Re-evaluating Fukuyama’s ‘The End of History?’
Edmund Stutter In the summer of 1989 Francis Fukuyama, the deputy director of the U.S. State Department’s policy planning staff, published an essay entitled ‘The End of History?’ on the eve of the USSR’s collapse. Fukuyama’s fundamental point in this work, further expounded upon in his 1992 book ‘The End of History and the Last Man’, is that in the battle of political ideologies, so-called ‘western liberal democracy’ has won. The author’s argument is that this western Liberalism is the essential end to man’s societal evolution, that it what will eventually form this political ‘homogenous state’. In the quarter of a century since its publication, not only has Fukuyama’s thesis been questioned on a purely theoretical basis, but also separate events have triggered waves of newfound criticism. It is to be decided whether such new criticism holds true to the nature of the thesis, or whether the faults of the essay lie within its philosophical reasoning. Fukuyama clearly distinguishes that his argument is not one caught up in material history. That past events, the most basic form of history as we understand it, serve only as evidence for the evolution of world ideology. Thus in judging the validity of the author’s observations, the events in this 25 year period serve as markers for the progression, or regression, of western liberalism forming a homogenous political state. What has brought Fukuyama’s essay (and subsequent book) into the public consciousness once again is recent events surrounding the Arab world and fundamentalist Muslims. Whilst many used 9/11 as a single example, at the time, with which to counter Fukuyama’s assumed assertion that there will be no further battles over political ideology, the more recent rise of ISIS and the conclusion of the Arab Spring have caused many to disagree with the essay and Fukuyama. What this modern ‘history’ in the Arab world shows us is that there is a strong call for a unified state formed purely on the basis of religion and culture. If ISIS succeeds in becoming a caliphate then, to many, that would suggest that Fukuyama’s theory potentially does not apply to the 1.6 billions Muslims around the world [ 1 ]. Fukuyama denounces the ability of a theocratic Muslim state to change the world’s landscape because it does not hold ‘appeal’ to non-Muslims. Despite the truth in this, Fukuyama does not allow for the considerable size of the Islamic faith itself and that amongst this faith there is growing support for this caliphate [ 2 ]. The Arab spring also saw the overthrow of authoritarian or corrupted regimes and in their place instead of seeing the ‘triumph’ of Western liberalism, the power vacuum was instead filled with near, theocratic regimes [ 3 ]. The Arab Spring, when examined, indeed turns into a useful piece of evidence for Fukuyama’s argument. We saw the toppling of an essentially authoritarian regime with the initial hope of seeing a ‘democratic’ system set in place, something that would widely conform to western liberalism [ 4 ]. Indeed, if the events of Egypt are examined what becomes apparent is that this struggle with the authoritarian power was born out of the people’s inherent belief that a western liberal democracy was the ‘best’ way of governance for them. This, if anything, supports Fukuyama’s idea that slowly but surely the world’s populace, after exposure to external nations benefitting under this democracy, want to appropriate that form of government. But, taking Egypt as the example, when they sought to enact this change, the people were met with a second wave of corruption, and, again, fought it to try to reach this ‘holy 2: How events within the last 25 years have helped to support or hinder Fukuyama’s thesis 2.1 The Arab World
1 http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/07/worlds-muslim-population-more-widespread-than-you-might- think/ 2 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/who-are-isis-the-rise-of-the-islamic-state-in-iraq-and-the- levant-9541421.html 3 http://www.iop.harvard.edu/muslim-brotherhood-and-political-power 4 https://www.opendemocracy.net/david-hayes/arab-spring-protest-power-prospect
119
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker