Size Matters: Dysfunctional Government Edition
Via Andrew, Francis Fukuyama has a new gig at Stanford University running a Governance Project. Introducing it, he lobs a hand grenade at one aspect of American Exceptionalism: I would argue that the quality of governance in the US tends to be low precisely because of a continuing tradition of Jacksonian populism. Americans with their democratic roots generally do not trust elite bureaucrats to the extent that the French, Germans, British, or Japanese have in years past. This distrust leads to micromanagement by Congress through proliferating rules and complex, self-contradictory legislative mandates which make poor quality governance a self-fulfilling prophecy. The US is thus caught in a low-level equilibrium