The first issue that I should address comes from the fact
that that I have posted this book review on my “Steve’s View from Abroad”
website. What has this to do with India? While a far cry from the failed states
that are the primary focus of this book, India, nevertheless, is a state (or
states, as it’s a federal system) that fails to function effectively in many
realms. Anytime I speak about India, I almost always mention the lack of basic
government services and the effect that this has daily life. Poor roads, poor
drainage, poor sewers, poor water and air quality—I could go on (and did with
some dinner partners just the other night). I believe that India will gain a
measure sophistication and decent quality of life (which includes and
transcends a mere increase in GDP) when Jaipur no longer has garbage strewn
upon its streets; when the poor living in shanties have found decent housing;
and when the middle class has initiated a “Progressive Era” for India to
clean-up political corruption and to address its failing infrastructure. India
is far from a world-class economy currently, but if it can reach a critical minimum
of an engaged middle-class willing to fight the good political fight, it has a
future. A lot of work—a lot—remains to be accomplished, but it can happen.
So issues of governance drew me to this work as one reason,
but the other is the reputation of Fukuyama himself. Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man, now
much maligned, is a very interesting and instructive book. I read it many years
ago to great benefit and delight. The benefit and delight came from
understanding a train of political thought that I’d never grasped very well
before. Plato, Hegel (via Kojeve), and Nietzsche were brought to life in a
manner that I’d never before appreciated. The English tradition, with Locke, Bentham,
Mill, etc. emphasizes rational, utilitarian man, homo economus. However, this older tradition, going back to Plato
and Thucydides (although Plato wanted to crush all human instinct under reason),
emphasizes thymos, our human demand
for dignity and respect, the kinds of things that the English tradition, at
least in economics, tended to downplay if not outright ignore. Fukuyama raised
my understanding Hegel’s dialectic of master and slave, something that in a
rush toward Marx, too much political theory ignored. For this education alone,
Fukuyama’s book was very worthwhile.
The other part of The
End of History and the Last Man concerns the growing trend toward liberal
democracy in the world, and here’s where people have come down hard on
Fukuyama, considering him a failed prophet. However, I don’t recall (sorry, my
copy not here with me) that Fukuyama emphasized that we would all become happy,
bourgeoisie democrats. What I believe that he did—and on which he has not been
rebutted—is to establish that no political system is more appropriate for human
affairs than liberal democracy. As a practice, liberal democracy has not swept
the field, but as an ideal (non-utopian), who stands as a contender? No other
system, I submit, and for this reason, Fukuyama deserves more praise than the
easy derision he has received.
The criticism that The
End of History and the Last Man has received hasn’t slowed Fukuyama, and he’s
gained in prominence. I enjoyed his The
Great Disruption and Trust, and
well as a number of articles that he’s written. Meanwhile, the Panda (sometimes
Hungry, sometimes Inscrutable), during her earlier visit India, was reading his
most recent book, The Origins of Political
Order (Part 1). She began it with some skepticism but concluded it with
approval and assigned it to me to read (my copy awaits me in IC). Thus, when I
saw this slender (179 p.) book, I took it up and read it in less than a day. It
proved worthwhile, indeed.
Written in 2004 after the invasion of Iraq and our incursion
(if that’s the right term) into Afghanistan, it reflects on these experiences
as well as the long list of “failed-states” that grabbed world attention in the
years following the collapse of the Communism. Put simply, states (governments)
serve crucial functions and when they fail (no longer function effectively), people
suffer and often die. Fukuyama initially details the function of states and how
these functions can vary. For instance, the state in the U.S. is much more
limited than European states in the provision of services and policies. Think
healthcare, for instance. While thoughts can vary in this regard, a certain
minimum number of functions need attention. In addition, Fukuyama devotes a
chapter to public administration, which proves to me, again, not only his
mastery of a great empirical body of knowledge, but his ability to draw out
some of the fundamental theoretical and practical aspects of a topic like
public administration.
Fukuyama discusses how public administration is an issue
around the globe and identifies its unique problems. For instance, the agency
problem, the scope of authority problem, and the motivation problem. Fukuyama
criticizes the microeconomics approach to public administration and the
institutional approach, at least to the extent that those approaches aren’t
augmented by a sociological approach. Fukuyama notes that organizations, or
more exactly, the individuals within them, are governed by group norms,
personal relationships, leadership standards, and other non-economic motivations
(without totally ignoring the economic issues). His example of the armed forces
serves perfectly: men and women don’t fight and die for the great pay; they
fight and die for each other. (By the way, this applies to terrorists as well.
See Scott Atran’s work Talking with the
Enemy.) Among our economics-envying social sciences, this may come as news.
It shouldn’t, but at least in the current policy-making world, it does.
(Economics, in the meanwhile, suffers from a perverse physics-envy.) Everyone should
consider this from Fukuyama:
It has been a longstanding dream of the social sciences
to turn the study of human behavior into a true science, moving from the mere description
to formal models of causation with nontrivial predictive value, based on
rigorous empirical observation. This project can be realized more readily in
some spheres of human behavior than in others. Markets are susceptible to this
kind of analysis, which is why economics emerged as the queen of the social
sciences in the late twentieth century. But organizations constitute a
complicated case. Individuals in the organizations look out for their narrow
self-interests, and to the extent they do, the economist’s methodological
individualism provides genuine insight. But to a much greater extent than in
markets, norms and social ties affect individual choices in organizations. The effort
to be more “scientific” than the underlying subject matter permits carries a
real cost in blinding us to the real complexities of public administration as
it is practiced in different societies. (123)
Agreed. Thus, theorists like Herbert Simon, James March, and
Chester Barnard receive Fukuyama’s use and praise instead of more recent
thinkers. In addition, I must note the fascinating account of Japanese public
administration after WWII when American “experts” attempted to “fix it”.
Amazing.
Finally, Fukuyama addresses the issue of sovereignty, one in
which the U.S. (especially the Bush Administration) and other countries often
parted ways. To his credit, Fukuyama mentions Robert Kagan, whom I believe has
been a critic of Fukuyama’s The End of
History and the Last Man. He cites Kagan’s appreciation of the differences
between the U.S. and Europe on these issues.
All in all, a short but powerful book. Having now
experienced ineffective or marginally effective states (I’ll throw in Cameroon
as well), I have a new and greater appreciation of the mundane but crucial work
of government.
I received the assignment to read the novel for my Modern
Fiction course taught by David (“First Blood”) Morrell. The book was near the
top of the reading list, and in a semester that began with a mistake (I misread
my transcript), I had to read more works than I had time for. In the words of
the Panda, I “had to be strategic”. Fortunately, Professor Morrell told us
about the echo, the Freytag triangle, and how this novel helped create the
transition to modern fiction. Anyway, it was enough to do well in the course. Within
the last year, of course, this omission began to haunt me. Shouldn’t I now read
this classic? Well, I again procrastinated. I’d seen the movie years ago (and
remember virtually nothing about it), but mostly I wanted to focus on reading
about other aspects of India, both longer ago (Moguls and rajas) and the recent
past and contemporary India. Thus, until recently, I’ve avoided reading about
the British Raj. Now, however, perhaps for the mere fact that Indian Summer had been looking at me for
so long (my books look at me longingly and pleadingly when I don’t pay
attention to them), I decided to read Forster's classic. Then, when I saw a good edition of A Passage to India (Penguin, with an
introduction by Pankaj Mishra), I bought it and
moved it toward the top of the pile. 
