The Washington Post ran a story on Saturday about the declining significance of the International Monetary Fund. The lead was a decision by Ghana to reject loan conditions proposed by the IMF. Ghana could negotiate from strength because it has a growing economy and other options for borrowing. “That decision underscores the changing role of the IMF as developing economies have roared to life in recent years, with the fund increasingly becoming more adviser than lender.”

The tone of the article was somewhat critical, focusing on challenges for the IMF as an institution. Indeed, there are plans to cut the Fund’s staff by 13 percent to reflect a shrinking portfolio. But of course the story could have been told very positively; the headline could have been, “IMF Succeeds.” Someone I know at the Fund told me the following story:

In the 1980s, developing nations were burdened by enormous debts, often run up by dictators. This was a huge problem, morally and practically. Admitting that the loans should never have been made in the first place was too embarrassing for the lending countries. The IMF and World Bank literally didn’t have the cash to write off their loans. Forgiving debts can create a moral hazard (encouraging more borrowing). Yet the debt was a plague on the poorest people of the world.

This problem has been very substantially reduced through a combination of debt forgiveness and economic growth. Perhaps the process was far too slow or too costly for the poor countries–I don’t know. What is important right now is that we have passed through the debt crisis to a large extent. The following graph, which I generated using the IMF’s interactive website, shows foreign debt per GDP for Subsaharan Africa and for Ghana (the focus of the Post article). The decline since the 1990s is striking and highly positive. The debate can now be about how to develop, not how to manage debt.

Click here if you’d like to listen to me being interviewed by Sandra Bert and Linda Perlis for their syndicated radio show, Parents’ Perspective. I’m talking about my book The Future of Democracy, which is about raising active citizens, and what that means for parents.

We’re getting ready to move CIRCLE to Tufts University on July 1 (as previously announced), and that means a move for my family as well. I’ve lived in DC since 1992; my wife, somewhat longer. I’m not sure that I would claim that DC is an objectively better place than others, but one develops a deep fondness for a city where one lives for a long time and experiences whole stages of life. I was a young single guy here, learning about the work world. I was married here and had children here. I’ve received joyous and tragic news here. The parts of the city where I have spent lots of time are not very extensive. Within those areas, I can recall specific events that took place on virtually every block, sometimes in six or seven buildings within a single block.

I’ve been writing here about “DC,” not “Washington.” The latter is the capital of the United States, the diplomatic, political, and media center. The former is a large city in the mid-Atlantic region with a fairly stable population and a distinctive local culture. This distinction is not simply one of class or income. You can be a poorly-paid environmental lobbyist and belong to “Washington,” or a successful restauranteur or real-estate lawyer who is very much part of “DC.” Nor is the distinction simply one of race. “DC” is predominantly Black, and Washington is predominantly White; but they are both quite diverse. It’s a subtle distinction with blurred borders, which one can observe at Redskins games, firework celebrations on the Mall, and the downtown department stores. But there is a difference, and it’s mainly DC that I will miss rather than Washington. I’ll miss the brick townhouses with cornices and pyramidal roofs, seafood from the Bay, the accents of both African American and white natives, settings from George Pelicanos’ novels, the Post Style Section, Pollo Compero, and Metro drivers who announce “Joodicuary Square.” As a yuppie who came to town to work for a political organization, I can’t say I’m really of DC. But as a member of a DC public school family and a commuter who has spent 90 minutes every day on the Metro for the past 15 years, I can say that I have some DC in me. And I don’t think I’ll shake it off.

Recently, and by coincidence, I have twice heard Mickey Edwards talk about his new book, Reclaiming Conservatism: How a Great American Political Movement Got Lost–And How It Can Find Its Way Back. Edwards was a member of Congress for 16 years, during which time he served on the powerful Appropriations Committee and chaired the House Republican Policy Committee. In those years, he also co-founded the conservative think tank known as the American Enterprise Institute Heritage Foundation. He was a “movement conservative” if there ever was one.

His book, however, excoriates today’s Republicans for ignoring constitutional limits on the power of government. I have not read the book, but Mr. Edwards argues in public that the problem is basically moral. It is the duty of the legislative branch to preserve and uphold the Constitution and to check the power of the president. Lately, Republican members of Congress have abandoned both roles because they have identified more with their party than with their institution. Edwards is especially outraged by presidential signing statements and violations of the FISA statute, because these actions threaten the rule of law.

It is appealing when an avid member of a movement reproaches his own side on moral grounds. (At any rate, I, as an opponent of this particular movement, find this particular apostasy appealing.) But I’m not sure that Edwards’ diagnosis is complete. Why do politicians sometimes put institutions and institutional self-interest ahead, and at other times heed partisan interest? It is not clear that a self-interested politician should yoke himself to either an institution or a party. It requires some explanation why a group of politicians should switch from one loyalty to another. Understanding the reason can help guide reform.

In this case, I suspect the the “party of limited government” forgot all about limits for several reasons. Party leaders have gained control of important sources of campaign money and use the cash to enforce discipline. Public opinion doesn’t help; Americans are insufficiently concerned about the Constitution. But here’s a third important reason: polarization. There are hardly any liberal Republicans left in Congress, and not all that many conservative Democrats. This means that strategy sessions on both sides are relatively homogeneous. It is therefore easier to fall into “group think” and a kind of team spirit in which anything that we do is good and anything that they try to do is suspect. Conservatives can easily talk themselves into the belief that liberals are not only competitors; they are enemies of the constitutional order. If the great threat to the Constitution is the other side, then beating them becomes a moral obligation, even if one has to compromise a bit on specific constitutional principles. Such reasoning may not be the cause of Republican tactics, but it is a psychologically compelling rationale; and rationales matter.

Here is a sophisticated and attractive website that explains the concept of “rule of law” to Qataris, especially high school students in Qatar’s schools. The sponsors include the US Department of State and the American Bar Association’s Division for Public Education, on whose advisory board I serve. (Thus I acknowledge complicity.) The site says that the rule of law is “good for you and good for Qatar!”

But what is rule of law? Specifically, can you have rule of law in a country governed by an Emir?

There are at least two conceptions of rule of law, which have been called “thin” and “thick.” The thin conception is deliberately narrow. Friedrich Hayek defined it thus: “Stripped of all technicalities,” he wrote, it “means that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand–rules which make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers in given circumstances and to plan one’s individual affairs on the basis of this knowledge.” No one would say that rule of law (on this definition) is a sufficient condition of justice. Rules can be “fixed and announced beforehand” and yet be evil. But Hayek argued that the rule of law was valuable in itself. Thus it might be worth while to promote it in a country like Qatar. To do so would be a public service to the Qatari people and not merely a favor to the regime.

The thin version of rule of law can accompany various forms of government. A democracy might bind itself to act only on the basis of fixed laws, but democratic majorities are often tempted to change their rules on the fly. Thus rule of law is consistent with democracy but hardly synonymous with it. Likewise, an emir or another monarch can, either by habit and preference or under a binding constitutional provision, act according to the thin conception of the rule of law. Many European monarchs used to be very rule-guided, even though they claimed divine right. The Pope acts according to rules within the domain of canon law.

In the passage quoted above, Hayek mentions only two components of a very thin theory: laws must be fixed and announced. One could add other ingredients to a thin theory, e.g., a prohibition on bills of attainder (laws that single out individuals for special treatment). That rule follows from the same Hayekian principle that governments should be predictable so that people can order their affairs accordingly. And so the thin theory grows thicker.

One can also include much more substantive components in the definition of “rule of law”–for instance, equal protection, an independent judiciary, right to a defense, or even freedom of speech and assembly. The more you build in, the less the concept seems compatible with a monarchy, especially if the monarch (as in Qatar) makes legal distinctions between his subjects and the other 80 percent of his resident population that holds foreign citizenship. If rule of law must include ingredients incompatible with monarchy, then it is not clear that we are helping Qatar by producing this website. But I write in the conditional, because I really cannot decide whether a thin concept of rule of law is valid and worthwhile.