Introduction

On March 21, 2023, Francis Fukuyama delivered the prestigious Donald C. Stone Lecture at the annual meeting of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), the leading academic association focusing on the study of the public sector. This special episode is a recording of his talk, “Valuing the Deep State,” in which he defends the importance of having a nonpartisan, expert, professional civil service for democratic governance. Using examples from the COVID pandemic and recent Supreme Court cases, Fukuyama argues that there needs to be a balance between autonomous bureaucracies shielded from excessive political interference, and accountability to democratic publics.

Democracy IRL is produced by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.

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