Super Short Summary

In his nonfiction book The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution (2011), American political scientist and economist Francis Fukuyama explores the components of what it takes for a state to maintain its political stability. Fukuyama's findings better illuminate why so many of the United States' modern state-building efforts, from Iraq to Somalia, have largely failed by examining the historical context for these failures. In 2014, Fukuyama released a sequel entitled Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Present Day. Fukuyama discusses the historical development of political order, emphasizing three key elements: strong state building, a rule of law, and government accountability. He investigates various ancient and modern civilizations to illustrate how these elements contributed to the development of democracy, with particular focus on England and Denmark as models of successful statehood.