Francis Fukuyama National Construction Research

Since Samuel Huntington so-called the third wave of democratization,although a substantial increase in the number of worldwide democracy,part of the east Asian countries have successfully realized the transition to the liberal democracy,but at the same time,many backwardness democratic transition countries are suffering a series of democratic dilemma,on the way of political development dilemma,even in the back.Nation-building is one of the most important international political propositions today,because weak or failed states have become the root cause of many serious problems in today’s world,such as poverty,AIDS and terrorism.Early on,Fukuyama put forward the “final conclusion of history”,believing that liberal democracy would be the ultimate form of human political domination.However,in reality,many late democratic transition countries are facing a series of democratic difficulties,and developed democratic countries themselves also have many problems.After years of precipitation,fukuyama put forward the theory of national construction.The theory holds that there are three major components of the political system:the state,the legal system,and the accountability system,and a good political order should ensure the balance among them.In recent years,political development has mostly focused on the development of the restraint system(the rule of law,the democratic accountability system),but a country should have the ability to do things in practice before being constrained.Therefore,for developing countries,the primary task is nation-building,and effective nation-building is the prerequisite for a country to complete its democratic transformation.Fukuyama discusses the construction of the state from three aspects:the construction of national institutional capacity,the construction of national identity and the construction of social capital.Among them,the most important is the national institutional capacity building.Fukuyama pointed out that the national construction not only changes from the sheltered family public sector to the impersonal bureaucratic system,but also depends on the national system capacity building,and discusses this issue from the perspective of system supply,system demand and system transplantation.A good system does not necessarily generate its own demand,but needs unique historical background and external shocks.Without strong internal demand,institutional demand is bound to come from the outside.Nation-building is the creation of a national capacity that can sustain itself after the withdrawal of foreign powers.This kind of “exogenous” nation-building mode is manifested as the indirect rule of colonial powers in the colonial period and the modern intervention of the international community.The goal of state construction is a “small and strong”country,that is,the county does not need to manage everything,in the process of institutional reform to shrink the scope of state functions and improve the capacity of state institutions,in a limited range of necessary functions,a strong and effective country.China is currently in the period of regime reform.Although the political environment in China is different from the liberal democratic system described by fukuyama,fukuyama’s theory of nation-building can still provide guidance for us in some aspects of the modernization and comprehensive improvement of the governance system and governance capacity.Of course,fukuyama’s theory still has some unreasonableness and western-style traps,and non-western developing countries should improve their recognition and awareness when they learn from it.