Critique of Francis Fukuyama's Liberal Democracy Theory
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Liberal democracy, Francis Fukuyama, end of history, political freedom, economic upheavals, Cold War, USSR collapse, Berlin Wall, international relations, communism, China
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Abstract
Analysis of Francis Fukuyama's vision of liberal democracy as the end of history, critiquing its limitations and nuances in the context of global political and economic upheavals from the 1970s to the early 1990s.
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[...] Then, Fukuyama designates, a fortiori, liberal democracy as the winner of the political and economic upheavals in the world. This deserves to be nuanced. As he mentions in his article, « (?), many strong governments have collapsed over the past two decades." (L.13-14) Global dictatorships have collapsed, but communism has still managed to endure, particularly in China. It is today the world's second-largest economic power, without counting the financial stakes it holds in Europe. Therefore, liberal democracy would not represent the « formal end of all human government as has been suggested by Fukuyama. [...]
[...] Francis Fukuyama even acknowledges that governments have not always opened the way to stable liberal democracies? but he persists in considering liberal democracy as « the only coherent political aspiration. In conclusion, the idea of a liberal democracy, a modus vivendi conducive to political and economic freedom in all countries of the world and a communism on the point of dying, as envisioned by Francis Fukuyama, does not take into account the stability and global situation of countries that govern with another ideology. [...]
[...] In the first place, Regarding the period covered by the author in this document, spanning from the 1970s to the early 1990s, the world has witnessed significant events such as the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR or the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. New stabilities and instabilities emerge in the economic and political dimensions, among others. The vision of this period by Francis Fukuyama leads to considering liberal democracy as finality of humanity's progress and of all human government, that is to be the « The End of History 1». According to the author, our history would have an expiration date. [...]
[...] This is again to nuance Fukuyama's position, as it was the case in Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968, the establishment of a liberal democracy ended in failure. It would take until 1989, after the fall of the Berlin Wall for a democratic liberal governance system to emerge in Poland and then only in the early 1990s (1992) in several former Soviet republics. Furthermore, the pace of economic growth was slowed in the United States, affected by monetary and financial shocks, in addition to having to face European and Japanese competition. [...]
