Francis Fukuyama

 ( 1952 Births ) 

Fukuyama lived at the Telluride House and has been affiliated with the Telluride Association since his undergraduate years at Cornell. Telluride is an education enterprise that has been home to other significant leaders and intellectuals, including Steven Weinberg, Paul Wolfowitz, and Kathleen Sullivan.

Fukuyama was the Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University from 1996 to 2000. Until July 10, 2010, he was the Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy and Director of the International Development Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. He is now Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow and resident in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, and director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy at Stanford.

Authors such as Ralf Dahrendorf and Luciano Canfora argued in 1990 that the essay gave Fukuyama his 15 minutes of fame, which a slide into obscurity would soon follow.Dahrendorf (1990) Reflections on the revolution in Europe p. 37Luciano Canfora La grande illusione del capitalismo eterno preface to Ercolani, Paolo La storia infinita. Marx, il liberalismo e la maledizione di Nietzsche quotation: However, Fukuyama remained a relevant and cited public intellectual, which led American communitarianism Amitai Etzioni to declare him "one of the few enduring public intellectuals. They are often media stars who are eaten up and spat out after their 15 minutes. But he has lasted." Bernard Crick in his book titled Democracy spoke of Fukuyama's principle of "the end of the world" as being a poor misreading of the historical processes involved in the development of modern democracy.Bernard Crick. Democracy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford Univ. Press. p. 112.

According to Fukuyama, one of the main critiques of The End of History was of his aggressive stance against postmodernism. In Fukuyama's opinion, postmodern philosophy undermined the ideology behind liberal democracy, leaving the Western world in a potentially weaker position.'Francis Fukuyama, "Reflections on the End of History, Five Years Later", History and Theory 34, 2: "World Historians and Their Critics" (May 1995): 43. The fact that Marxism and fascism had proven untenable for practical use while liberal democracy still thrived was reason enough to embrace the hopeful attitude of the Progressive Era, as this hope for the future was what made a society worth struggling to maintain. Postmodernism, which, by this time, had become embedded in the cultural consciousness, offered no hope and nothing to sustain a necessary sense of community, instead relying only on lofty intellectual premises.'Francis Fukuyama, "Reflections on the End of History, Five Years Later", History and Theory 34, 2: World Historians and Their Critics (May 1995): 36.

After tracing the development of a modern and effective government in the United States, Fukuyama asserts that the country is experiencing political decay. Fukuyama believes that political decay can be observed in the deterioration of bureaucracies, special interest groups capturing the legislature, and inevitable but cumbersome judicial processes challenging all types of government action.

In another work, The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstruction of Social Order, Fukuyama explores the origins of social norms and analyzes current disruptions in the fabric of human moral traditions. He considers these disruptions to arise from a shift from the manufacturing to the Information Age. This shift is, he thinks, normal and will prove self-correcting, given the intrinsic human need for social norms and rules.

In 2006, in America at the Crossroads, Fukuyama discusses the history of neoconservatism, with particular focus on its major tenets and political implications. He outlines his rationale for supporting the Bush Administration and where he believed it was going wrong at the time.

In 2008, Fukuyama published the book Falling Behind: Explaining the Development Gap Between Latin America and the United States, which resulted from research and a conference funded by Grupo Mayan to gain an understanding of why Latin America, once far wealthier than North America, fell behind in terms of development in only a matter of centuries. Discussing this book at a 2009 conference, Fukuyama outlined his belief that inequality within Latin American nations impedes growth. He stated that an unequal distribution of wealth leads to social upheaval, resulting in stunted growth.

In 2018, in Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, Fukuyama enlists Plato's notion of thymos to understand the politics of grievance and resentment.Addis Goldman, Finding Fukuyama’s Ends Between Aspirations and History, THR Web Features, July 22, 2021

At the start of the following decade, he published some reflections on his work in the form of conversations under the title After the End of History. After the End of History: Conversations with Francis Fukuyama, Edited by Mathilde Fasting, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2021.

In 2022, Fukuyama published the book Liberalism and Its Discontents, in which he defended liberalism from critics on the populist right and the Progressivism. He also criticized neoliberalism and identity politics.

As a supporter of the Iraq War, Fukuyama defended the war against critics who accused the US of unilateralism and violating international law, saying "Americans are right to insist that there is no such thing as an 'international community' in the abstract, and that nation-states must ultimately look out for themselves when it comes to critical matters of security."Francis Fukuyama, "U.S. vs. Them: Opposition to American Policies Must Not Become the Chief Passion in Global Politics," Washington Post, September 11, 2002

In a New York Times article from February 2006, Fukuyama, in considering the ongoing Iraq War, stated: "What American foreign policy needs is not a return to a narrow and cynical realism, but rather the formulation of a 'realistic Wilsonianism' that better matches means to ends." In regard to neoconservatism, he went on to say: "What is needed now are new ideas, neither neoconservative nor realist, for how America is to relate to the rest of the world – ideas that retain the neoconservative belief in the universality of human rights, but without its illusions about the efficacy of American power and hegemony to bring these ends about."

At an annual dinner of the American Enterprise Institute in February 2004, Dick Cheney and Charles Krauthammer declared the beginning of a unipolar era under American hegemony. "All of these people around me were cheering wildly," Fukuyama remembers. He believes that the Iraq War was being blundered. "All of my friends had taken leave of reality." He has not spoken to Paul Wolfowitz (previously a good friend) since.

Fukuyama declared he would not be voting for Bush, and that the Bush administration had made three mistakes:

• Overstating the threat of Islamist extremism to the US.
• Failing to foresee the fierce negative reaction to its "benevolent hegemony". From the very beginning showing a negative attitude toward the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations and not seeing that it would increase anti-Americanism in other countries.
• Misjudging what was needed to bring peace in Iraq and being overly optimistic about the success with which social engineering of western values could be applied to Iraq and the Middle East in general.

Fukuyama believes the US has a right to promote its own values in the world, but more along the lines of what he calls "realistic Wilsonianism", with military intervention only as a last resort and only in addition to other measures.

The US should instead stimulate political and economic development and gain a better understanding of what happens in other countries. The best instruments are setting a good example and providing education and, in many cases, money. The secret of development, be it political or economic, is that it never comes from outsiders, but always from people in the country itself. One thing the US proved to have excelled in during the aftermath of World War II was the formation of international institutions. A return to support for these structures would combine American power with international legitimacy, but such measures require a lot of patience. This is the central thesis of his 2006 work America at the Crossroads.

In a 2006 essay in The New York Times Magazine strongly critical of the invasion, he identified neoconservatism with Leninism. He wrote that neoconservatives "believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will. Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United States. Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support."

Fukuyama announced the end of the neoconservative moment and argued for the demilitarization of the War on Terrorism:

Fukuyama endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 US presidential election. He states:

In 2007 Fukuyama criticized the American government's attitude to Iran, "If the only thing we're putting on the table is that we'll talk to you, it isn't going to work. What the Iranians have really wanted over a long period of time is the grand bargain."John Heilemann, "Condi on Top," New York Magazine, October 24, In 2009 he described Iran as "not quite a tyranny, petty or grand" but also not a liberal democracy and added that "Iran could evolve towards a genuine rule-of-law democracy within the broad parameters of the 1979 constitution."Francis Fukuyama, "Iran, Islam and the Rule of Law," Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2009

In a 2018 interview with New Statesman, when asked about his views on the resurgence of socialist politics in the United States and the United Kingdom, he responded:

In a review for The Washington Post, Fukuyama discussed Ezra Klein's 2020 book Why We're Polarized regarding US politics, and outlined Klein's central conclusion about the importance of race and white identity to Donald Trump voters and Republicans.

In 2020, Fukuyama became the chair of the editorial board for American Purpose, a magazine established in 2020 to promote three central ideas. Firstly, it wants to promote liberal democracy in the United States. Secondly, it seeks to understand and opine on the challenges to liberal democracy in other countries. Thirdly, it wants to "offer criticism and commentary on history and biography, high art and pop culture, science and technology."

Fukuyama has also perceived Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election as the result of the Western system's ability to correct mistakes.

• Russia was heading towards defeat, with its planning being incompetent and based on flawed assumptions about Ukrainians being favorable to Russia and about the Ukrainian military suffering immediate collapse in an invasion scenario. "Russian soldiers were evidently carrying dress uniforms for their victory parade in Kyiv rather than extra ammo and rations." The bulk of Russia's military had been committed to the invasion and so there were no vast reserves available to it.
• Russia's position could collapse suddenly and catastrophically rather than through a slow war of attrition. Its army would reach a point where it could be neither resupplied nor withdrawn, and morale would collapse accordingly.
• A Russian defeat was a prerequisite for any diplomatic solution to the war as otherwise both Russia and Ukraine's losses meant that there was no conceivable compromise which they could both accept.
• Vladimir Putin's rule over Russia would not survive a military defeat. "He gets support because he is perceived to be a strongman; what does he have to offer once he demonstrates incompetence and is stripped of his coercive power?"
• The invasion had done huge damage to populists such as Matteo Salvini, Jair Bolsonaro, Éric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, and Donald Trump; all had expressed sympathy for Putin before the war, and their "openly authoritarian" leanings had been exposed by the war's politics.
• The war thus far had been a "good lesson" for China whose military, like Russia's, was technologically sophisticated but had minimal combat experience. The People's Liberation Army Air Force's lack of experience in relation to complex air operations meant that in a future conflict it would likely replicate the poor performance of Russia's air force. "We may hope that the Chinese leadership will not delude itself as to its own capabilities the way the Russians did when contemplating a future move against Taiwan"; as for Taiwan itself, Fukuyama expressed his hope that it would now begin to prepare for a future conflict including by reintroducing conscription.
• "Turkish drones will become bestsellers."
• A Russian defeat would permit a "new birth of freedom" and assuage fears about the declining state of global democracy. The spirit of 1989 would live on thanks to Ukraine's bravery.

Fukuyama has also put emphasis on the importance of national identity for a sound defense of liberal valuesand thus the need to reconcile the nation-state with liberal universalism, even if they seem at odds at firstin a Foreign Affairs article:

Liberalism, with its universalist pretensions, may sit uneasily alongside seemingly parochial nationalism, but the two can be reconciled. The goals of liberalism are entirely compatible with a world divided into nation-states. ... Liberal rights are meaningless if they cannot be enforced by a state. ... The territorial jurisdiction of a state necessarily corresponds to the area occupied by the group of individuals who signed on to the social contract. People living outside that jurisdiction must have their rights respected, but not necessarily enforced, by that state. ... The need for international cooperation in addressing issues such as global warming and pandemics has never been more evident. But it remains the case that one particular form of power, the ability to enforce rules through the threat or the actual use of force, remains under the control of nation-states. . . Ultimate power, in other words, continues to be the province of nation-states, which means that the control of power at this level remains critical. ... There is thus no necessary contradiction between liberal universalism and the need for nation-states. Although the normative value of human rights may be universal, enforcement power is not; it is a scarce resource that is necessarily applied in a territorially delimited way.

In a 2022 interview with El País, Fukuyama expressed support for Social democracy policies: "In Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, you've had social democratic parties in power for a long time. They've done a lot of redistribution – you don't get this kind of polarized politics and you have an alternation between the center-left and center-right, which I think is much healthier." However, Fukuyama also said that he "was never opposed to social democracy. I think that it really depends on the historical period and the degree of state intervention. By the 1960s, many social democratic societies had become mired in low growth and high inflation. At that point, I think it was important to roll some of that back. That is, in fact, what happened in Scandinavia. Most of those countries reduced tax rates, reduced levels of regulation and therefore became more productive. But I think that in the current period, we need more social democracy, especially in the United States."

On June 29, 2023, at an event hosted by Stanford University, Fukuyama met with the delegation from the Azov Brigade, posing for a picture with them and expressing his support "to Ukraine on their sure way to victory."

• Between 2006 and 2008, Fukuyama advised Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Monitor Group, a consultancy firm based in Cambridge, MA.
• In August 2005, Fukuyama co-founded The American Interest, a bimonthly magazine devoted to the broad theme of "America in the World". He served as chairman of the editorial board until his resignation. In a published letter posted on his public Medium page on July 27, 2020, Fukuyama cited a disagreement with the publisher's decision to terminate Jeff Gedmin as editor-in-chief. Fukuyama also indicated other changes underway at the publication as an additional reason for his resignation.
• Fukuyama was a member of the RAND Corporation's Political Science Department from 1979 to 1980, 1983 to 1989, and 1995 to 1996. He is now a member of the board of trustees.
• Fukuyama was a member of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2001 to 2004.
• Fukuyama is a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS).
• Fukuyama was on the steering committee for the Scooter Libby Legal Defense Trust. Fukuyama is a long-time friend of Libby. They served together in the State Department in the 1980s.
• Fukuyama is a member of the Board of Counselors for the Pyle Center of Northeast Asian Studies at the National Bureau of Asian Research. Pyle Center for Northeast Asian Studies, the National Bureau of Asian Research.
• Fukuyama is on the board of Global Financial Integrity.
• Fukuyama is a member of the Inter-American Dialogue.
• Fukuyama is the chair of the editorial board for American Purpose, a magazine established in 2020.
• Fukuyama is a member of the International Advisory Board for Bellingcat.