Dimensions of Development - Francis Fukuyama

Summary

In this GEM conference speech, Francis Fukuyama discusses the multifaceted nature of development, emphasizing its complexity due to the interplay of economic, social, and political factors. He introduces a framework with six key dimensions: economic growth, social mobilization, the state, rule of law, democratic accountability, and legitimacy. Fukuyama challenges the modernization theory, highlighting contradictions such as the tension between a strong state and the rule of law, and the unpredictable link between democracy and good governance. He underscores the importance of national identity for state building, using examples like South Korea's successful development and the challenges faced by countries lacking a cohesive national identity, such as Syria. Fukuyama concludes by emphasizing the intricate relationships between these dimensions and the need for nuanced understanding to foster political order and development.

Takeaways

• 📊 Development is a multifaceted process with economic, social, and political dimensions that interact in complex ways.
• 🌐 Economic growth is just one aspect of development, focusing on increases in per capita output over time.
• 👥 Social mobilization involves the development of social groups and new social relations, leading to a collective consciousness within these groups.
• 🏛️ The state is about power and its accumulation, with Max Weber defining it as having a legitimate monopoly of force over territory.
• 📜 The rule of law is distinct from rule by law, where even the rulers are subject to the law, limiting their power.
• 🗳️ Democratic accountability ensures that the ruler's actions reflect the population's wishes, not just the elite.
• 🔄 Development can occur independently within each dimension, but modernization theory suggests they can mutually support each other.
• 🇰🇷 South Korea exemplifies modernization theory, where economic growth led to social mobilization and eventually democracy and the rule of law.
• 🚫 Contradictions can arise between strong states and the rule of law, and between democracy and good governance, complicating development.
• 🌐 National identity is critical for state formation and social cohesion, with some countries lacking a unifying national identity leading to conflict and instability.
• 🌐 The creation of national identity is influenced by both cultural expressions from the bottom up and nation-building efforts from the top down.

Q & A

What is the main theme of Francis Fukuyama's speech at the GEM conference?

The main theme of Francis Fukuyama's speech is the complexity of development, focusing on how economic, social, and political factors interact in the development process.

According to Fukuyama, what are the six dimensions of development?

The six dimensions of development Fukuyama mentions are economic growth, social mobilization, the state, the rule of law, democratic accountability, and legitimacy.

How does Fukuyama define 'economic growth' in the context of development?

Economic growth, as defined by Fukuyama, refers to increases in per capita output over time, which is typically the focus of economists.

What is social mobilization and how does it relate to development?

Social mobilization involves the development of social groups and new kinds of social relations, such as when a social group becomes conscious of itself, which is a critical aspect of development.

What is the role of the state in development according to Fukuyama?

The state, in Fukuyama's framework, is about the accumulation and use of power to enforce laws, protect the community, and maintain domestic order, which is essential for development.

How does the rule of law differ from rule by law in Fukuyama's explanation?

The rule of law exists when the ruler is under the law and must follow the same rules as everyone else, whereas rule by law is where the ruler simply gives commands that people have to obey without being bound by law.

What does Fukuyama mean by democratic accountability and its importance in development?

Democratic accountability refers to procedural rules that ensure the ruler's actions reflect the population's wishes and not just the elite. It is crucial for development as it provides a check on power.

How does Fukuyama view the relationship between economic growth and other dimensions of development?

Fukuyama suggests that economic growth can occur independently or in connection with other dimensions of development, but it does not automatically lead to social modernization or democracy without a balance of power and constraints.

What is the contradiction Fukuyama identifies between a strong state and the rule of law?

Fukuyama identifies a contradiction where a strong state can sometimes violate human rights or act without restraint in the name of security, thus undermining the rule of law, which is meant to limit power.

How does Fukuyama explain the tension between democracy and good governance?

Fukuyama explains that while democracy is often seen as leading to good governance, there are cases where increased political participation has actually reduced the quality of government, such as during the spoils system in 19th century America.

What role does national identity play in development according to Fukuyama?

National identity plays a critical role in development as it provides a sense of belonging and commonality among citizens, which can facilitate social cohesion, state formation, and the legitimacy of institutions.

How does Fukuyama suggest that national identity can be built or reinforced?

Fukuyama suggests that national identity can be built or reinforced through both bottom-up cultural expressions, like literature and music, and top-down policies, such as promoting a national language and ideology.

Outlines

00:00

🌟 Introduction to Development Framework

Francis Fukuyama begins by expressing his pleasure at speaking at the GEM conference, surrounded by old friends. He introduces a complex framework for understanding development, emphasizing its multidimensionality and the intricate interactions between economic, social, and political factors. Fukuyama outlines six key dimensions of development: economic growth, social mobilization, the state, rule of law, democratic accountability, and legitimacy. He explains each dimension, using examples like the development of social classes in capitalism for social mobilization, and Max Weber's definition of the state for the state dimension. Fukuyama warns that his framework will not provide a simple conclusion due to the inherent complexity of development.

05:03

🔄 Modernization Theory and Its Contradictions

Fukuyama discusses the modernization theory, which posits that development is a unified process where all six dimensions of development support each other. He uses South Korea as an example where economic growth led to social modernization, democracy, and strengthened rule of law, illustrating the theory's successful application. However, he also points out the theory's limitations, highlighting contradictions such as the potential for social mobilization to undermine political stability, the tension between a strong state and the rule of law, and the challenges of balancing democracy with good governance. He cites examples like the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt, and the issues in the Philippines and California to illustrate these points.

10:05

🏛️ The Challenge of National Identity in State Building

Fukuyama delves into the critical role of national identity in state building, using Syria as a case study where the lack of a unified national identity contributed to a devastating civil war. He argues that a strong national identity is necessary for stakeholders to prioritize national interests over sectarian or ethnic loyalties. He contrasts this with East Asian countries like China, Korea, and Japan, which had a strong sense of national identity and centralized governments before modernization, facilitating their rapid development. Fukuyama also touches on the ongoing challenges of national identity in developed countries, including Spain and the United States, and the difficulty democratic theory faces in addressing claims of independence within diverse societies.

15:07

🌐 Crafting National Identity: Cultural and Political Efforts

In this section, Fukuyama explores the sources of national identity, describing it as intangible and formed by the stories societies tell about themselves. He distinguishes between bottom-up cultural contributions, such as literature and music, which foster a sense of belonging, and top-down political efforts. Using Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Indonesia as examples, Fukuyama illustrates how different approaches to nation-building by early rulers have had lasting impacts on the countries' political stability and ethnic relations. He highlights the importance of a shared national narrative that transcends religion, ethnicity, or race, especially in diverse societies, and warns against political entrepreneurs who exploit smaller identities for mobilization, potentially leading to societal divisions.

20:09

📚 Complex Interactions in Development

Fukuyama concludes by reiterating the complexity of development, emphasizing that the six dimensions of his framework interact in intricate ways. He acknowledges the lack of simple solutions or formulas for resolving the challenges associated with each dimension. Fukuyama stresses the importance of understanding the specific linkages between the different aspects of development, particularly in the context of political order. He thanks the audience for their attention, leaving them with a nuanced understanding of development's complexities.

Keywords

💡Development

Development in the context of the video refers to the complex process by which a society progresses economically, socially, and politically. It is multi-dimensional, involving various factors that interact in intricate ways. The speaker discusses how development is not a linear or uniform process but one that involves balancing and integrating economic growth, social mobilization, political structures, and more. The video emphasizes the complexity of development, suggesting that it is influenced by historical, cultural, and institutional factors.

💡Economic Growth

Economic growth is defined as the increase in per capita output over time, which is a key aspect of development that economists often focus on. In the video, economic growth is presented as one of the six dimensions of development, highlighting its importance but also indicating that it does not occur in isolation. The speaker uses South Korea as an example where economic growth was a catalyst for broader societal changes, leading to urbanization, social mobilization, and eventually democracy.

💡Social Mobilization

Social mobilization is the process by which social groups become conscious of themselves and their collective interests. It is a key concept in the video, illustrating how the development of social groups and new social relations can drive societal change. The speaker cites the emergence of the bourgeoisie and proletariat during the transition to capitalism as a classic example. In the context of the video, social mobilization is shown to be both a driver and a potential source of instability, depending on the pace of political participation and the ability of the state to manage it.

💡State

The state, as discussed in the video, refers to the institution that holds a legitimate monopoly on the use of force within a given territory. It is associated with the accumulation and use of power to enforce laws and maintain order. The speaker contrasts the state with other institutions like the rule of law and democratic accountability, which act as constraints on state power. The video emphasizes the need for a strong state that is also constrained by the rule of law and democratic processes to achieve a modern liberal democracy.

💡Rule of Law

The rule of law, as mentioned in the video, is a principle where all individuals, including those in power, are subject to and governed by law. It is presented as a counterbalance to the state's power, ensuring that rulers cannot act arbitrarily. The speaker differentiates the rule of law from 'rule by law,' where rulers may use laws to command obedience without being bound by them. The video suggests that a strong state needs to be checked by the rule of law to prevent abuses and ensure justice.

💡Democratic Accountability

Democratic accountability refers to the mechanisms that ensure rulers are responsive to the wishes of the entire population, not just the elite. It is discussed as a procedural rule that is essential for a modern state to reflect the will of the people. The video highlights the importance of democratic accountability in balancing the power of the state and ensuring that governance is not solely in the hands of a few.

💡Legitimacy

Legitimacy in the video is described as the acceptance and support that a government or social order has from the people. It is a critical factor in the stability and effectiveness of political institutions. The speaker argues that legitimacy is not just about the formal acceptance of a government but also about the underlying beliefs and values that support it. The video suggests that legitimacy is essential for the development of strong institutions and for the consolidation of national identity.

💡National Identity

National identity is the sense of belonging and shared purpose that people feel towards their nation. It is a central theme in the video, with the speaker discussing how a strong national identity can facilitate state building and social cohesion. The video contrasts countries with strong national identities, like those in East Asia, with those struggling with identity issues, such as Syria. The speaker suggests that a shared national identity is crucial for overcoming ethnic or sectarian divisions and for fostering a sense of collective responsibility.

💡Modernization Theory

Modernization theory, as mentioned in the video, is an approach that views development as a unified process where economic, social, and political changes mutually reinforce each other. The speaker critiques this theory by pointing out that while it has been applicable in some cases, like South Korea, it oversimplifies the complex interactions between different dimensions of development. The video uses modernization theory to illustrate the potential for development to be non-linear and context-dependent.

💡Political Stability

Political stability refers to the ability of a state to maintain order and continuity in its governance without experiencing significant upheaval or conflict. In the video, the speaker discusses how rapid social mobilization can outpace political participation, leading to instability, as seen in the Arab Spring. The video suggests that political stability is a complex outcome of the interplay between social mobilization, state strength, and the rule of law.

Highlights

Development is a complex phenomenon with many interacting dimensions.

Economic growth is increases in per capita output over time.

Social mobilization involves the development of social groups and new social relations.

The state is about power and maintaining domestic order.

The rule of law exists when the ruler is under the law.

Democratic accountability ensures the ruler reflects the population's wishes.

Modernization theory suggests all aspects of development are mutually supportive.

South Korea's development illustrates modernization theory in action.

Social mobilization can lead to political instability if it outpaces political participation.

A strong state can undermine the rule of law if not properly constrained.

Democracy does not always lead to good governance, as seen in historical U.S. examples.

National identity is critical for state formation and social cohesion.

Syria's civil war is partly due to the absence of a strong national identity.

East Asian countries had a coherent national identity before modernization.

National identity can be both bottom-up and top-down, involving culture and political projects.

Investments in nation-building by early rulers have lasting impacts, as seen in Tanzania and Indonesia.

National identity issues are influencing global politics, including in diverse developed countries.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the complexities of development.

Transcripts

FRANCIS FUKUYAMA: So, thank you very much.

It's a real pleasure to be invited to speak at this GEM

conference.

There are a lot of people around the room that are old friends,

and it's really terrific to see all of them.

So I am going to present a framework

for thinking about development.

I've always thought that development

was one of the most complex phenomena,

precisely because it has so many different dimensions that

interact in very complex ways.

And I'm going to present my way of thinking

about how these economic, social, and political factors

interact.

And I'm not going to leave you with a comfortable conclusion,

because I think that this is really

meant to explain in a way, the complexity of how

the development process actually unfolds.

So let me begin.

So, this is the framework that I laid out

in my two political order books, in which I basically

talk about six boxes on this chart, which I think

are six dimensions of development.

Now, you can subdivide some of them,

or you can collapse some of them,

but these are the ones that I think about.

So, economic growth is what economists deal with.

It's increases in per capita output over time.

Social mobilization has to do with the development

of social groups and new kinds of social relations

when a social group becomes conscious of itself.

For example, a classic one was Karl Marx

saying that the origins of capitalism

produce two social classes, the bourgeoisie

and the proletariat, that really did not exist in feudal times.

So that's an example of social mobilization.

And then, I'm a political scientist,

so I get to have three boxes for politics

because I think they're actually quite separate.

So the first box is the state.

The state is about power.

Max Weber's famous definition of the state

was a legitimate monopoly of force over territory.

I think that's actually a good definition.

States are about accumulating and using

power to enforce laws to protect the community,

to maintain domestic order.

The rule of law, as Ricardo indicated,

pushes in the opposite direction.

You can have something that's sometimes

referred to as rule by law, which is where the ruler simply

gives commands that people have to obey.

That's not the rule of law.

The rule of law exists when the ruler himself or herself is

under the law, and therefore has to follow the same rules

that other people do.

And so the state pushes in one direction

towards the accumulation and use of power, and the rule of law

pushes in the opposite direction.

It's a limitation on power, so that the ruler can't

do whatever he or she wants.

And the final box has to do with democratic accountability.

These are simply procedural rules

to try to ensure that what the ruler does

reflects as much of the whole population's wishes

and not simply of the elite that happens

to be running the government.

And so in effect, you've got one institution, the state,

that pushes towards the accumulation of power,

and two institutions, the rule of law

and democratic accountability, that are constraints on power.

And what's difficult about getting to a modern state, that

is to say a modern liberal democracy,

is that you have to find a balance.

If you have a strong state without constraint-- basically

you've got China today, a very powerful modern state,

but no rule of law and no democratic accountability.

At the other end of the scale, you've

got Syria or Libya or some stateless territory that

doesn't have a state at all.

That's an obvious problem.

But that's not the case in most developing countries.

Most developing countries may have

some degree of law, some degree of democratic accountability,

but very weak states.

And so the issue is really not to have

a weak state that can't do anything,

but a strong state that is operating

under those constraints.

Now those arrows are various empirical correlations

between these boxes--

I'm sorry-- a couple more definitions.

So there's the legitimacy box in the middle.

This is a box that I think a lot of economists

don't think a lot about, but I think

it's actually very important.

In fact, Deidre McCloskey has written this very nice set

of books arguing that the whole of modern economic growth

cannot be understood apart from the kind of ideological changes

that took place in Europe in the 17th, 18th centuries,

and I'm going to talk about that at some length in terms of how

states consolidate and how national identity consolidates.

And I think that is a separate dimension.

The thing about these six boxes is

that development can occur in any one of them

separately for reasons that have to do simply with things

going on in that box.

So you can have the state getting more powerful,

you can have the rule of law getting more powerful,

you can have social mobilization occurring.

It may or may not be connected to things

going on in some of the other boxes, but in some cases,

they are connected.

Now you have this thing called modernization theory

that was very popular, really, up until about the 1960s.

And I would say the bottom line of modernization theory

was the following-- it said that development

is a single as a single process, and that all six of these boxes

were mutually supporting, that all good things go together.

So if you have economic growth, you're

going to have social modernization,

you're going to have changes in attitudes,

you're going to have democracy, and all of these things

will mutually interact.

Now, before you dismiss this theory,

there are countries in which something like this

actually did unfold, and this is simply

a diagram of South Korea.

So, in 1954, South Korea had a lower per capita GDP

than the then Belgian Congo.

People thought it had very poor development prospects.

It had, however, a coherent state.

That state could oversee a period

of rapid economic growth.

The economic growth led, by the 1980s,

to a transition from an agrarian to an urban industrial society.

Social mobilization happened.

You had all sorts of new groups like labor unions, students,

NGOs that were pushing then for the democracy box,

and in 1987, South Korea made that transition to democracy.

The democracy strengthened rule of law.

We saw that in the public protests a couple of years

ago that brought President Park Geun-hye

down for corruption charges because civil society was

mobilized to protect the rule of law in South Korea,

and all of that reinforced the legitimacy

of the system itself.

And so that's kind of modernization theory working

on all six cylinders, where in fact these boxes are mutually

supportive.

However, unfortunately, several of the boxes

actually contain contradictions, mutual contradictions,

and this is just a list of four of them.

Let's begin with the first one, social mobilization,

and political stability.

This is the one that my mentor Samuel Huntington wrote

about way back in 1967 in his book, Political

Order in Changing Societies, where you said,

if you get too much rapid social mobilization that

outruns the pace of political participation expanding,

then you're going to get instability.

I think that's essentially what was

going on in Tunisia and Egypt prior to the 2011

uprisings known as the Arab Spring, where you have

a lot of people going to university,

a lot of new middle class people.

They don't have jobs and they don't

have political opportunity, and that actually

is not conducive to stability.

That was Huntington's argument.

So this is, in a way, the diagram

that he was focusing on.

The dotted lines are negative forms

of causality, where social mobilization actually

weakens the state.

It weakens the rule of law.

It may produce democracy, but you don't have a happy outcome

because these different boxes are not mutually supporting.

Now, another contradiction, which

is kind of an obvious one, is between a strong state

and the rule of law.

So obviously, states pursuing terrorists can be too strong.

They can violate people's human rights.

They can act.

They can do extrajudicial killings.

That's what's going on under Duterte in the Philippines.

I would point out, however, that states with respect

to the rule of law can actually be both underconstrained, as

in the Philippines, but they can also be overconstrained.

I'll give you a little example from my home state

in California.

All 40 million of us residents of California

have the right to sue any given infrastructure

project done in the state.

We can sue anonymously for any reason that we want.

And as a result of this rather broad understanding of standing

who has the right to sue, infrastructure projects

don't get built because it's just too damn difficult because

of the litigation.

And I would say there's other democracies.

I would say India is probably one of the foremost ones

that I would say just has too damn much law.

I mean, it's too easy to block things using the court

system, which has got to--

the Supreme Court's got a backlog of 60,000 cases.

So on and so forth.

So, the relationship between strong state and rule of law

can be very problematic.

Democracy and good governance.

This is very depressing in a way to me

because I really like democracy.

I think liberal democracy is a great thing.

There is a theory out there that says that democracy

will automatically lead to good governance,

because if you have enough transparency

and accountability, then people are going to want

to demand clean government.

If they see that officials are corrupt,

they're going to vote them out of office.

It's a nice theory, but I think empirically, it really

has worked in some cases and in many other cases

has not worked.

And I think there are actually cases in which

the expansion of the franchise--

more political participation, in other words,

more democracy-- is actually reduced

the quality of government.

The case that I would cite is actually, again,

the United States, which opened up the franchise in the 1820s

to all white males that previously

had been restricted to only white males with property.

All of a sudden you had millions of people

that had the right to vote in the election of 1828.

They elect a populist named Andrew Jackson,

and he begins a 100 year period in American history known

as the spoils system or the patronage system,

in which every politician basically uses their ability

to distribute jobs in the government and sometimes

outright bribes as a way of motivating people

to go to the polls.

And I would argue that in relatively poor low education

level democracies, opening up democracy is actually

going to have this effect.

And this is really the problem with patronage and weak state

capacity in many places-- in Mexico,

in Brazil in India, Indonesia, and so forth.

And again, this is not an argument

for authoritarian government, but I'm just

pointing out that there is a tension there, right.

There is a tension between democrat-- in fact, just

in South Africa, and it seems to me

that's exactly what's been going on in South Africa.

You actually had a very high quality modern government

that only applied to white people,

and then you open it up to the whole of the society

and the quality of government goes down,

for I think very understandable reasons.

The last issue that I want to focus on,

however, is this question of democracy

and national identity, because I think that, again, this

is an intangible form of state building

that I think is really critical, and unfortunately, in our world

today, it's becoming the central issue that's determining

a lot of global politics.

All right.

And this is the ideas or legitimacy

box which I think is really critical to state formation,

it's critical to social mobilization,

it's critical to the rule of law and it's obviously

critical to democracy.

If you don't have the right ideas supporting what goes on

in these boxes, they're not going

to evolve into strong institutions,

but I'm going to focus on the one that leads from ideas

and legitimacy to the state.

All right.

So the question here--

what's wrong with this country.

This is Syria.

Syria has had a devastating civil war

that is still not resolved.

It's led to the deaths of close to half a million people.

Half the population has been turned into IDPs.

A million of them showed up on Europe's doorstep back in 2015.

Now there's a lot of proximate causes

to why this civil war has been so violent and so neuralgic

and so difficult to solve.

But I think one of the underlying factors

is the fact that the country Syria had no national identity.

There wasn't an idea of something

called Syria to which the different stakeholders

in that country felt greater loyalty than they

did to their particular sect or ethnic group or region

or in some cases tribe.

In particular, the Alawites felt like a beleaguered minority

that was sitting on top of a kind of social volcano,

and if they didn't use the utmost level of violence

to protect their position, they all themselves

would get killed.

And then this leads to everybody feeling the same way,

since they perpetrated a great deal of violence,

and the result is the one that you see.

There are many countries in the Middle East

that are now suffering from exactly this absence

of any sense of state identity.

And you've had several of them--

Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia--

all of these countries, I think, have

the same basic underlying problem that some of them

were colonial creations, some of them

were patched together out of different ethnic groups

or sects, but there is not an overriding

sense of national identity that allows people to sacrifice

the short term interests of their narrow identity group

in favor of something like national interest.

If I had to point to one factor that differentiates

East Asia from this part of the world,

it's the fact that in most East Asian countries,

or at least in China, Korea, Japan,

these issues were solved way before they tried to modernize.

That is to say, they were all coherent nation

states, ethnically coherent nation states,

before the European colonialists ever got there,

and they had centralized governments.

It was a Chinese tradition of centralized bureaucracy.

So having a strong state was always in the cards for them.

And that's why once the economic conditions changed

in the 20th century, such that they had the ability

to take advantage of technology and markets and all the things

that Ricardo was talking about, they just

went to town because they did not

have to solve this national, this underlying

national identity problem, in the way

that so many other countries in other parts of the developing

world have.

And this is a problem that continues in the developed

world.

And so these national identity problems

have really not been settled.

This is a particularly difficult one that's actually

dragging Spain backwards.

The economic threat, I think, will appear,

the political threat is really there right now.

And one of the things that I find particularly difficult

about this question is that democratic theory doesn't

actually give us a normative way of assessing

the claim of a place like Catalonia, as

to what makes it a legitimate claim, when

one democratic entity is trying to break off

from another democratic entity.

Who's right and who's wrong in this kind of a situation?

But obviously there are many other places in Europe

that potentially are going to suffer

from these kinds of claims.

Now, the question then is, where does national identity

come from?

National identity, as I said, is something intangible.

It's basically the stories that people in a society

tell about themselves.

It's the stories that they transmit to their children

about where did we come from, what

do we have in common, what makes us members

of the same community, what allows us to trust one another.

And this is a story that is told both, I think,

from the bottom up and from the top down.

So the bottom up part of it is cultural.

It's basically-- it's poets and filmmakers and novelists

and other people musicians that actually create

a common sense of belonging.

I mean, that's why music is so powerful, actually,

in many national traditions, because it attaches itself

to a kind of deep level of emotion.

There's a famous account of the Philippine--

Filipino novelist Rizal, who in the 19th century

wrote the Philippine's first novel.

Philippines is 11,000 islands scattered all over the Pacific.

Everybody living on one of those islands

had no idea that they had anything

in common with any of the other residents of any

of the other 11,000 islands until Rizal

wrote a book about what it means to grow up on one

particular island of Luzon.

And then, all of a sudden people could say, oh

yeah, that's an experience that's familiar to me,

and that creates a common sense of identity.

So that's the bottom up part of it,

but there's also a top down part.

So this-- again, I've got a couple of chapters

on this in my political order book.

So this is-- there are two [? parralellized ?]

comparisons--

Kenya and Tanzania on the one hand, and Nigeria and Indonesia

on the other.

Now in many respects, the two comparison countries

are very similar.

Kenya and Tanzania, obviously--

it's less obvious in the case of Nigeria and Indonesia,

but they're both oil producing countries.

They're both highly diverse religiously and ethnically,

all right.

And their early rulers faced this question

of national identity.

And what I argue is that in the case of Tanzania and Indonesia,

those early rulers invested in nation building,

strictly speaking, not state building,

but building this kind of national consciousness in a way

that the rulers of Kenya and Nigeria never did,

and that has led to consequences that persist up to the present.

The projects by [? Nayerian ?] in Tanzania

really revolved around language, to make

Swahili the national language of a linguistically very

diverse country.

In Indonesia, it was the promotion

again of a single language, Bahasa, Indonesia,

that replaced Javanese and Sulawesi and all

of the other languages spoken on the different islands.

And then, the production of a kind of--

if you read it as an outsider, it

doesn't seem like it's very serious--

but Pancasila ideology that then gets

taught to schoolchildren all across the Indonesian

archipelago.

And I would argue that the Tanzanian government made

lots of mistakes in economic policy, and politically.

But in this respect, that early investment really

paid off, because they have not suffered

from the kind of ethnic looting and predation

that exists in contemporary Kenya.

In Kenya right now, elections are

all about the major ethnic groups

trying to jockey for power.

One of them gets control of the presidency,

and their ethnic group basically loots the government

for the period that it's in power,

and then it's replaced by another ethnic group that

does the same thing.

Again, there's no larger sense of being Kenyan,

and I think that for all their problems,

Tanzania does not have this same problem.

So this is an issue, unfortunately,

that is dominating world politics now,

because this identity issue is one that is coming to the fore,

not just in poor countries like the ones

here, but in rich ones as well, including the United States,

I'm sorry to say, where we are living

in de facto highly diverse countries in which you have

to come up with a national story that is not rooted in religion

or ethnicity or race.

That's the only way we can live with one another.

And there are a lot of political entrepreneurs

that are working in the opposite direction, that

want to emphasize different, smaller identities that

are pretty good for mobilizing people,

because people can get very angry over some

of these identity issues, but are

trying to drag a lot of countries back into,

I think an earlier period, when Identity was not credal,

and it was not based on ideas.

Something like that is going on in India today,

where you actually had a national identity

since independence that was built

around certain liberal principles in a highly, highly

ethnically and religiously diverse society.

And now, it's being put on a Hindu nationalist basis, which

is fine if you're a Hindu nationalist, but not

so great if you're a Muslim or somebody that's

not part of that community.

So, like I said, I have no formulas

for how to solve any of these problems.

I just think that what I trying to do is

indicate that these six dimensions of development

interact with each other in these highly complex ways,

and you really need to think about the specific linkages

between the different boxes if you're

going to make progress in any of them,

particularly in the political order box.

So, thank you.

Thank you very much for your attention.