Political Development and Political Decay: Overview

Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Location: Kenney Auditoriu, The Nitze Building, SAIS
Francis Fukuyama, director of the International Development Program, discussed "Political Development and Political Decay" on Wednesday, September 16, as part of his four-part lecture series entitled, "Getting to Denmark: Where the State, Rule of Law and Accountable Government Come From."

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Francis Fukuyama
• international Development

[gspilz]

His characterization of moralistic aggression as emotional expression to perceived norm deviation is nonsensical. I'm just a social deviant that dropped out of high school, but there seems to me a common flaw in many ideas throughout the systems & social sciences where assumptions are made along the way to theories built on foundation littered with false dichotomies. Natural vs Rational is a common one. ..and novelty is norm deviation free of moral implications

[gspilz]

Fukuyama's ability to stick out as an individual in his field (a deviation from the norm that looks to me like an unimaginative sea of mediocrity absent of novelty) may be partly the result of his unusual application of common sense across a wide range of disparate yet connected concepts, often against previously unquestioned orthodoxy. Unfortunately he does this while making an even greater number of assumptions. 'tis good, though; I only watch to find flaw & that stimulates the mind.

[olylifter69kg]

he mentions european society in general especially their rulers possessing the rule of law that limits their authority of being too overbearing such as was the case of denmark, england & america. so how much of this concept of the rule of law was practiced for the colonized peoples under the yoke of european imperialism?it seems the concept was not as applicable to non caucasian kin members but still practiced to a small degree as a show of restraint, better than genghis khan methodology i guess

[hooah68]

whats with the break at 41:39 ??

[Danjuma13]

There are other criticisms that could be made, e.g. that slavery doesn't arise with the state, but in fact is in many stateless societies, reaching an extreme degree in Northwest Coast Amerindian societies. But I'm mostly glad that his theorizing is more solidly based on empirical research instead of on theoretical philosophizing.

[Danjuma13]

Several more minor things are wrong. He assumes that human kinship began as patrilineal clans. There's really no evidence of that, in fact social scientists going back not only to L. H. Morgan but to ibn Khaldun have shown how there is a tendency to move from matrilineal to patrilineal societies. Remember, these societies have been evolving as long as our own. He should read some real paleoanthropology, not the pop stuff. e.g. Early Human Kinship ed. by James et. al.

[Danjuma13]

OK, let's say the good things first.

Overwhelmingly good is that he has abandoned Hegel's ridiculous claim that the post-slave trade kingdoms of West Africa were the starting point of human political evolution. He didn't say that directly in The End of History of course, but it is implicit in his scheme, where the search for recognition and the slave nature of the state is the starting point of human political evolution. Now he's going to be empirical about human political evolution.