Are our current political arrangements part of the solution, or part of the problem?
[Fukuyama insists] that democratic institutions are only ever one component of political stability. In the wrong circumstances they can be a destabilising force as well. His core argument is that three building blocks are required for a well-ordered society: you need a strong state, the rule of law and democratic accountability. And you need them all together.
What matters most of all is getting the sequence right. Democracy doesn’t come first. A strong state does. States that democratise before they acquire the capacity to rule effectively will invariably fail.
This is an explanation of how we have got to where we are but it is not a recipe for making the world a better place. Telling people who want democracy to hold off in order to strengthen their state won’t wash, because having to live under a strong state in the absence of democracy is often a miserable experience: that’s why the Arab spring erupted in the first place. It is the basic tension in Fukuyama’s oeuvre: if we live in an age where democracy is the best idea but discover that democracy will only work if we defer it, then politics is going to be a horribly messy business.
The other problem is that getting the right sequence often takes a shock to the system.
