Political Order And Political Decay: From The I... May 2026

is the 2014 sequel to Francis Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order . While the first volume traces political development from prehistory to the French Revolution, this second installment examines how modern institutions evolved from the Industrial Revolution to the present—and how they can eventually rot from within. The Three Pillars of Political Order

In the U.S., many administrative issues are resolved in courts rather than by expert bureaucracies. This leads to a slow, costly legal process that further hinders state capacity. Political Order and Political Decay: From the I...

A once-strong state now suffering from "decay" through legal gridlock and interest group capture. is the 2014 sequel to Francis Fukuyama's The

An example of how war forced the development of a professional, autonomous bureaucracy. This leads to a slow, costly legal process

Fukuyama uses this term to describe a system with so many checks and balances that small interest groups can effectively block—or "veto"—any action that benefits the public good.