Journal of Democracy Editorial Board member and NED Board Member Francis Fukuyama shared findings from his new book, Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy at the International Forum for Democratic Studies on October 6, 2014. Reflecting on the current “crisis of global order” and its implications for democracy around the world, Prof. Fukuyama argued:
“The central dividing line in world politics is no longer strictly speaking authoritarianism versus democracy. I would say that one of the bigger dividing lines is actually the existence of a modern, coherent, impersonal state which is possessed by a relatively small number of countries around the world, and states that are corrupt—basically rent-seeking coaltions of self-interested elites that want to use state power for their own personal gain—and I think that is really the issue in many places. I think many of the weaknesses of democracy do not have to do with the weaknesses of democratic institutions…what we don’t have is a mechanism for helping states achieve a degree of state modernity in terms of this impartial, effective kind of state.”
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Learn more about the event, “The Governance Agenda and Democratic Development.
