What Are The Origins of Political Order?

A Book Review of Francis Fukuyama: The Origins of Political Order

This book was fantastic. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into. The closest thing I have gotten into was an introduction to political philosophy, but this is a different angle. It tells the story of how humanity went from a tribal society to different forms of political organization throughout history. To simplify it, the author mostly focuses on China, India, Muslim Middle East. Each illustrates several types of political history. While it touched on others, I liked that the most were non-European, giving me new insight into these regions’ history and culture.

The book is quite long, and it covers a lot of ground. I must confess at times it was a bit tedious, but overall I still found it enjoyable, and it’s hard to know what to “cut” while not skipping important nuance. It starts with the evolutionary origins of our ape relatives and the very beginning of political order with the role of early religion and ancestor worship. However, it quickly moves on to what we consider a more modern political organization.

Governments evolve over time, and one of the most important aspects of their growth is rule of law and governmental accountability. Rule of law is essential to condition what the government can or cannot do and to establish something “higher” than the government itself. Second, regardless of whatever law is in place, there needs to be a cultural belief that the state has to serve its people and it is accountable for how well it is performing that function.

Political history can in some sense be seen as a fight against human nature, and perhaps the most important thing I took from the book. The growth of a successful government lies in large part by suppressing tribal patrimonialism which always arises due to kin selection and reciprocal altruism. A strong state requires it to be impersonal, which is the exact opposite of the political context we have evolved in. This growth isn’t linear, with political regression and decay being common. Strong states revert back to tribal patrimonialism.

The political evolution of a specific region is very dependent on its history. An important factor is its philosophical roots, like India’s cast system arising out of Hindu metaphysics, to China’s first modern bureaucratic state based on Confucianism and later changing to Legalism. However, many other factors affect it, some as simple as its geography and landscape. For me, it was somewhat amusing how it crushes some explanations of the left-left and right-right into the development of specific regions, with the difference being often attributed to oppression on one side or the supposed superiority on the other. Both seem very misguided after all that Fukuyama presents.

Another point is that while not the only one, one of the most important factors in the creation of a strong state was war. War pressured communities to be better organized and have stronger and more efficient states. This was true in the very beginning of tribal groups and also in modern states. Weaker and less organized states were quickly conquered, producing a sort of evolutionarily filter.

The book is somewhat dense, but if the topic interests you, it’s definitely worth and you will get out of it. Deals with a very complex topic and yet manages to make a coherent and reasonable narrative about mankind’s history of political development. There is a ton of material that is covered, and one of those books that are good to re-read once in a while, although I, unfortunately, don’t have the time. Although this is the first book out of two, the second is Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy. I hope to read it at some point.

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Tiago V.F.