is corrupt and increasingly illegitimate, there is no straightforward reform agenda for fixing it within the parameters of the existing system.
A question for the future is whether these problems are characteristic of liberal democracies as a whole, or are unique to the United States.
I should note at the outset several topics that the present volume will not seek to address. It is not intended to be anything like a comprehensive history of the past two centuries. Anyone seeking to learn about the origins of the world wars or the cold war, the Bolshevik or Chinese Revolutions, the Holocaust, the gold standard, or the founding of the United Nations should look elsewhere. I have chosen instead certain topics within the broad field of political development that I feel have been relatively underemphasized or misunderstood.
This book focuses on the evolution of political institutions within individual societies, and not on international ones. It is clear that the current degree of globalization and interdependence among states means that national states are to a much lesser degree the monopoly providers of public services (if they ever were). Today there are a huge number of international bodies, nongovernmental organizations, multinational corporations, and informal networks that supply services traditionally associated with governments. For many observers, the word âgovernanceâ refers to government-like services provided by virtually anything other than a traditional government. 8 It is also reasonably clear that the existing structure of international institutions is inadequate to provide sufficient levels of cooperation, on issues from the drug trade to financial regulation to climate change. All these are again very worthy topics, but ones that I do not discuss at any length in this book. 9
This book is backward lookingâit tries to explain how existing institutions arose and evolved over time. Although it points to any number of problems that beset modern political systems under the heading of political decay, I avoid overly specific recommendations for fixing them. While I have spent a lot of my life in a public policy world that seeks very specific solutions to policy problems, this book aims at a level of analysis pointing to their deeper systemic sources. Some of the issues we face today may not in fact have any particularly good policy solutions. In a similar vein, I do not spend any time speculating about the future of the different types of political institutions discussed here. My focus rather is on the question of how we got to the present.
THREE INSTITUTIONS
I believe that a political system resting on a balance among state, law, and accountability is both a practical and a moral necessity for all societies. All societies need states that can generate sufficient power to defend themselves externally and internally, and to enforce commonly agreed upon laws. All societies need to regularize the exercise of power through law, to make sure that the law applies impersonally to all citizens, and that there are no exemptions for a privileged few. And governments must be responsive not only to elites and to the needs of those running the government; the government should serve the interests of the broader community. There need to be peaceful mechanisms for resolving the inevitable conflicts that emerge in pluralistic societies.
I believe that development of these three sets of institutions becomes a universal requirement for all human societies over time. They do not simply represent the cultural preferences of Western societies or any particular cultural group. For better or worse, there is no alternative to a modern, impersonal state as guarantor of order and security, and as a source of necessary public goods. The rule of law is critical for economic development; without clear property rights and contract enforcement, it is difficult for businesses to break out of small circles of trust. Moreover, to
A question for the future is whether these problems are characteristic of liberal democracies as a whole, or are unique to the United States.
I should note at the outset several topics that the present volume will not seek to address. It is not intended to be anything like a comprehensive history of the past two centuries. Anyone seeking to learn about the origins of the world wars or the cold war, the Bolshevik or Chinese Revolutions, the Holocaust, the gold standard, or the founding of the United Nations should look elsewhere. I have chosen instead certain topics within the broad field of political development that I feel have been relatively underemphasized or misunderstood.
This book focuses on the evolution of political institutions within individual societies, and not on international ones. It is clear that the current degree of globalization and interdependence among states means that national states are to a much lesser degree the monopoly providers of public services (if they ever were). Today there are a huge number of international bodies, nongovernmental organizations, multinational corporations, and informal networks that supply services traditionally associated with governments. For many observers, the word âgovernanceâ refers to government-like services provided by virtually anything other than a traditional government. 8 It is also reasonably clear that the existing structure of international institutions is inadequate to provide sufficient levels of cooperation, on issues from the drug trade to financial regulation to climate change. All these are again very worthy topics, but ones that I do not discuss at any length in this book. 9
This book is backward lookingâit tries to explain how existing institutions arose and evolved over time. Although it points to any number of problems that beset modern political systems under the heading of political decay, I avoid overly specific recommendations for fixing them. While I have spent a lot of my life in a public policy world that seeks very specific solutions to policy problems, this book aims at a level of analysis pointing to their deeper systemic sources. Some of the issues we face today may not in fact have any particularly good policy solutions. In a similar vein, I do not spend any time speculating about the future of the different types of political institutions discussed here. My focus rather is on the question of how we got to the present.
THREE INSTITUTIONS
I believe that a political system resting on a balance among state, law, and accountability is both a practical and a moral necessity for all societies. All societies need states that can generate sufficient power to defend themselves externally and internally, and to enforce commonly agreed upon laws. All societies need to regularize the exercise of power through law, to make sure that the law applies impersonally to all citizens, and that there are no exemptions for a privileged few. And governments must be responsive not only to elites and to the needs of those running the government; the government should serve the interests of the broader community. There need to be peaceful mechanisms for resolving the inevitable conflicts that emerge in pluralistic societies.
I believe that development of these three sets of institutions becomes a universal requirement for all human societies over time. They do not simply represent the cultural preferences of Western societies or any particular cultural group. For better or worse, there is no alternative to a modern, impersonal state as guarantor of order and security, and as a source of necessary public goods. The rule of law is critical for economic development; without clear property rights and contract enforcement, it is difficult for businesses to break out of small circles of trust. Moreover, to
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