The inspiration for this work came directly from Political Order in Changing Societies. Of course, Fukuyama does not hide his debt to Huntington. Samuel Huntington gives a clearer explanation of the rise of the Prussian military in his work The Soldier and the State. For Fukuyama a strong state requires both a professional and semi-autonomous bureaucracy. He refers to the emergence of a professional military as a key moment in the development of the state. Ultimately, he blames the weakness of the state as the primary culprit for the decline of the American political system.Įarlier in the work he describes the rise of the Prussian state. He contrasts this approach with European democratic governments where issues are typically resolved through the political rather than the legal process. Many of its reforms emerge from an activist judiciary because its political system is left in a stalemate. He describes the American political system as a vetocracy. Still, it is surprising to find his account of American political decay focused on institutions. It is another recognition that the problems in American democracy were obvious before the 2016 election. Many will look to the election of Donald Trump as a sign of American political decay, but Fukuyama published this volume during the Obama Presidency. His second volume explains why political institutions fail. His first volume gave a roadmap for political development dependent on the emergence of the state, rule of law and accountable government. Gibbons did not need to write The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire for his contemporaries to realize civilizations can and do fall apart. Of course, in reality history has both setbacks and decline. Indeed, a perfect linear account of history uses time itself as the independent variable so every new moment brings about developments and progress.
A perfect linear relationship does not allow for regression.
The challenge in his second volume was to provide an explanation for political decay. And both its achievements and flaws originate from his earlier ideas about history, democratization and political development. It is this work which realizes ambitions which were implied but never attempted in his earlier writings.
Francis Fukuyama established his reputation with the publication The End of History and the Last Man, but it is his two-volume work on political order which is his masterpiece.
0 kommentar(er)
