The Missing Dimension of Stateness

15 December 2006

Professor Francis Fukuyama

While Professor Francis Fukuyama’s changing evaluation of the arguments of his one-time Neocon colleagues has illuminated major issues about American policy and the war in Iraq, his general thinking about weak states and foreign intervention has received less attention in Australia. In this lecture he continues his review of policies and practices on international aid and the rebuilding of weak, failing and failed states. As Professor Fukuyama has argued, “state-building is one of the most important issues for the world community”, but the history of the last 30 years has shown that the ‘conventional wisdom’ and much expenditure have not resulted in the building of efficient, just and economically vigorous states. Professor Fukuyama does not concede that because foreign aid has had slight (and sometimes a negative) impact it should be abandoned. He has put the case for long-term commitment, pragmatic assessment of what works, stimulation of demand in recipient states and sensitivity to local cultural forces. Now, he returns to the broad issues of aid and state formation, and draws on observations resulting from his research and travel in Melanesia and elsewhere.

The organisers, State Society and Governance in Melanesia at the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, are grateful to the Australian Government through AusAID for its support of this event.

Broad Topics: Arts and Social Sciences, Asia and the Pacific

Sub-topics: Economics, Policy & Political Science, Society & Culture

Areas: ANU College of Asia and the Pacific

Professor Francis Fukuyama, currently Bernard L Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University, was born in Chicago in 1952, and has a BA from Cornell and a doctorate in political science from Harvard. He has worked with the RAND Corporation, the Department of State, advised the World Bank, and served on several significant national boards. Something of the range of his interests can be gauged from the fact that he has written monographs on Russia and the Third World, the consequences of the biotechnology revolution, and social capital. His book, The End of History and the Last Man (1992) was translated into many languages, headed bestseller lists, won major international prizes and provoked popular and academic debates; but his two most recent books, State Building: Governance and World Order in the Twenty-First Century (2004) and After the Neocons: America at the Crossroads (2006) have more immediate relevance for Australia and the region.