You thought maybe I might touch on Scotland this week, right? Wrong. Try Botswana. Yes, Botswana, Mr Editor, and if space permits I think I can bring it back to what happened in Scotland. Stay with me now.

I have just finished reading a fascinating book, Why Nations Fail, the product of 15 years of painstaking research, co-authored by Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson, one a professor in economics at MIT and the other a professor of political science at Harvard (impressive enough credentials) who attempt to explain why nations develop differently: how it is that some succeed economically and politically (both are inextricably linked) and others do not. They argue their case with compelling examples, the most obvious being Korea: North and South.

They put the differences down to politics and their analysis goes something like this: sustained economic growth requires innovation, and innovation needs equality of opportunity, combined with the widest possible participation and distribution of power and wealth. Success invariably follows where governments not only promote these policies but practise them as well.

The book itself is a grand sweep of both the globe and the centuries. Botswana was but one example that caught my attention: a landlocked country in Southern Africa of some two million people that is generally regarded as a stable, prosperous democratic republic whose success, according to Professors Acemoglu and Robinson, can be traced to the way in which the country developed. It struck me that there may be some lessons here for the rest of us.

Botswana successfully resisted colonial rule by the British, not by armed resistance mind you, but by outmanoeuvring the imperialists. To keep a long but interesting story short, three chiefs from the eight tribes that later comprised Botswana, gave the Brits what they wanted, a railway through the lands, in return for the right to continue to govern themselves.

This is where the lesson begins.

The chiefs and their tribes already had a core set of political institutions that stood in contrast to what was being imposed on others around them in Africa. The key institution was their kgotla which allowed for and encouraged political participation as rudimentary as it may have been back then in the late 19th century. As the book points out, some of its key features were:

• A general assembly of the tribes’ adult males which addressed all matters of tribal policy

• Meetings were frequent, frequent enough to tackle tribal disputes and quarrels as well as the decisions of chiefs, including, and perhaps most particularly, the imposition of levies.

• Anyone could speak and chiefs used the assemblies to ascertain the general mood and feelings of the tribes.

• Decisions of a chief could be overturned — and often were — and without recrimination or punishment.

• Chieftaincy was also not hereditary: anyone of talent and ability (and ambition, presumably) could aspire to the post and it was not a lifetime appointment.

So what’s that got to do with the price of tea in China? China? Okay, Bermuda.

The first point is that modern Botswana emerged from a culture of governance that had at its core participation and accountability. While this approach to government may not have been unique to Botswana, what was unique was that their institutions survived the colonial period unscathed.

The second point — and this is the thesis advanced by the co-authors — is that this approach was the base upon which Botswana was able to transform itself in modern times from one of the poorest countries in the world to one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Botswana boasts one of the highest per capita incomes in sub-Saharan Africa today. (Not that it is all peaches and cream. Wikipedia tells us that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is a huge problem still.)

But their economic success was no accident, according to the professors. Here’s why, they say:

• Botswana was built on inclusive political institutions that allowed for the widest possible participation, and not just politically but economically, that was further developed and enhanced over the years, after independence (now almost 50 years ago) and after the discovery of diamonds.

• There was no elite that sought to replace another, no dictatorial regime that sprung up to substitute one lord and master for another. Botswana boasts a stable democracy in contrast to other countries which surround them today, and as a homogenous country without any of the linguistic and ethnic fragmentation associated with other African countries.

Here’s my point: they crafted their own institutions and they were ones that worked, and still work for them. We can do that now, if we wish. It is important to do so because — and this is an underlying theme of Why Nations Fail — it is difficult, if not impossible, to introduce and implement necessary change when the institutional infrastructure contributes to the problem.

Yes, I am back to the need for parliamentary and political reform again. It may be our best chance of establishing and developing a more collaborative political culture. It is said that the very definition of insanity is to persist in doing the same things in the same way and expecting, hoping, for different results. I agree.

We cannot change the past, but we can learn from it and script a new future. People can be engaged, and should be, to a greater degree. Technology today makes that far easier. Our version of the Westminster system can be modified to feature more inclusive governance and greater accountability. No matter the result that has to be the lesson from Scotland and London now has to deliver on devolution.