The Origins of Political Order

Political economist Francis Fukuyama asks how stable political order arises and answers with three components: a strong, modern state, the rule of law and accountable government. Using comparative political history, he works through case studies from China, India, Papua New Guinea, and Western and Eastern Europe, from prehuman times up to the French Revolution. The book tries to explain why state building in places such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Haiti fell short of expectations, and it frames the goal as getting to Denmark, meaning stable, peaceful, prosperous and honest societies. It extends a framework from Political Order in Changing Societies by Samuel P. Huntington. A second volume, Political Order and Political Decay, continues to the present.

Mark Manson called it Fukuyama's magnum opus, a sweeping history of every human political system and of why some succeed while others fail.