Political Order and Political Decay MP3 CD – Unabridged, November 11, 2014

Due to an illness in the body-politic, we are now vomiting up extremists and extremism.Based on Professor Fukuyama’s theory, gridlock in the Americal political system is explained by the evenly balanced competitive party system that has arisen since the 1980s as well as too many checks and balances in the American system of government (p. 493); that the American political system has decayed over time because of its traditional system of checks and balances (p. 503). While political polarization is mentioned in passing, it is not explained. I believe that my alternative theory explains that the evenly balanced competitive party system that has arisen since the 1980s is due to the increasingly extreme and opposing ideological character of the two major American political parties. I see the gridlock resulting from political extremism pulling apart the body politic and not as a direct result of too many checks and balances as does Professor Fukuyama. I believe that the root cause of the gridlock is ideological, not structural. My theory will also explain the source and progress of the political polarization. This difference in whether the root cause of political decay emanates from a structural or ideological basis has profound implications for the consequences of decay. If I am correct in identifying the source of political decay as ideological, then this decay represents an existential threat and the possibility of civilizational decay. If Professor Fukuyama is correct and source of political decay is structural, then this decay is largely a matter of institutional defect which can be corrected with enough time. I hope that Professor Fukuyama is correct. However, I believe that the ideological divide that I believe drives gridlock and decay is only exasperated by the structural issues identified by professor Fukuyama.Professor Fukuyama highlights one sign of political decay as political parties playing outsized roles in government administration that should be performed by a professional bureaucracy; that these parties also open a path to political decay via the traditional sources of corruption found in patronage, clientelism and interest group lobbying. I agree and this certainly has been and is an undeniable part of the American political experience at varying levels. However, I would like to offer my alternative theory of political decay, in addition to, not in place of, the analysis offered by Professor Fukuyama. As professor Fukuyama points out, there are limits to any general theory of development or decay and that any large complex cultural system can be interpreted in variety of ways, both now and over the course of time. My theory is particular (a special theory of relative decay) to the American experience. I believe that a special case theory is in order because, just as political development does not follow a single path, nor does political decay and the American experience presents a special case. As Professor Fukuyama points out, the U.S. pioneered the development of mass political parties, with these parties being the natural byproduct of electoral democracy and also necessary to its success.Support for My Special Theory of American Political Decay:I believe that the American political parties were able to appropriate, rather than repudiate, political extremes. That is, the two extant major parties in the United States, the modern Democrats and the Republicans, have been able to coopt political extremist groups that would have in all likelihood become leftwing socialist / communist parties or rightwing nationalist / libertarian parties. In coopting the political extremes of left and right, the two major parties also appropriated and modified their extreme agendas. This helped keep moderation in American political thinking and policy thus protecting the American Republic from dangerous ideological extremes. This allowed the American Republic to change incrementally to meet changing political, social and economic realities rather than oscillating between ideological extremes. However, this was not done out of a spirt of public service. The major American political parties also wanted to guard their position of primacy in the American political system, so it was more out of jealous protection of their political position and privilege that they coopted the political exteams of right and left, not out of a sense of service to the Republic. As Professor Fukuyama points out, one major reason why socialism did not take hold in the U.S. was that the Republicans and Democrats expanded to capture the votes of working class Americans by buying them off with short-term rewards and payoffs. Such major party control brought a measure of cohesion, consistency and standardization to American life and thus maintained political stability. Some of the additional benefits offered by mass political parties listed in the text have been the creation stable of expectations, and the dissemination of information. To this I would add, and most importantly, the moderation of extreme pollical ideologies. The ideological extremes were the natural byproduct of rapid social change and economic growth. Coopting the extreme ideologies gave them a stake in the extant two-party system whereas excluding them would have only antagonized them from the extant two-party system and precipitate the growth of extreme fringe parties and the fragmentation of the general political order.I believe that decay is setting into the American political system in the form of increasingly vitriolic and extreme politics and a breakdown in national consensus making national cohesion increasing difficult to attain and the country more difficult to govern for either party in power. This has happened because the two major political parties have been slowly moving further away from the moderate center. A state if moderation must be continuously and tirelessly renewed and maintained. Instead, the process of polarization is rotting out the once reliable and stable political center. The Democrats have been moving left and Republicans have been moving right. In a sense, this is to say nothing by stating the obvious. What I hope to answer here is the question of why this is happening. To wit, I believe that it is the natural result of having coopted the ideological extremes over several generations. That is, those extreme ideologies once coopted by the Democrats and the Republicans, are now coopting and corrupting the major, once centrist, parties from within such that the parties are pulling away from each other and from the political center. This polarization of the parties resulted from well-organized ideological cadres of party activists and leaders taking over the parties thus accelerating the pull to the right of the Republican and to the left of the Democrats.I believe that the great service performed by political parties in coopting and moderating ideological extremes has poisoned the parties, perhaps beyond recovery and this is the special case of American political decay. Modern agenda driven politics reduces consistency and predictability, the key ingredients to a healthy a political order. The most pernicious result of the agenda driven politics is that the state itself ceases to be the neutral arbiter standing above various political parties, agendas and parochial interests and instead becomes a prize to be captured so as to impose an agenda on the country. This zero sum, winner take all mentality, perhaps apposite to a sports competition, is a sure sign of decay in the American political order. I believe that the more the two major parties look alike, think alike, behave alike and agree on moderate policy, the better off is the Republic. Too often, citizens expect too much out of politics. The best that any of us should hope for is coherence, moderation, consistency and predictability. The more the two major political parties are alike, the greater the balance between them, the greater will be the stability of the overall political system will be based on a moderate and broad consensus.In summary:I do not mean to present an overly dichotomous theory in highlighting the roles of the two parties in the U.S. political system. I understand that there is a great deal of fluidity between the parties and they do not offer monolithic sets of belief or practices. However, this variegated fluidity when reduced to a two-party dichotomy, makes the choice simple for voters by masking the great fluidity and spectrum in positions, beliefs and practice that result from a history of having coopted the political extremes over the course of American political development. Thus, in the U.S., the Republicans and the Democrats have saved the country from having to endure extremist political parties of the type that have long plagued European countries. The coopting of the nationalist right by the Republicans and the socialist left by the Democrats neutralized the threat to social order emanating from these extremes but this has also weakened the forces of compromise between the parties and reduced the constituency for consensus in the U.S. The political choice to coopt the extremes coupled with the simple bifurcated two-party choice offered to the electorate is now polarizing the nation’s politics and making the state a prize to be captured, this constitutes the special case of decay in the American political order. To this extent, the American State has been captured by the political parties. This pathology is acutely more dangerous given the outsized role in government administration played by the political parties as pointed out by Professor Fukuyama. The two parties now represent factions divided against the whole.My own prediction based on this special case theory is that the American political system will regress toward the world mean such that if reasonable economic prosperity can be maintained, active political participation will wane. The greater degree of self-absorption and the diminishing degree of social awareness currently taking place in the U.S. will contribute to this reversion. Declining participation in the two major political parties is not a healthy development. Declining participation accelerates the slide into extremism and ideology. Greater broad participation in the each of the parties is a force for moderation. Lower participation only magnifies the influence and power of the dedicated, cohesive and committed extremists in both parties and breeds the dangerous fantasy of ideological purity. These extremist factions have also morphed into interest groups. Protection of the status quo will become the ultimate political end. This may indeed be a best-case scenario. We like to believe that the extreme right as expressed through Fascism as well as the extreme left as expressed through Communism have been discredited, but I believe that both can easily reemerge with a new veneer of respectability and overtake a complacent, low participation, self-absorbed political culture since both tendencies emanate ultimately from deep within human psychology.Reform:Professor Fukuyama’s solution to decay, decay that he sees emanating from the structural defects of patronage, clientelism and well-organized special interest lobbying is for the ‘out-groups’ to unite in the cause of reform because the ‘in-groups’ have a deep interest in the status quo, with all of its defects, to constitute a source of reform within. While Professor Fukuyama points to some historical precedents for this type of beneficial reform, I think it more likely that the ‘out-groups’ will be coopted by the overwhelming inertia of the current system by being made to benefit from it, which has grown into an “inefficient monstrosity” in the words of Professor Fukuyama. I agree with Professor Fukuyama, there are no simple changes, quick fixes or easy solutions to our current, self-imposed problems and that effective fundamental changes that require altering the country’s basic institutional structure are unthinkable and inconceivable, short of an existential crisis, the very crisis that I foresee as a result of decay based on ideological extremism.In the final analysis:The reality is us. If we want better or more humane politics, more rational economics, and a just as well as more sensible social order then we must become more humane, rational, just and sensible people. The method of political, economic or social organization is just beside the point. We can have any so called ‘system’ we desire but the outcomes will be governed by who we are as human beings. The answers are to be found where the problems are it is to be found, with us and within us. This is a matter of political, social, economic and cultural evolution and whether we seem to be headed in the right direction is the key question of our being and our time. Can we evolve fast enough to head off our own shortsighted foolishness? Our foolishness is our ability to be vain in belief in the face of an existence that is at once accidental and contingent. It is not from our sinfulness, but from our foolishness that we need to be saved. Capitalism or socialism, for that matter democracy or aristocracy as well as Christianity or Islam are all just abstractions from ourselves. It does no good to say that capitalism is rapacious but efficient or that socialism is benevolent but inefficient or that democracy is egalitarian and aristocracy elitist or that Islam is correct and Christianity in error, or the Republicans are ‘this’ and Democrats are ‘that’. These are just the labels and abstractions from reality that we use to navigate and organize our experience of existence and they often seduce us into the vanity of belief that divides us into innumerable competitive factions; the result of which is ideology and extremism.The irresistible implication here is that conduct precedes governance or stated another way, ethics comes prior to political philosophy. By way of example, I once heard a professor offer the following question. “How can you say that genocide is wrong in any objective way? I believe that genocide is wrong but this is only my private subjective perspective. How, and in what sense, can you justify the claim that genocide is objectively wrong?” The question was not directed at me, but to another professor. I thought that the obvious answer, not given by the responding professor, was that the private subjective opinion is the one of primary and fundamental importance. Objective moral principles start at the individual level. As each of us individuals arrive at the private subjective opinion that genocide is wrong, and this opinion is spread, an objective moral principle evolves. The apposite question now becomes, ‘what prevents a destructive moral or ethical private subjective opinion, such as slavery is desirable, from propagating and becoming an objective moral standard as it once did?’ The safeguard here is human judgment based upon the principles of compassion and empathy. If we cannot look to the evolution of human judgment based on the principles of compassion and empathy, then judgment is a just a freeloader on the human psyche and of no use.

It has been several years since the first volume was published and the second volume Political Order and Political Decay has been worth the wait. Francis Fukuyama's second volume of his work on the origins and evolution of political orders throughout history is full of insight into how to think about political evolution and where political forces can come from. The work is very much a work of political science but takes the time to discuss economic ideas and when they are applicable and when they are questionable. The book discusses modern political formation from around the industrial revolution to the modern era and discusses the differences across the continents.The book is split into 4 section- the first one is titled the State. The author starts by stating what he believes are the three pillars that are required for political development in the modern era, the state, rule of law and accountability. The author discusses Europe first and the evolution of the state in Britain, France and Germany and how their development of the key pillars came in different orders. The author notes that in Europe in which there was constant conflict between rulers, the threat of war was a catalyst for the development of the State and that development took different forms in different countries. The differences between balance of power in places like Britain vs stronger Despots in Russia led to different institutional development and time scales. The author gives good insight into why Greece and Southern Italy have such different conceptions of the role of the state and trustworthiness of government vs Britan and Germany. The author weaves in how the role of economic development in creating an industrial class that demanded participation - Britain, but also how urbanization can occur without industrialization and in such situations clientelistic (a term the author uses to describe how political actors use favors of employment to gather support) political structures evolve (Greece, Southern Italy and Jacksonian US). The author discusses the way in which the different relationship between variables that determine political structure can lead to a wide variety of political evolution. The case studies of this illuminate why European politics seem to be so challenging at a regional level and how top down dictation of policy has been so ineffective in countries like Greece and Italy. The author also discusses the evolution of politics in the US and how it evolved from clientelistic to a preofessional beauracracy in the late 19th century.The author's second section is on the influence of foreign institutions on political development. The author explores colonial regions and how the imposing authorities impacted political development. The author discusses economic theories surrounding environmental and natural resource factors and shows how they are insufficient to fully determine political outcomes. In this section the author looks at Nigeria and discusses how extractive institutions suppress all innovation and rent seeking behavior destroy any opportunities for progress. The author also discusses how similar conditions like Kenya and Tanzania have led to different political situations based on the order and process by which the state is formed and by the strength of individuals. The author shows how state building is of utmost importance in creating the infrastructure for political progress and how weak states easily degrade. The author also distinguishes between tyrannical states and strong states and that much of Africa is plagued with fundamentally weak states in which governance is almost entirely absent. The author also discusses South America and how the evolution of many Latin American countries were a function of imported Southern European ideas of political order which were highly inegalitarian. The countries were stratified between Creole landowners and large native populations. The lack of wars among the countries in Latin America led to weak states there as well. The author also discuss Asia which is a region with a history of state building independent of colonial oversight. China's history is given some time as it is one of the earliest examples of a state with a strong bureaucracy. The evolution of China is an example of a different path to modern statehood in which strong state with rule by law rather than rule of law. The author also discusses modernizing Japan and the path it took to modern development with the Meiji Restoration. The author discusses how different colonial regions evolved differently due to the way initial conditions differed (terrain and political structure) as well as the level of importance of the colonies in the foreign policy of the colonial nations. The case examples give a lot to think about and detract from the view that political development is a function of a simple recipe book.The author moves on to discuss democracy. He analyzes the conditions for its development and how they have to align for democracy to take hold and be resilient. The author discusses how democracy was a struggle and the idea of one person one vote took a long time to realize itself and has many skeptics today. He discusses political philosophy and goes back to the criticisms of J.S. Mill and discusses the practical evolution of the vote in Britain and how it came about as a consequence of a growing merchant class which demanded more rights. The author discusses similarities between the Arab Spring and 1848 when popular demands for participation decayed quickly as nationalism took precedence and how if how popular backlash doesn't organize itself then sustainability of a political movement is impossible. The author discusses the challenges for the Middle East and its road to democracy given the institutional background would be one of growing from the ground up. The author remains optimistic that there are enough examples in the modern world of working democracies that importing institutions, though difficult should still be possible.The author finally moves on to political decay for which no regime can ignore. The author spends a lot of time on the US and how its system of checks and balances is convoluted and creates very slow moving institutional change. The author argues that Congress is where a reversion to clientelistic politics is occurring and the author discusses how the lobbying movement is a dangerous reversion to legally allowing preferential treatment for elites. The author introduces some extremely important ideas when describing the relationship between bureaucratic autonomy and organizational quality and discusses how the capacity of the state pushes out optimal points of the balance between these variables. The author argues that a hamstrung bureaucracy which has to answer to too many people for too many things ends up wasting time and resources rather than focusing on efficiency and innovation. The author argues that although the idea of democratic transparency is great, it too has a limit in applicability before becoming counterproductive as when bureaucrats focus too much on their accountability rather than their underlying responsibility their efficiency goes down substantially.Political Order and Political Decay is an impressive piece. I cant really do justice in an overview and when reflecting back it is the details rather than the big picture which is important. The author does not want to give broad policy prescriptions as he knows that the landscape is too complex to give a recipe book. Through reading this one gets a sense of why the institutions of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece can be so fundamentally different. One understands aspects of the complexities of governance in Africa and the origins of inequality problems in Latin America. The idea of political decay and how it can occur and in what forms it can take is also very valuable and the idea of a highly competent bureaucracy taking more than a pure agency role and a stronger principal role is something that should be considered very deeply. The organization of the book is not linear and it is effectively filled with examples and analysis of those examples of which only partial interrelations exist. I recommend reading this as well as the first book as they help us understand the process of political evolution and the naivety of trying to implement blanket solutions when dealing with foreign policy. The content is excellent

The second volume of Fukuyama's update of Huntington's classic Political Order in changing societies turns out to be the superior entry to its predecessor, though it is not without its faults.The first part of the book is overly detailed and at times repetitive, often with the main point buried under excessive elaboration, and as such, much may be lost in the process of "getting to Denmark" or rather, getting through the verbiage.However, that is the only major flaw. If one perseveres, one finds one of the strongest analyses of the origins of rule of law, the cultural foundations of the Chinese state, an examination of progressive era US politics, the ongoing decay in modern US politics, and analyses of contemporary China and India.On this basis, Fukuyama's work has become invaluable in the modern world of political science, and helps one understand the cultural differences that result in different forms of the modern state.In some ways something of an intellectual atonement for his rather triumphalist argument that Liberal Democracy represents the End of History.Rather, this work is an examination that history flows in an endless myriad of directions, and one should get to grips with understanding them, and this book provides a compelling guide.

Francis Fukuyama is most famous for his comment that the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 represented 'the end of history' - largely interpreted as epitomising American arrogance, exceptionalism and triumphalism in its assumption that American style liberal democracy was the only viable political system - something that he has been trying to live down ever since. I think its safe to say that with the conclusion of his mammoth two volume magnus opus he has safely put that to bed.'Political order and political decay' is, in part, Francis Fukuyama's answer to the question of what constitutes a successfull liberal democracy, or establish 'political order' to use Fukuyama's terminology, which he states consists of three components:- (1) an established state that has legitimacy able to maintain order and provide basic services (2) rule of law, i.e an independent judiciary not beholden to the ruling powers and (3) democratic accountability. Fukuyama surveys all major political systems from the French revolution onwards to look at how different societies have attempted to answer this question. He does not offer any prescriptions but notes that all three elements have to be held in a balance to avoid what he describes as 'political decay.'What is surprising about the book considering it is written by a man associated with American triumphalism is that some of Fukuyama's sternest criticisms are reserved for his own country. Fukuyama charges his fellow countrymen with being so preoccupied with the second and third part of what constitutes a successfull liberal democracy in their constant criticisms of 'big government' that they have forgotten that the first part is equally important. This is reflected, Fukuyama states, by the polarisation currently evident in American politics which he posits as being rooted within its much vaunted constitution as it makes it near impossible to achieve bipartisanship and political consensus to mobilise real change due to the seperation of powers embedded and multiple checks and balances throughout. Provision of universal healthcare being one clear example of this. Fukuyama categorises the American political system as a 'vetocracy.' Fukuyama outlines how this blind spot on the part of many Americans to recognise that the first component is as equally as important as the other two has lead to political decay at home and chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan. 'State building and democracy building are not the same thing, and in the short run they often exist in a great deal of tension with one another.' This blind spot on the part of the American political system to recognise the importance of having a strong state is also reflected, Fukuyama explains, via a key point outlined in in the first volume and extended further in the second volume that what we refer to today as 'corruption' in politics has its roots in a part of human nature that is unlikely to go away, what biologists would refer to as 'inclusive fitness' and 'reciprocal altruism' or what a layman would describe as the everyday tendency to favour family and friends. In the first volume Fukuyama examined political development from pre-history onwards as humans progressed from bands to tribes ultimately to states. Fukuyama's insight is that while we may have moved away from living in bands and tribes, in many ways, it is unnatural for us to do so and that the 'social contract' which any state represents is always inherently fragile, a reality forgotten by many Americans Fukuyama claims. The 'social contract' upon which all successfull states are based have to overcome these instincts if they are to avoid political decay is the message. Fukuyama states that this 'social contract' is being undermined in American via the corrupting effect of professional lobbyists.The two volumes cover an immense amount of ground therefore it is difficult for any review to it justice. If there is one criticism to be had it is that at times Fukuyama repeats himself, making the same points over and over again. This volume could have lost at least three chapters on the editor's floor to no detriment. That said any criticism feels churlish when Fukuyama has condensed and distilled the entirety of world political history into two thought-provoking volumes and a small number of principles in a way that is both readable and enlightening in equal measure. If it doesnt win a pulitizer prize I will be amazed. Outstanding.

25 years ago as I was embarking on my academic studies this author was at top of polemist's ranks. With stating the end of history had been reached with representative democracy and capitalism the best we can achieve. The second world had collapsed and the third world has been carved out for USA backed dictatorships.Many chapters are just a repeat of his earlier works from the 1990s but with the Arab springs he gives us insight and opinion of the rising of the new wave of an anti American anti exploitation and sits this nicely within an understanding of true proletariat discontent. There's a long history of chequered global events that's packed into this analysis that spans the interlinking interconnectedness of economies, civil unrest & wars. Easy read: no. Will it leave you feeling you understand the rise of Islamic State: probably not. But you will understand how underestimated the rise of Islamic state has been. The faction groups can be traced to Saddam's wars and the Mujahediin & probably from former Russia's invasion of Afghanistan. (Just my opinion).But Fukuyama's book will get you searching for more on globalisation and the reshaping of super powers & understanding how humAn history has brought about terrorism.

Political Order and Political Decay is the second part of Francis Fukuyama’s story of political history. It covers political history and philosophy and I bought it on the basis that it would be something like an updated version of G.H. Sabine’s phenomenal, earlier work on political theory (A History of Political Theory). And though somewhat different from this book, I wasn’t at all disappointed.Fukuyama writes clearly, making any complex ideas and new concepts as understandable as possible for readers. I found the book highly informative and a fabulous read. I would highly recommend this book to others interested in political history, for there are few books on the subject written as well, and as readable as this one.I hope you find my review helpful.

This is a must read if you want to acquire a framework for your understanding of politics. It is a very thorough and wide reaching analysis of the way in the political order, everywhere, works. Politics since the start of the industrial/French revolutions is analysed and the perspective is global . Francis Fukuyama's encyclopaedic knowledge is displayed in the carefully chosen examples from Europe, China, the Americas that illustrate the points made.The book can be read straight through but is set up to allow of reading in smaller chunks. It repeats enough of itself, where relevant, to ensure that you are reminded of lessons from earlier in the book, or the previous book, when reading later chapters.