In an era of unprecedented material wealth and technological capability, why do our institutions seem increasingly incapable of delivering basic services? Why does it take a decade to build a train station, or years to acquire permits for housing construction?

Join renowned political scientist Francis Fukuyama and author Marc Dunkelman for an illuminating conversation exploring one of the defining puzzles of our time: the growing gap between our society’s abundant resources and our declining ability to get things done. Drawing on Dunkelman’s latest book and Fukuyama’s decades of work on political order and institutional decay, this fireside chat will explore the root causes of institutional sclerosis – from bureaucratic bloat to the rise of the “vetocracy” – and discuss what it might take to rebuild state capacity and restore our ability to solve collective problems in the 21st century.

Co-sponsored by the Stanford Abundance Group.

The Stanford Bookstore will be onsite selling copies of Why Nothing Works by Marc Dunkelman.