Exhibit 1193 ยท Magazine essay (not peer reviewed)
America in Decay: The Sources of Political Dysfunction
Political decay thus occurs when institutions fail to adapt to changing external circumstances, either out of intellectual rigidities or because of the power of incumbent elites to protect their positions and block change.
Defines political decay as institutions failing to adapt because incumbents protect their positions, and names three drivers: interest-group capture, judicialization and "vetocracy". States that the American state has been "repatrimonialized" over the past half century (pp. 14-15, section "Liberty and Privilege"; column text interleaved in extraction). Read in the issue scan hosted at gwern.net.
- Source
- Francis Fukuyama, Foreign Affairs 93(5):5-26
- Date
- September-October 2014
- Quoted from
- Section "Why Institutions Decay", pp. 8-9
- Grade
- Primary record
- Document
- https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/america-decay
- Accessed
- 2026-11-10
- Cited by
- Findings citing this exhibit
- Note
- Standing note: argument by historical analogy and a single case, contested by scholars who see the U.S. state as more capable than Fukuyama allows, and by those who date decay differently. Use as a named analyst's thesis, not as a measurement.