The Origins of Political Order
Encyclopedia
The Origins of Political Order is a book by Francis Fukuyama
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The book is the first in a series of books on the development of political order. This book goes from its origins to the French Revolution. The next book starts with the revolution, and there may be a third book with a view to the future. The book came about partly in an attempt to understand why modern statebuilding in countries with non-european backgrounds have failed to live up to expectations.
Rule of Law is here meant as the idea that not even the head of state is above the law.
China, India, the Islamic world and Europe developed these three aspects of political organization very differently.
To create a loyal administrative class for the state, some states took extreme measures to try and destroy family and clans in a variety of original ways.
Clan ties were the first destroyed in Europe due to the introduction of a rule of law by the Catholic Church.
England and Denmark developed via different paths the three essential aspects: A strong state, the rule of law, and mechanisms to hold the ruler accountable. These were then copied by other states with the similar backgrounds. By ignoring these backgrounds, we fail to understand why current attempts at state buildings in dissimilar countries all have hitherto failed to live up to expectations. States have been built with outside help, but with neither rule of law nor any accountability of those who govern.
Next came tribes which developed with ancestor worship, which developed into religions. A larger number of people could worship a common ancestor, and larger numbers is a big military advantage.
Finally States offered a better chance of survival of the group. It is the only explanation he can find to why people would give up the freedom and relative equality of the tribe for the unequal and as we see by many examples in the book, brutal coercion of the state.
He traces different ways to try to free the state from family and clan/tribe-ties.
One method was bureaucracy based on examinations from school.
The bureaucrats were then appointed to govern different provinces of China, but were restricted in what family ties they could have.
A second method was using eunuchs in the central bureaucracy.
A third method was murder most foul and large scale wars, which could muster armies up to 25% of the population, and decimate the population significantly.
Yet tribes were never obliterated and sprang up to take care of society at each state collapse.
The state was above the law and above religion.
The author suggests that this seems to be the case even in modern China.
In stark contrast to China, states that tried to control all of India were short-lasting.
Brahmins would typically object to war and refuse to perform rites to stop war.
A traditional sort of rule of law thereby averts the horrors of the Chinese wars.
The clans and casts that existed in India 5,000 years ago still exist today.
To get a government free of corruption, family and tribe ties, some sultans decided to employ only slaves taken away from their families.
Since Muslims cannot be slaves, these were stolen or bought from various non-muslin countries.
The Mukluks, one of several versions of these military slaves, defeated the Mongols and ousted the Crusaders.
The institution decayed from the very danger it was designed to prevent: weak sultans allowed the soldiers’ sons to succeed their fathers in office, whereupon the soldiers’ loyalty reverted to their families instead of the state.
This successful formula then became adopted by other European states, through a kind of natural selection that favored the most successful variation.
Francis Fukuyama
Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama is an American political scientist, political economist, and author. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford. Before that he served as a professor and director of the International Development program at the School of...
.
The book is the first in a series of books on the development of political order. This book goes from its origins to the French Revolution. The next book starts with the revolution, and there may be a third book with a view to the future. The book came about partly in an attempt to understand why modern statebuilding in countries with non-european backgrounds have failed to live up to expectations.
Overview
Rule of Law, the origins of institutions and clans are central themes in the book.Rule of Law is here meant as the idea that not even the head of state is above the law.
China, India, the Islamic world and Europe developed these three aspects of political organization very differently.
To create a loyal administrative class for the state, some states took extreme measures to try and destroy family and clans in a variety of original ways.
Clan ties were the first destroyed in Europe due to the introduction of a rule of law by the Catholic Church.
England and Denmark developed via different paths the three essential aspects: A strong state, the rule of law, and mechanisms to hold the ruler accountable. These were then copied by other states with the similar backgrounds. By ignoring these backgrounds, we fail to understand why current attempts at state buildings in dissimilar countries all have hitherto failed to live up to expectations. States have been built with outside help, but with neither rule of law nor any accountability of those who govern.
A timeline view of human groups
Hunter-gatherer bands, not the family, has been the primary unit, just as it is with chimpanzees.Next came tribes which developed with ancestor worship, which developed into religions. A larger number of people could worship a common ancestor, and larger numbers is a big military advantage.
Finally States offered a better chance of survival of the group. It is the only explanation he can find to why people would give up the freedom and relative equality of the tribe for the unequal and as we see by many examples in the book, brutal coercion of the state.
China - the first modern state
The Qin dynasty in 221 B.C. was created from the warring states period. It is not the first state, but the first strong modern state, (according to the usual definition by Max Weber).He traces different ways to try to free the state from family and clan/tribe-ties.
One method was bureaucracy based on examinations from school.
The bureaucrats were then appointed to govern different provinces of China, but were restricted in what family ties they could have.
A second method was using eunuchs in the central bureaucracy.
A third method was murder most foul and large scale wars, which could muster armies up to 25% of the population, and decimate the population significantly.
Yet tribes were never obliterated and sprang up to take care of society at each state collapse.
The state was above the law and above religion.
The author suggests that this seems to be the case even in modern China.
India
Religion developed Hinduism far before states appeared.In stark contrast to China, states that tried to control all of India were short-lasting.
Brahmins would typically object to war and refuse to perform rites to stop war.
A traditional sort of rule of law thereby averts the horrors of the Chinese wars.
The clans and casts that existed in India 5,000 years ago still exist today.
Muslim State Slavery
Slaves were the governing class of several Muslim states, the Ottoman empire and of Egypt for hundreds of years.To get a government free of corruption, family and tribe ties, some sultans decided to employ only slaves taken away from their families.
Since Muslims cannot be slaves, these were stolen or bought from various non-muslin countries.
The Mukluks, one of several versions of these military slaves, defeated the Mongols and ousted the Crusaders.
The institution decayed from the very danger it was designed to prevent: weak sultans allowed the soldiers’ sons to succeed their fathers in office, whereupon the soldiers’ loyalty reverted to their families instead of the state.
Europe
Justinian law was recovered in Northern Italy about 1070 and the Catholic Church upheld that nobody was above the law. The Catholic Church now introduced many laws whose primary purpose was, just as China and some Sultanates before them, to get their organization free of corruption, family and tribe ties. They enforced several laws, especially in marital law. One was to forbid priests to marry. Another was to forbid women being forced to marry into the clan to keep her property clan-owned. Many of these women refuse to be subjected to marriage, and instead owned property and therefore got several rights of their own. Two interesting side effects ensued. One was that the church inherited vast areas of land. Another was that tribes ceased to exist within a hundred years of a country being christened.England and Denmark
England and Denmark developed via different paths the three essential institutions of a strong state, the rule of law, and mechanisms to hold the ruler accountable.This successful formula then became adopted by other European states, through a kind of natural selection that favored the most successful variation.