The
man who declared the ‘end of history’ fears for democracy’s
future
By Ishaan Tharoor
February 9
Francis Fukuyama, an
acclaimed American political philosopher, entered the global
imagination at the end of the Cold War when he prophesied the "end
of history" — a belief that, after the fall of communism,
free-market liberal democracy had won out and would become the
world's "final form of human government." Now, at a moment
when liberal democracy seems to be in crisis across the West,
Fukuyama, too, wonders about its future.
"Twenty five
years ago, I didn't have a sense or a theory about how democracies
can go backward," said Fukuyama in a phone interview. "And
I think they clearly can."
Fukuyama's initial
argument (which I've greatly over-simplified) framed the
international zeitgeist for the past two decades. Globalization was
the vehicle by which liberalism would spread across the globe. The
rule of law and institutions would supplant power politics and tribal
divisions. Supranational bodies like the European Union seemed to
embody those ideals.
But if the havoc of
the Great Recession and the growing clout of authoritarian states
like China and Russia hadn't already upset the story, Brexit and the
election of President Trump last year certainly did.
Now the backlash of
right-wing nationalism on both sides of the Atlantic is in full
swing. This week, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen announced her
candidacy for president with a scathing attack on the liberal status
quo. "Our leaders chose globalization, which they wanted to be a
happy thing. It turned out to be a horrible thing," Le Pen
thundered.
Marine Le Pen
launches her presidential campaign in Lyon, France, on Feb. 5.
(Arnold Jerocki/EPA)
Fukuyama recognizes
the crisis. "Globalization really does seem to produce these
internal tensions within democracies that these institutions have
some trouble reconciling," he said. Combined with grievances
over immigration and multiculturalism, it created room for the
"demagogic populism" that catapulted Trump into the White
House. That has Fukuyama deeply concerned.
"I have
honestly never encountered anyone in political life who I thought had
a less suitable personality to be president," Fukuyama said of
the new president. "Trump is so thin-skinned and insecure that
he takes any kind of criticism or attack personally and then hits
back."
Fukuyama, like many
other observers, worries about "a slow erosion of institutions"
and a weakening of democratic norms under a president who seems
willing to question the legitimacy of anything that may stand in his
way — whether it's the judiciary, his political opponents or the
mainstream media.
But the problem
isn't just Trump and the polarization he stokes, argues Fukuyama.
What the scholar finds "most troubling" on the American
political scene is the extent to which the Republican Party has
gerrymandered districts and established what amounts to de facto
one-party rule in parts of the country.
"If you've
tilted the playing field in the electoral system that it doesn't
allow you to boot parties out of power, then you've got a real
problem," said Fukuyama. "The Republicans have been at this
for quite a while already and it's going to accelerate in these four
years."
"When
democracies start turning on themselves and undermining their own
legitimacy, then you're in much more serious trouble," he said.
International
institutions don't seem to be faring any better. Fukuyama thinks the
European Union is "definitely unraveling" due to a series
of overlapping mistakes. The creation of the eurozone "was a
disaster" and the continued inability to develop a collective
policy on immigration has deepened discontent. Moreover, said
Fukuyama, "there really was never any investment in building a
shared sense of European identity.”
But while the West
is lurching through a period of profound uncertainty, Fukuyama calls
for patience, not panic.
"We don't know
how it's all going to play out," he said. The tide of right-wing
nationalism may ebb if the results of major elections this year go
against the Le Pens of the world. Fukuyama wonders whether Trump will
eventually face a backlash from within his own party, particularly if
he cozies up to an autocrat like Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"The Austrian
election was actually interesting," he said, referring to a
presidential vote in which a far-right candidate narrowly lost last
year. "It was as if people in Europe said, 'Well, we don’t
want be like these crude Americans and elect an idiot like Donald
Trump.'"
The turbulence of
the moment doesn't have to be read as a rebuttal of his original
thesis. The "end of history" was always more about ideas
than events. For that reason, Fukuyama's most vehement critics over
the years were not right-wing nationalists but thinkers on the left
who reject the dogma of free markets. Fukuyama himself always left
the door open for future uncertainty and crisis.
"Perhaps this
very prospect of centuries of boredom at the end of history," he
wrote more than two decades ago, "will serve to get history
started once again."
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