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The Origins of Political Order, by Francis Fukuyama, explores the development of political systems from prehistory to the eve of the American and French revolutions in the late 18th century. Fukuyama is interested in how and why contemporary liberal democracies emerged. He argues that there are three main components of a stable democratic society:

  • A strong state capable of wielding military power, collecting taxes, and enforcing laws.
  • The rule of law—the belief in an ordering principle higher than the state itself by which the state must abide if it’s to remain legitimate.
  • Accountability, which means that a state respects the rights and needs of its citizens, to whom it must ultimately answer.

The book explores how each of these traits evolved throughout various historical cultures and argues that the weakness or absence of one or more of these components leads to either authoritarianism or government collapse. Fukuyama contends that understanding these principles will help government...

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The Origins of Political Order Summary Part 1: The Origins of Government

Fukuyama’s central goal is to explain the development of the state—by which he means a centrally organized institution that creates and enforces laws within a defined territory. (We’ll discuss states at length in the next section.) Fukuyama says that to fully understand the origins of states, we need to understand earlier social structures—namely, kinship bands and tribes, whose familial dynamics were an obstacle to the formation of states and thus influenced political development.

(Shortform note: Arguably, a secondary goal of this book is to explain why humanity created states in the first place. As we’ll explore in more detail later—and as political theorists as diverse as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract) and Rutger Bregman (Humankind) agree—states are, in many ways, opposed to fundamental human social instincts.)

The First Societies: Kinship Bands

Fukuyama begins his account of political evolution tens of thousands of years before the first state by examining the earliest human societies. He does so because he believes that **humans are...

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The Origins of Political Order Summary Part 2: The State

Now that we’ve explored the fundamental political structures and tendencies in early human societies, we’ll explore how tribal societies evolved into the types of government we’re familiar with today. In this section, we’ll explain what states are, why they evolved, and how they supplanted the forms of social organization that preceded them.

Of the three pillars of modern democracy, we begin with the state because it developed the earliest. Moreover, a strong state is fundamental to any form of government—as we’ll see, it’s entirely possible to have a strong, stable government with no rule of law or accountability, but without a strong state, a country remains a collection of disparate groups with no real political unity.

Defining Terms: What Is a State?

Defining a “state” is challenging. Terms like “state,” “government,” “country,” and “nation” are used somewhat interchangeably in everyday conversation. Also, within political science, experts disagree on the exact definitions of these terms. For the sake of clarity, here’s how we use these terms in this guide:

  • State: As mentioned earlier, a state is an organization that wields centralized legal...

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The Origins of Political Order Summary Part 3: The Rule of Law

After the state, the second major component of a modern liberal democracy is the rule of law—the belief that the state is constrained by some higher standard of conduct. In this section, we’ll explore where the rule of law comes from, how it affects the political order, and how its absence (or weakness) leads to authoritarianism.

What Is the Rule of Law?

Fukuyama defines the rule of law as the authority of law over legislation. In this context, law refers to the abstract principles of justice and order accepted by a community, whereas legislation refers to the creation and application of specific judicial rules. For example, many contemporary states have constitutions (law) that define certain fundamental human rights and prohibit any policies (legislation) that would violate those rights.

(Shortform note: Fukuyama’s distinction between “law” and “legislation” conflicts with the more commonly accepted definition of “legislation” as the procedure by which a lawmaking body creates and implements new laws. However, the basic principles Fukuyama describes line up with typical definitions of “the rule of law” as...

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The Origins of Political Order Summary Part 4: Accountability

The final piece of the puzzle that makes up a modern liberal democracy is accountability—a state’s commitment to the rights and needs of the people it governs. In this section, we’ll examine how accountability evolved in England.

Fukuyama emphasizes that England’s is not the only path to a modern liberal democracy—in fact, he criticizes much of political theory for being overly Anglocentric. But England is the only state to develop strong accountability in the time period this book covers (prehistory through the mid-18th century). In many other states, accountable government was a later development that was influenced by the American and French revolutions, 18th-century ideals of liberty and justice, and the Industrial Revolution.

Accountability Is Separate From Democracy

Fukuyama is specifically interested in democratic accountability—in which even elite officials must answer to the non-elite general public. But it’s worth noting that accountability and democracy don’t necessarily go hand-in–hand. To say that officials are accountable is merely to say...

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The Origins of Political Order Summary Shortform Conclusion: Understanding Modern Politics

Although Fukuyama begins by suggesting that understanding the three pillars will help us foster modern democracies, in the end, the book is more of an analytical description of political history than a practical prescription for political action. In fact, given how complex Fukuyama shows political evolution to be, it seems unlikely that we could ever devise a “recipe” for democratic government.

Still, the book offers a few lessons that can add to our understanding of foreign policy and domestic politics—and, hopefully, guide policymakers to the best possible decisions. In this section, we’ll explore these takeaways while counterbalancing Fukuyama’s often optimistic views on political development with the more skeptical opinions of some of his critics.

Takeaway #1: Democracy Is Contingent

One of Fukuyama’s key ideas is that modern democracy is contingent on the existence of specific conditions that allow the three pillars to develop. For Fukuyama, this contingency is good news because it means that the road to modern democracy is always open. He stresses that each of the three pillars has evolved independently in different cultures at different times in history. This...

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Shortform Exercise: Analyze the Three Components of a Stable Democracy

Fukuyama argues that a stable modern democracy rests on the three pillars of a strong state, the rule of law, and a sense of government accountability. In this exercise, you’ll assess how strongly each pillar is in place in your country.


How strong is your country’s central state? Is it organized and effective? To what extent is it affected by problems such as tribal interests, nepotism, or patronage?

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