑based institutions, and safeguards before full political opening. Capability building, bureaucratic autonomy, and performance discipline must precede complex reforms.
Constitutional activation anchors rule‑based governance, judicial independence, and accountable leadership.
Civil service reform converts wartime cohesion into peacetime professionalism through meritocratic recruitment, bureaucratic autonomy, and performance discipline.
Economic priorities—agriculture, fisheries, ports, renewable energy, and selective manufacturing—offer early gains that build public confidence and demonstrate the state’s capacity to deliver.
Diaspora engagement must be structured, transparent, and capability‑driven, linking global expertise to domestic transformation.
Transitions succeed when reforms are paced, layered, and institutionally grounded, when the state builds capability before expanding political competition, and when sequencing reinforces stability rather than fragmentation.
Risks and Mitigation: Converting Vulnerability into Resilience
Political risks in Eritrea’s transition arise from fragmentation, transitional asymmetry, and entrenched organizational loyalties. Transitional asymmetry refers to the uneven starting positions from which political stakeholders enter a democratic opening, some with organizational machinery, others with none; some with networks and resources, others with only aspirations. Such asymmetry can distort competition, overwhelm emerging institutions, and destabilize early reform unless the transition is sequenced carefully.
Economic risks stem from a narrow productive base, exposure to external shocks, and the unavoidable costs of early reform. These vulnerabilities require early gains, strategic finance, phased implementation, and transparent communication to maintain public confidence.
Institutional risks emerge from weak administrative capacity, institutional overload, and vulnerability to political or private‑sector interference. The state must be protected from vested private interests, including segments of the diaspora whose influence could promote rent‑seeking or align institutions with agendas misaligned with the principles of a democratic developmental state.
Mitigation therefore requires meritocratic reform, institutional depth, autonomy, and performance accountability. These measures must follow a disciplined sequencing pattern:
professionalization → rule‑based institutions → safeguards → sequenced political opening → capability building → bureaucratic autonomy → performance discipline → developmental culture
This sequence moves from building a professional, merit‑based administrative culture to establishing rule‑based institutions capable of enforcing predictable governance. These institutions then generate the safeguards, capacities, autonomy, and performance systems required to transform political participation into a stable developmental institutional culture. Capability building strengthens analytical and technical skills, while bureaucratic capacity expands organizational depth and operational reliability. Integrated mitigation transforms vulnerability into resilience.
Resilience emerges when institutions are built to absorb pressure rather than collapse under it, when sequencing, capability, and discipline convert structural fragility into durable stability.
The Case for a Democratic Developmental Eritrea
Eritrea’s future will be shaped not by slogans or ideological debates, but by the institutions it chooses to build. The analysis is clear:
Eritrea cannot return to authoritarian control. Eritrea cannot afford fragmented pluralism. Eritrea must build institutions that deliver both dignity and development.
A democratic developmental state is not one option among many. It is the strategic choice that aligns Eritrea’s history, its aspirations, and its future.
Eritreans want a state strong enough to build roads, factories, and irrigation systems, but not one strong enough to silence them. They want leadership capable of planning and coordinating, but not leadership that rules indefinitely without accountability or electoral renewal. They want institutions that deliver results and respect rights. This dual demand, voiced by Halima in the 1940s and retold to me by my father decades later, remains the foundation of Eritrea’s democratic developmental imagination.
It reminds us that Eritrea’s future depends on institutions that honor both democracy and development.
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