The Political Order and Political Decay: From Industrial Revolution to Globalization of Democracy by Francis Fukuyama (2014)

 Introduction

Political order refers to how a society is organized. Political decay refers to how a country’s institutions and politics are declining, with an increasing emphasis on personal gain and short-term thinking. 

Francis Fukuyama argues that the political order of liberal democracy as we know it today was established during the Industrial Revolution between 1780 and 1840. Since then, liberal democracy has become the dominant form of government for most countries worldwide. 

The other significant forces driving political decay include large-scale trade, global digital connectivity and knowledge flows, immigration, and cultural pluralism. 

In his book The Political Order and Political Decay: From Industrial Revolution to Globalization of Democracy, Francis Fukuyama explores this subject through case studies of Europe before World War I; 19th century America; 20th century Western Europe; post-Communist Eastern Europe; 21st century China; India; Brazil; South Africa; Turkey; former Soviet Republics; Latin America.

What is Political Order, and Why is it Important?

The term political order refers to how a society is organized. In the simplest terms, a well-ordered society is one in which an organized body of elites controls politics. Moreover, the elites must have enough power to command the people’s behavior or the knowledge necessary to govern well.

Ideally, such a society should have a well-ordered economy to maximize the benefits available to all its citizens. Political order, then, refers to the state of society, while political disorder is the absence of such order. 

In a perfect world, political order would exist within the four walls of a home, work, or government office, while the rest of the world outside is chaotic. Specifically, political order has four central elements: power, legitimacy, governance, and legitimacy. 

In a well-ordered society, power would be held by well-organized elites who control the legitimate use of force. Legitimacy refers to the belief of the general populace that the elites are in charge because they command the fair use of power. 

Governance refers to administering the state, including the rules governing its run. Finally, legitimacy refers to the public perception of the state as legitimate and valuable.

The Industrial Revolution and its Impact on Political Order

The Industrial Revolution was one of the most important revolutions in history. The revolution was both a technological and a social phenomenon that transformed Europe and North America from agricultural-based economies to an industrial economies. 

The revolution was sparked by discovering new refining techniques such as the steam engine, mining techniques, and manufacturing techniques such as the assembly line. 

These new technologies and production methods transformed the economy, increased productivity and wealth, and gave birth to a new, prosperous class of capitalists. 

The Industrial Revolution also created a new, mass-based political movement demanding and radical in its egalitarian ideals of fairness, justice, human rights, and democracy.

Political Decay in Western Europe During the 19th Century

During the 19th Century, Europe experienced a period of political decay. The European political order of the feudal era was crumbling. The great powers of Europe were failing, and a new set of smaller nations was emerging as regional powers. 

The states of the French Revolutionary period were governed by law, but the conditions of the German Confederation were governed by personal power. The latter was ruled by a personal dictatorship of Otto von Bismarck, who controlled the use of force, while the former was governed by law. 

The cause of this decay was the loss of legitimacy of the great powers and the emergence of new capabilities. The great powers lost legitimacy because their leaders were corrupt and incompetent, and the people lost confidence in their leaders because the great powers became increasingly involved in wars that threatened the existence of the entire nation.

The Great Powers: The Entangled Giant

The great powers were states that had been the dominant states on the European continent and therefore were the primary beneficiaries of the political order. 

The great powers were also the ones most responsible for starting World War I and were, therefore, the ones that lost most from the political decay. The great powers were the states of France, Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary.

The Paris Commune and the Rise of the United States

The political decay of Western Europe in the 19th Century was partly the result of the internal conflicts among the great powers. The most important of these was the war between France and Germany that ended in 1871 and was called the Franco-Prussian War. 

This war resulted from the German desire for more territory and the French desire for revenge for the defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. The war ended in a victory for Prussia and a loss for France, which became a republic.

The Paris Commune was a short-lived attempt by the people of Paris to govern themselves. This attempt came as a result of the collapse of the French state in 1871 and the loss of legitimacy of the French government.

The Causes of Political Decay

The causes of political decay can be found in the rise of new global power, the loss of legitimacy of the great authorities, and the emergence of regional authorities. The rise of the United States as a global power, the collapse of the French Empire, and the formation of the German Empire were all causes of political decay.

The New Global Power: The United States

The United States rose as a new global power after World War II. It was the only global power that was both a regional and global power. Whereas other regional powers like the British and French were global power but not regional power, the United States was both global and regional power. This meant that it was the only global power vulnerable to regional powers.

Political order refers to how a society is organized. Political decay refers to how a country’s institutions and politics are declining, with an increasing emphasis on personal gain and short-term thinking. 

Francis Fukuyama argues that the political order of liberal democracy as we know it today was established during the Industrial Revolution between 1780 and 1840. Since then, liberal democracy has become the dominant form of government for most countries worldwide. 

Liberal democracy is a political system that holds elections, where citizens vote for representatives to make laws that govern the country. The citizens choose the president and the cabinet through elections. 

Democratically elected representatives create the rules, and the country’s constitution governs them. The goal of democratic politics is to create a government that serves the needs of the people and aims to reduce inequality among them. 

The need for political order arises when people decide to cooperate under rules created by those who are chosen by the majority to govern them. The idea of political order has always been important. It is often measured through the extent to which political violence is kept under control. 

The extent to which leaders are accountable to their people, the extent to which citizens are allowed to make their voices heard, and the extent to which government officials are held responsible for their actions.

The Industrial Revolution and its Impact on Political Order

During the 19th Century, Europe witnessed the Industrial Revolution, during which the factories of Britain and the U.S. snowballed and became the source of economic growth and prosperity. The rise of the industrial revolution occurred in Britain and the U.S. due to their unique geographical locations (coastal regions) and their use of resources in a systematic way. 

The availability of resources (coastal regions, rivers, forests, mineral resources, and workers) and the growth of infrastructure (railways, canals, and roads) made these two countries the engines of the industrial revolution. 

The Industrial Revolution led to the emergence of the concept of political order. The British and the American governments used the power of the Industrial Revolution to build a political order based on the rule of law to regulate the behavior of the citizens. 

The idea of political order became even more critical during the turbulent times of the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was accompanied by the mass migration of people from Europe to North America and Australia. The industrial concentration of the population (concentrating resources like coal, iron, and other minerals in mines, ports, and factories) led to violent conflicts between ethnic and racial groups. 

In order to reduce the chances of violent conflicts and make the industrial society more peaceful, the British and the Americans introduced laws to regulate the behavior of the citizens. 

The rise of a scientific worldview further strengthened the idea of political order accompanied by the Industrial Revolution. The scientific worldview gave the idea of political order a much-needed justification and a rationalization. 

The Industrial Revolution and the rise of the scientific worldview strongly justified the emergence of the idea of political order.

Political Decay in Western Europe During the 19th Century

The Industrial Revolution led to political decay in Western Europe because it increased the gap between the rich and the poor in the cities and the countryside. In rural areas, the Industrial Revolution led to a new class of industrialists (who owned large-scale factories and owned the land on which they were located) who replaced the landed aristocracy.

 The Industrial Revolution and the growth of cities led to the rise of the middle class in the cities, which resulted from the growth of new industries like cotton manufacturing, railways, and iron and steel industries. 

However, what made the middle class rise was the growth of a new industry in the West that was absent in Europe, where the Industrial Revolution had taken place earlier – the mass media. In the 19th Century, the press, radio, and television were new media that were used as a source of political news. 

Wealthy business people and industrialists started investing their money in newspapers, magazines, and journals because they were an excellent way to advertise their products. This led to an even more significant gap between the rich and the poor in the cities and the countryside.

Many business people and industrialists owned most of the newspapers and journals. One of the important political events that led to political decay in Western Europe was the 1848 revolution in France. 

The 1848 revolution in France resulted from the gap between the rich and the poor that had emerged after the Industrial Revolution. The poor were angry at the rich because the rich controlled the newspapers that were used as a source of political news. 

The rich used the press to advertise their products and spread rumors about political leaders. At the same time, the press was used as a source of news about the gap between the rich and the poor. The 1848 revolution in France was preceded by a long period of political decay and mass political movements. 

The 1848 revolution led to the establishment of a new political order in France and the establishment of a robust and centralized government. This political order was called the Third Republic and lasted for a century.

Post-Communist Eastern Europe

During the 19th Century, Western Europe experienced political decay caused by industrialization and the rise of the middle class. In contrast, the Eastern European countries experienced political decay in the 20th Century caused of communism. The governments in Eastern European countries like Poland, Hungary, and Russia were all communist. 

Communism was an attempt to remove the gap between the rich and the poor by replacing the market economy with a centrally planned economy run by a small, elite group. Under communism, citizens had no rights, the state-owned property, and there was no rule of law.

The communist governments in Eastern European countries also tried to eliminate the gap between the rich and the poor by removing the money economy and the market economy. Communism provided a socialistic justification for the gap between the rich and the poor. 

The communist governments in the Eastern European countries spent the money allocated for economic development on defense, weapons, and military expansion—this increased military spending considerably, which increased the gap between the rich and the poor. 

The communist governments tried to suppress the information about the gap between the rich and the poor by controlling the media. This led to the rise of an anti-communist political movement in the form of the Nationalist Movement in Poland. 

The Nationalist Movement in Poland was an anti-communist political movement used to fight against the communist governments in Eastern European countries.

21st century China

The most critical case of political decay in Modern Times is that of China. China experienced a political order based on a Confucian order that was in place for over 2000 years. Confucianism was a class-based political order. 

The Confucian political order included a class of scholars who created new forms of art, music, and literature and ruled over the rest of the people who did manual labor. The Communist government eliminated the scholarly class in China in 1949, which tried to replace Confucianism with Communism. 

This led to a new political order in China, a mixture of Confucianism and communism. China is now ruled by a communist government led by a small elite group.

As in other cases of political decay, the 21st-century Chinese political order is ruled by an elite group of people who try to create new art, music, literature, and new material culture.

India

During the Modern Times, the ideas of the Industrial Revolution and political decay were introduced to India by the British. The British attempted to introduce the ideas of political decay through colonialism and imperialism, but the Indian people defeated them. 

The Indian people were able to fight against the British because they had a substantial, indigenous political order that they had developed over thousands of years. 

The Indian political order was based on the caste system in which people were born into a particular social class, and their social status was passed on.

Brazil

Before the 20th Century, Brazil was isolated from the rest of the world. In the 1800s, a Portuguese administrator named Pedro Alvares Cabral landed in what is now known as Brazil and claimed the land for Portugal. 

The Portuguese soon established a trade network with the local Indian tribes. By the late 1800s, the Brazilians had grown prosperous because of their trade with European and North American nations. 

The Brazilian economy was dominated by coffee farming and the export of natural rubber. In 1915, the coffee market slumped because of the outbreak of World Dysentery. In the 1920s, the Brazilian economy was severely affected by the Great Depression. 

In the 1930s, the Brazilian economy was again crippled by the outbreak of the African Hemorrhagic Fever. By the mid-century, the Brazilian economy had come to rely on a single export—brought to an end by the fall of the Berlin Wall.

South Africa

South Africa was one of the wealthiest countries in the world during the 19th Century. However, by the mid-20th Century, impoverishment and the brutal enforcement of apartheid had turned the country into one of the poorest on the continent. 

During the 19th Century, the British established a trade network with the local African tribes. The Boers, who were Dutch Calvinists who settled in South Africa, established a robust trade network with Great Britain. 

The Dutch also began establishing a trade network with the African tribes. The British and the Dutch, commercial rivals in South Africa, fought each other in the First Boer War (1881–1883) and the Second Boer War (1899–1902). In the 19th Century, the South African economy was dominated by exporting gold and other minerals. 

The discovery of diamonds and other minerals in the late 19th Century made the country one of the richest in the world. The Dutch also introduced new crops, such as citrus fruits, grown in the area. By the 20th Century, the South African economy was once again dominated by agriculture, with the export of gold accounting for a minor part of the total export.

Turkey

Turkey was in the process of becoming a liberal democracy in the 20th Century, but the country was still under the control of the Ottoman Empire. The domination of the Ottomans ended after World War I.

 In 1923, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who had led the resistance against the Ottomans during World War I, proclaimed the Republic of Turkey and established a new constitution. Atatürk tried to create an independent, Western-oriented Turkish nation. 

During the 19th Century, the Ottoman Empire controlled a vast territory, including modern-day Turkey, Greece, and Syria. The empire was the center of Arab and Islamic culture and hugely influenced Europe. 

Turkic tribes, known as the Seljuks, had formed an influential nation in Central Asia by the 11th Century. In the early centuries of the Common Era, the Seljuks conquered the territories of modern-day Iran, Afghanistan, and most of India. 

The Ottomans, originally a Turkic tribe, succeeded the Seljuks as a mighty empire and controlled a vast territory from Europe to the Middle East.

20th century Western Europe: Consolidation, Integration, and Disintegration

In the 20th Century, Western Europe became a force to be reckoned with in the international political order. France and Britain emerged as the major powers in Europe, and by the end of World War I, the League of Nations—founded in 1919—was established as the first international organization to promote international peace and cooperation. 

The European nations agreed to disarm, form economic unions, and strictly regulate the use of military force. The European nations also agreed that any country that belonged to the League of Nations would not be allowed to initiate war against other member states. 

The European nations also agreed to form economic and political alliances. The end of World War II marked the beginning of a new era in international relations, as the victorious allies of World War II decided to create a new international order.

19th century America: Growth, Inequality, and Conflict

In the 19th Century, the United States was a liberal democracy and an emerging industrial power. The United States was known for its slavery, but in the latter part of the Century, it became a nation of immigrants. The Industrial Revolution began in Britain, but it soon spread to the other Western European countries. 

The Industrial Revolution occurred in the United States, where most people were farmers. The American economy was dominated by the export of raw materials, such as cotton and agricultural products, and finished products, such as iron and manufactured goods, mainly produced with iron and steel. 

The 19th Century was an era of tremendous economic growth, especially in transportation, industry, and communications. 

The United States became an industrial and commercial power, and it also became an increasingly unequal society. The Industrial Revolution led to unemployment, especially in Northern cities, and poverty among immigrant workers.

China

In the 19th Century, Western powers targeted the Qing Empire—led by the Manchu emperor—for its lack of openness to Western influence. The Western powers allied themselves with the Japanese in a Chinese republican movement, which was suppressed by the intervention of the Western powers and Japan in 1894. 

In 1911, China experienced a revolution led by Sun Yat-sen, who aimed to overthrow the Manchu Emperor and create a republic. The revolution resulted in the creation of a new nation, the Republic of China, with which the United States and the Western powers did not have diplomatic relations. 

In the early 20th Century, China had a partly feudal economy, but it was also one of the world’s most developed nations. A series of successful campaigns by the Chinese army from the late 1920s to the late 1930s led to the victory of the Chinese nationalist forces over the Japanese army in 1938 and the establishment of a new government in Chongqing, governed by the Nationalist Party.

India

In the late 19th Century, the British began to develop India as an industrial and regional power in Asia. In 1900, India was divided into two dominions—the North-Western Provinces and the Bengal Presidency—and governed by the British government. 

The British introduced several reforms in Indian society. After the end of World War I, India was granted independence as a sovereign nation within the British Empire. 

India’s industrialization and economic growth enabled it to become a great military power in Asia. In World War II, India fought against the British to gain independence.