Yet democracy was in some ways a historical accident, said Fukuyama, because during the same period other European societies, such as France or Spain, were unable to impose similar accountability upon their monarchs and lived under absolute rule.
Formal accountability made an important advance in seventeenth-century England when the parliament forced the king to respond to its demands, and this eventually formed the basis for democracy. Accountability: An accountable government is responsible to the people it governs.The rule of law developed before a modern state in those parts of the world dominated by Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism, he noted, but it did not develop at all in China due to its lack of independent religious institutions. The rule of law has its origins in organized religion, Fukuyama added, which created a set of rules with a legitimacy independent from that of the state. The Rule of Law: The rule of law limits the power of government by establishing accepted rules of justice, which are higher than any individual who currently holds political power.Yet even in China, kinship-based power relations tended to reassert themselves in periods of political decay, added Fukuyama, because humans have a natural instinct to favor relatives. China was the first society to create a rational meritocratic bureaucracy by implementing civil service examinations and appointing outside governors without local tribal ties.
A modern state concentrates and deploys power to enforce rules on an impersonal basis.
Political development consists of three institutional domains, which do not necessarily evolve in parallel with one another. Although political development is affected by economic development, the two should be understood as separate arenas, Fukuyama argued.
0 kommentar(er)
