Political Order and Political Decay
From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalisation of Democracy
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- 9,49 €
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- 9,49 €
Publisher Description
In The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama took us from the dawn of mankind to the French and American Revolutions. Here, he picks up the thread again in the second instalment of his definitive account of mankind's emergence as a political animal.
This is the story of how state, law and democracy developed after these cataclysmic events, how the modern landscape - with its uneasy tension between dictatorships and liberal democracies - evolved and how in the United States and in other developed democracies, unmistakable signs of decay have emerged.
If we want to understand the political systems that dominate and order our lives, we must first address their origins - in our own recent past as well as in the earliest systems of human government. Fukuyama argues that the key to successful government can be reduced to three key elements: a strong state, the rule of law and institutions of democratic accountability.
This magisterial account is required reading for anyone wishing to know more about mankind's greatest achievements.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The distinction between strong and accountable government is seen as a driver of history in this second volume of the author's magisterial study of politics and the state. Following up The Origins of Political Order, Stanford scholar Fukuyama surveys political developments of the past 250 years, from the French Revolution to the Arab Spring, focusing on the often clashing imperatives of democratic accountability, rule of law, and effective governmental administration. Organizing his commentary around these three themes, Fukuyama addresses an enormous range of moments in political history, paying close attention to Asia, Africa, and Latin America, as well as to the West. (The U.S. figures less as a paragon than as a governmental slacker whose current problems with legislative gridlock, corruption, and chaotic administration-by-lawsuit makes it an exemplar of political decay.) Fukuyama's erudition is complemented by lucid, graceful prose and an inveterate even-handedness that fairly assesses liberal, conservative, and Marxist traditions; giving material influences their due without lapsing into economic reductionism and treating politics and governance as an autonomous realm with its own ideological and institutional dynamics. His superb synthesis of political science and history will be useful to experts as well as students and laypeople.
