Summary Of The End Of History

Democracy and the challenges it is facing has been the main topic in the field of international politics since some Authoritarian regimes have raised again as a great power after a long time of absence. In this essay, we will look at some of the challenges facing the international democracy based on the work of Azar Gat “ The Return Of Authoritarian Great Powers”. The article is presenting the author view on the rise of authoritarian regimes as the main challenge of liberal democracy. The main part of my essay will be an illustration and reflection on a number of arguments that have been brought by the author. Additionally and before concluding my piece I will establish my own argument as a critical response to the article or more specifically to the Economic efficiency argument brought by Azar Gat.

In reading a Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich you realize that history seems so much less complicated when you are the one standing back and reflecting on the past. You realize how easy it is to often forget that every single new idea, religion and war was a struggle that lasted generations upon generations. History is more than just a page or a story, its our account of the world. That goes to show how short life and history is, you realize that history is always repeating, war after war, peace then war. There are good and bad periods in history and its up to us to learn from them. In a way history is much like a human being it goes through stages, learns about life, and has inner struggles or wars about their ideas and their beliefs.

Since the dawn of human civilization, individuals have been constantly immersed in conflict with each other. Whether these conflicts stemmed from socio-economic inequalities, political disputes, property rights, religious disagreements, or any other contentious matter, the creation of human governments has necessarily been to handle, organize, and resolve conflicts between people within communities in the least destructive manner possible. Governments act as a formal instrument through which individuals in a society can agree upon shared rules, solve problems, and engage in cooperative behavior, and it helps avoid the severe repercussions resulting from revolutionary social upheaval. The purpose of government – as spelled out in the Preamble of the Constitution – is to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” While countless forms of government have sprung up over the centuries, only one has been resilient enough and has had the pervasive influence necessary to stand the test of time: democracy. While there are many different types of democracies, this paper will focus on liberal democracy specifically. A liberal democracy is a form of representative democracy that operates under the paradigm of classical liberalism. According to the Center for Research on Globalization, liberal democracy is defined as:

Both authors, Samuel P. Huntington and Francis Fukuyama, don’t have any conflicting views but have different perceptions as to how they see the world after the revolution and the cold war. Samuel believes that the west is dominating the world, changing cultures and customs of other countries. However, Francis analyzes the positive aspects of how the liberal democracy in the west is more powerful than all other democratic nations and he portrays how western dominance is effective and healthy for most of the nations.

Fukuyama asserted that the end of history had arrived. He acknowledged that the world has not yet reached the point at which other ideologies are nonexistent or governments and philosophers are unneeded. He explains that the end of history is not defined by this end result, but by the point at which it can be recognized that one ideology had essentially won out. This did not have to be in a very material sense. Liberalism, though there was still opposition, appeared to Fukuyama to have the ‘true’ principles that could not be enhanced. The political and ideological climate appeared to support the idea that more and more people were coming to accept that. The world seemed to be on its way to peace. Fukuyama was sure in his argument and even expressed his condolences for the loss of history, a time at which action truly mattered because it had the ability to change the world and bring new and interesting “art and philosophy” that there would be no use, place, or need for in a post-historical era.

Obviously looking back to twenty-six years ago when Fukuyama wrote “The End of History?” a lot has happened and changed since then. I think that Fukuyama like many Americans at the time of the Cold War ending fell into a false sense of security having the mindset that we had won and that the end of the Cold War meant the end of global conflicts. That liberal democracy was as Fukuyama put it “the final form of human government”. Fast forward twenty six years later and Fukuyama still says that liberal democracy still has no real competition “in the realm of ideas”. There may be no real competition, but that doesn’t mean that all democracies are doing well in today’s world. Many democracies have started to lean back towards authoritarian practices.

As Mark Mazower notes in his Dark Continent text the tale of democracy in the twentieth century, was not one of, an inevitable victory, but rather one “of narrow squeaks and unexpected twists,”.( Preface, Kindle Location 116). This paper will examine important events of the era that factored into the ideological fight for supremacy. While also highlighting examples that show that Europeans largely have not always been incredibly enthusiastic about democracy.

The National Review describes Francis Fukuyama as “one of the most important thinkers in America” because of his status as a triple-threat in public intellectual life: he is able to “maintain high appointments in academe, produce popular books and magazine writing, and advise American presidents and foreign leaders directly”. This status contributes to Fukuyama’s continued success as a political scientist, political economist and author. After achieving notability for his book, The End of History and the Last Man, Fukuyama changed pace and wrote a distinctively historical work (as opposed to his aforementioned previous novels that were more theoretical) entitled The Origins of Political Order: From PreHuman Times to the French Revolution. Citing 9/11 and American’s failed ability to “adequately understand how hard it is to establish institutions” Fukuyama decided to write a novel concerning where political institutions originated in countries that had them.

In his essay, The End of History, Fukuyama discusses the rise and fall of various ideologies throughout history, and the prevalence of western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.

Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington are two of the most controversial and influential modern political theorists of our times. Fukuyama’s book, The End of History and the Last Man, and Huntington’s book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, pose two very conflicting theories on international relations. In this paper I will summarize and compare/contrast the two theories. Both theories, written since the fall of communism and updated since the first gulf war, have been widely read, taught, praised and criticized

Huntington begins the next section, “Part 2: The Shifting Balance of Civilizations”, by stating that the power and influence the West once held is now dying14. Although the civilization did experience success with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Huntington argues that the West has become “exhausted”15. He brings to light two opposing arguments:

In the current anarchic world, The United States acts as the global hegemon. However, China’s recent rise to power has lead international relations experts, Ikenberry, Mearsheimer, Subramanian, and Friedberg, to predict an upcoming power shift in the international system. China’s increasing control over the Asia-Pacific region has threatened U.S. power. According to Waltz, the realism paradigm interprets the anarchic structure of the international community, as a constant power struggle. Although each country may be different, to survive, they must all strive for power. Under the liberalism paradigm, the system is still anarchical but cooperation may be achieved by shared norms, and aligned political and economical interests.

In conclusion, however, I find that it is not a meaningful argument to examine if ‘the end of history’ has indeed taken place, simply because Francis Fukuyama has set the basis of his theory too wide. People will naturally gravitate towards having more options in their lives, be it socially, economically or in this case, politically. This tendency would thus make Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ irrefutable. The more pertinent question to explore would be how the end goal of liberal democracy can be properly managed, with it being based on the twin principles of liberty and equality. At this end point of history as we know it, trade-offs have to be made between the two- equality cannot be achieved without the actions of a state controlling liberty, while liberty cannot be attained fully without social inequality. The end of history has dawned, where there would be no further meaningful challenge to liberal democracy, but a new battle awaits with the conundrum of balance between liberty and equality in liberal

The conflict is becoming more cultural but we cannot make one democratic entity called the west and make it as a dominate system and force its values and liberalism on other countries. These kinds of attempt were tried in Vietnam back in the 60’s, when the United States tried to enforce its liberal democratic system on communistic system. Another example of the failure of enforcing the Western values and culture is the second invasion of Iraq in 2001, The united states tried to make Iraq a democratic entity. As Fukuyama claimed, the traditional existence of civilizations is threatened by modernization. In that case, other civilization will develop much deeper hate and dislike towards one dominant democratic entity called the West.(Fukuyama, 2001)

Fukuyama and McFaul make strong arguments for the importance of democracy promotion, but it is not without its flaws. The world is fragmented by ethnic, linguistic and religious differences, and as such, the notion that there exists 'moral universals' is viewed as dangerous (Dunne 2001, pp. 179). Gray (1995, pp. 146) aptly articulated that "the universalizing mission of liberal values such as democracy, capitalism and secularism undermine the traditions and practices of non-Western cultures." And that may illustrate the rejection of Liberalism thus far. Democracy, when promoted by Western states, is inextricably tied in with other Western ideals such as capitalism and secularism. These ideals often do not mesh well with prevailing cultural practices, resulting in dissent and potential military conflict, results contrary to Liberalism's ultimate goal. This leads to the second rationale: national security.