the origins of political order by francis fukuyama

Responding to the problems and opportunities that Atlantic trade created in the 17 th and 18 th centuries, Western Europeans rebalanced state power, rule of law, and accountability responding to the challenges of global trade in the 20 th and 21 st centuries, other countries may well repeat the act. to the third millennium A.D., ordinary people have successfully-and quite quickly-restructured their societies to respond to the challenges that economics thrusts upon them. Rather, history’s lesson is that from the first millennium B.C. This way of looking at the past suggests that the creation of a modern political order in Western Europe happened rapidly, in the 17 th-18 th centuries, rather than gradually, over the long period since the 11 th century and that it was driven by the new wealth and market economy generated by Atlantic trade, not by the accidental outcomes of struggles between popes and emperors in Germany and kings and commoners in England during the Middle Ages.Īnd if that is true, it might point us toward an even more optimistic conclusion than Fukuyama’s-that there is no need for 21 st-century politicians to try to reproduce a delicate balance between state and civil society that Europeans created slowly, accidentally, and violently across 700 years. Patrimonialism, Fukuyama insists, closes off the road to Denmark. Rulers treat the state as an extension of their family, sharing out the important positions among their relatives. The complex societies of antiquity and today’s tribal societies, Fukuyama points out, have one thing in common: patrimonialism. He argues that “depatrimonialization”-basically, getting kinship out of politics-is the key to development. And that means understanding the history of political order.įukuyama is surely right about this, and The Origins of Political Order provides a much-needed primer to this history. Fukuyama suggests that if politicians outside the West are to lead their countries toward Denmark, rather than toward somewhere like Iran, they need to understand-and replicate-the processes that have worked in the past. As we have seen in the last few months, overthrowing authoritarian rulers (such as the ones who have cursed the Middle East for so long) does not instantly unleash open societies. The problem, though, is that this trinity cannot simply be willed into existence.

The origins of political order by francis fukuyama