State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21St Century [Hardcover]

Francis Fukuyama's newest book, State Building, while well written and insightful as one would expect from a scholar of his caliber, feels rather like a patchwork quilt at times. It is unclear at times whether the book is written for an academic audience or for a more general audience, and while in the end I would recommend it for either, the general reader would be well advised to read carefully and ask lots of questions regarding some of the fine points of industrial organization theory and their application to Fukuyama's final goal of explaining the art of state-building in the 21st century.

While the index indicates that the book has four primary sections, in reality there are just three sections, the four is comprised of simply of a summary and conclusion. In the first section Fukuyama covers the basics of political economy. Most of his time in covering the basics of political economy is spent clarifying the difference between the scope of government power and the strength of government power, and while this is a well-known distinction to be drawn to most academics, fewer of the general readers may be familiar with it. The remainder of this section is devoted to explaining the importance of institutions, both native and imported, to all aspects of applied political economy. Fukayama covers a great deal of ground in this section, but he does an admirable job of covering the ground effectively.

The second section of the book is devoted to a much more academic analysis of the problems of institutions and institutional design. In this section in particular general readers would likely struggle. The topics approached are not easy nor intuitive, and while the first section does lay a reasonable groundwork for understanding them, an individual approaching them for the first time through this book is likely to be either confused, bored, or both. This problem is particularly acute when Fukuyama slips into the realm of corporate organization and the role of CEOs in developing the corporate culture because the connection to his primary thesis is one recognized by social scientists, but not always by the general public. That said, his eventual conclusion that institutions matter but cannot just be imposed, like the Washington Consensus, is both accurate and important to understand. His explanation, that culture and history really matter, while not as complete or rigorous as one would ideally hope for, is plausible.

The final section of State-Building deals with a more political and less economic topic, a justification for the very act of state-building. In my opinion this is the most interesting section of the book because it provides a very interesting perspective on a topic that has never really been resolved, the issue of the power and foundations of legitimate statehood. Fukuyama's analysis is as strong here as anywhere else in the book, perhaps stronger, and it is more than accessible to the average reader (or at least the average reader of non-fiction books).

My Two Cents:

As much as I would like to believe that there is a simple answer to the questions raised, that given facts of the world X, Y, and Z then sovereignty should/should not be protected, or that institutional design X/Y is the absolutely efficient one, I agree with Fukuyama that our current state of knowledge is simply insufficient to make such judgements. While Fukuyama seems to be holding out hope that one day we will know enough to make such decisions, I am more skeptical. The world is not a static place, it is constantly changing, what is true now will not be true in a month, let alone a year or more. With such a rapid change in the facts of the world, I do not believe that answers on statehood and institutional design will ever be truly answered, all we can do is to discuss what we think we know, debate the options that we believe we have, and to try to not be too surprised when we're wrong. We can only hope that people like Francis Fukuyama will continue to be involved in the process and to make such contributions as they can.

Neocon apostate Francis Fukuyama has always been more of a social scientist than an ideologue. In his recent well-publicized falling-out with the movement on the wisdom of the invasion of Iraq, he has dealt neoconservatism a heavy blow. In this book, he cautions those who believe that democracy or good governance can be transplanted to weak or failing states.

Since 9/11 there has been much discussion about weak or failing states and the threat they pose to international security. It is true that the instablity that is created can no longer be ignored by the international community. Fukuyama addresses many of the problems that we face in attempting to strengthen weak states or building them from the ground up.

Fukuyama makes an important distinction between state-building and nation-building. Outsiders cannot build nations in the sense of creating all the social, cultural, and historical bonds that hold a nation together. State-building, however, is more limited in scope: it seeks only to strengthen government institutions such as the army, the police force, the judiciary, and the central bank, the bare minimum to make a state self-sustaining.

Fukuyama distinguishes between the strength and scope of government power. It is important that the state be strong in order to provide security and stability so that institutional capacity can be built. It is also important that government be limited in scope in order for private markets to flourish. Outsiders should not replace local institutions - this has always been the sin of aid organizations. This is why, for example, in Africa one finds aid organizations still in place 20 or 30 years after they arrive, they have destroyed all the local institutional capacity.

The first phase of state-building is relatively easy: it consists of creating stability, offering humanitarian assisstance, and jump-starting the economy. The second phase is more difficult: it consists of creating self-sustaining political and economic institutions that will be conducive to good governance and economic growth. Self-sustaining is the key word. Outsiders who intervene cannot exit unless there are viable institutions left behind.

Fukuyama is very critical of the Bush administration's post-war efforts in Iraq. When the regime of Saddam Hussein was destroyed the state collapsed completely, there was a complete breakdown of public order. As with all totalitarian systems there was no civil society to take up the slack. What was initially a liberation devolved quickly into chaos and looting. And to make matters worse, the Department of Defence was put in charge of reconstruction. The State Department with its expertise in civil affairs was kept out of the picture. Neocons - Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz - were always distrustful of the State Department, they considered it compromised, almost as bad as the UN. The only problem was the Department of Defence had no knowledge or capacity for state-building.

Observers always point to Japan and Germany as two successful efforts by the US at state-building; however, a comparison to Iraq is not accurate. Japan and Germany not only had more or less ethnically homogeneous populations, they already had highly developed institutional capacity. Occupation only changed the basis of legitimacy for the governments. State-building in Iraq will be much more costly in lives and resources.

After reading this book, one is left with the impression that successful state-buliding is next to impossible. Yet, given the problems of the day: poverty, virulent disease, illicit drugs, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, etc., it is still necessary to grapple with the problem of weak states. Fukuyama has written a very thoughtful analysis of how to approach one of the most pressing problems of the 21st century.

Less government is to be preferred as a rule, however when no societal or cultural constructs or traditions exist to provide a framework for organized positive behavior, governmental organizations are to be preferred to chaos. In many areas of the world the infrastructure is not able to cope with either the problems facing the population or the volume of help offered by the relief agencies. The situation is further complicated by the imposition of aid structures by the relief agencies that compete with the existing frameworks for available resources. According to Fukuyama , keeping civil society from degenerating into simple rent-seeking interest groups is dependent more on the nature of that civil society than the design of its institutions. The Westphalian model of the nation-state implying state sovereignty has been challenged many times in the pursuit of humanitarian objectives. It is unreasonable to accept the breach of sovereignty for humanitarian reasons, but not to prevent security threats, implying that defense of others is more legitimate than self-defense. Fixing this problem leads to the physical intervention in other states and the reform of their governments in order to eliminate them as a threat and prevent new threats from emerging. This is nation-building. Nation-building , to be effective , must create state services that can be effective after foreign support is withdrawn. Successful examples have been Germany and Japan after WWII due to strong bureaucratic populations that survived the disruption of war and occupation. Other examples are India, Singapore and Hong Kong, for the British, Taiwan and Korea for the Japanese. Fukuyama stresses the need for international aid organizations to make structural capacity building their primary concern rather than simple short-term crisis solving

He is not optimistic since aid organizations or any other interested constituencies want to show quantifiable results to justify their efforts. Due to their competitive advantages, aid organizations marginalize locals and reduce the effectiveness of existing societal chiefs. The result is non-sustainability of their structures. Sustainability is still the goal and should be attempted. That being said, empowering local organizations at the lowest level possible to implement the policies is recommended as is the clear statement of organizational policies and objectives throughout the organization. Fukuyama further favors the use of small NGOs who can be more efficient than governments to implement policy and can make more effective use of local knowledge. The overall goals of state-building should be to create self-sustaining structures that can maintain order, security, accountability, education, and the rule of law. Finally Fukuyama contrasts the European universalist world view with that of Americans. He says that Europeans see the state as a guardian of public interest separate from and superior to the views of the citizenry. They see international or collective bodies (like the EU) as having legitimacy superior to their individual components. They also justify laws embodying social policy as expressions of social objectives. Americans do not. The American view is that unachievable social aspirations made into law weaken the rule of law itself. They also see no legitimacy of governments beyond the constitutional democratic nation-state. In this view international organizations have legitimacy only if and as long as duly elected majorities grant it. Only states can aggregate and deploy legitimate power. Fukuyama concludes: the withering away of the state is not Utopia, but disaster. Once again, as in his "The End Of History And The Last Man" Fukuyama has produced an erudite, compelling, and controversal book that no student of modern history should miss.

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