Fukuyama's case for state capacity

Willow Latham-Proenca: Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy. I frequently argue that Francis Fukuyama is an under-acknowledged intellectual godfather to the abundance movement. He coined the term “vetocracy” to describe America’s dysfunctional approach to building things back in 2013, and has written some of the most cogent descriptions of American institutional decay (as well as some of the most elegant defenses of modern liberal democracy) in the decade since. His classic Political Order duo is not just a fascinating tour of societies throughout history but a convincing argument on a universal framework of good governance. This was the first thing I read that really brought the tension between state capacity and the rule of law to life for me – the idea that the norms and institutions that allow the state to function effectively (think the Chinese bureaucracy throughout history, or the Ottoman devshirme) and those that prevent state overreach (the medieval English court system…or the US regulatory system) aren’t just items on a “good government” checklist, but self-sustaining leviathans that require active competition to avoid overgrowth.