Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalisation of Democracy

這個世代知識份的雄心之作。──The New York Times Book Review敏銳的政治分析家和美妙的說書人。──Gerard de Groot, The Washington Post福山Francis Fukuyama出版了其關於政治秩序的巨著第一卷The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution，隔三年，第二卷Political Order and Political Decay問世。作為亨廷頓的弟子，福山一直在深化亨廷頓的理論，是大氣磅礴的野心之作。 「政治衰敗」是福山這兩年頻頻提到的一個詞，也是福山在本書的關鍵字，他採取客觀、負責任的研究精神，探究政治制度的本質問題，討論國家行政能力的式微；考察了從法國大革命到阿拉伯之春和當代美國政治的深層功能障礙等事例，檢視殖民主義在拉丁美洲、非洲和亞洲不同的政治遺產，並大膽估計未來民主如何面對全球崛起的中產階級。福山認為，地理和歷史都不能構成一個國家的命運（geography is not destiny and history is not fate），好壞其實全賴其政治選擇：20世紀，哥斯大黎加選得好，阿根廷選得差；一個有效的現代國家需要的還是民主機制，也許通往民主體制的道路曲折，但仍舊是唯一的政治體制。In The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama took us from the dawn of mankind to the French and American Revolutions. Here, he picks up the thread again in the second instalment of his definitive account of mankind's emergence as a political animal. This is the story of how state, law and democracy developed after these cataclysmic events, how the modern landscape - with its uneasy tension between dictatorships and liberal democracies - evolved and how in the United States and in other developed democracies, unmistakable signs of decay have emerged. If we want to understand the political systems that dominate and order our lives, we must first address their origins - in our own recent past as well as in the earliest systems of human government. Fukuyama argues that the key to successful government can be reduced to three key elements: a strong state, the rule of law and institutions of democratic accountability. This magisterial account is required reading for anyone wishing to know more about mankind's greatest achievements.