Transcription
Hello and welcome to Tetat here on France 24. Our guest is Francis Fukuyama. He's a senior fellow at Stanford University, author most famously in 1992 of The End of History and the Last Man, in which he asserted that the end of the Cold War had established the dominance of liberal democracies. He joins us from Palo Alto in California. Thank you very much for being with us, Mr. Fukuyama.
>> Thank you very much for having me. Well, some 30 years uh later, uh it seems that uh what you asserted back in the early '90s is not true anymore. Uh democracy, liberal democracy is being challenged sometime from within. What did you get wrong?
>> Well, I think that the overall thesis was about the direction of development, modernization of history. uh the Marxists for many years had asserted that it would ultimately lead to a communist uh utopia and my argument was that uh it wasn't heading there. It was heading more towards something like a liberal democracy tied to a market economy. We've been in a democratic recession really now for about 15, almost 20 years. Uh the democratic surge peaked in about 2008 and we've gone backwards uh ever since then. Uh and so there's no question that we're uh in a very different moment of history, but that doesn't mean that in the long run there won't be, you know, an evolution of human institutions in that direction because we've had setbacks in the 1930s and the 1970s before. So I think the the story isn't quite completed.
But how do you explain uh this uh democratic uh recession or uh the fact that uh it is not seen as a model? How do you explain it? I mean, is it just uh because there's been economic crisis, inequalities? What's your explanation for all of this?
Uh I think that the explanation is ultimately not economic because even though we've had inflation and COVID and other uh uh disturbances, the situation of most economies in Europe and the United States is actually pretty good. I think the real problem is uh in a sense a frustration with the existing democratic world. It's stable. It's peaceful. Uh it's prosperous. But I think that in the end people want more. They they want to be recognized. They want to have their dignity uh asserted. The last part of The End of History and the Last Man was the part about the last man, who's the democratic man who emerges at the end of history. And I think a lot of people don't want to simply be that last man. They they want something more. And if that means struggling against democracy, uh that's what they're going to do.
>> Right? Uh what's maybe the most surprising in in your eyes is what's been happening in uh your own country. Yes. In Eastern Europe, there's been back and forth. Uh but clearly in the US now, uh we're seeing uh people uh elected and challenging the very democracy that got them elected. I'm speaking about Donald Trump, of course.
>> Yes. Well, I I guess that's the most surprising and the most disappointing uh thing that's happened really since I wrote the book. I didn't think that democracy in the United States would be challenged as frontally as it has been by Donald Trump. Uh he's clearly uh a leader with authoritarian instincts. He doesn't like respecting the rule of law. Uh in foreign policy, he is in the process of trying to cut an extremely shameful deal with Russia over Ukraine. He's basically switched sides in a global conflict between authoritarianism and democracy. And um, you know, the worst part of it is that the American people elected him a second time even though in the 2020 election he clearly tried to stay in office illegally. Uh and that seemed to not matter to American voters who reelected him. Uh so if the leading, if the world's leading democracy uh relapses into this kind of authoritarian practice, I think that it's very bad for democracy globally.
Uh what is the most shocking uh for you uh with uh Donald Trump? Uh his uh challenge of a democratic rule of the courts or the conflicts of interest? I mean, his family is openly doing business, uh cryptocurrency, real estate deals with Saudi Arabia and so on and so forth. I mean, what is the most striking in your eyes?
Well, it's it's really hard to choose from that menu because they're all grave [clears throat] violations of democratic uh practice. I think that um, you know, in many ways uh he's trying to amend the constitution unilaterally by denying birthright citizenship. Uh he's declared war on virtually the rest of the world through his tariffs. Uh and I think that uh in foreign policy, as I said, uh you know, his siding with Ukraine, I'm sorry, his siding with Russia over Ukraine, I think is an abandonment of the traditional American role as the leading democratic power in the world that will help other democracies. And honestly, I don't know which of these is worse. As you said, the corruption in his administration is just off the charts in terms of earlier American presidents. Uh his family has been enriched, but almost every single cabinet member uh is also involved in some kind of self-enrichment uh uh scheme. And so, you know, that erodes confidence in uh democratic institutions. It erodes trust. And in the long run, I think it's going to be very toxic for American democracy.
>> When it comes to foreign policy, uh he was supposed to stop wars abroad, focus on America, but he's talked been talking less now, but at the onset of his uh second mandate about Panama, about Greenland, about Canada. Uh he's also struck Iran. He's threatening Venezuela. What do you make of all this?
Well, it's very hard to find an actual principle underlying Trump's foreign policy other than personal self-interest. For example, uh the United States has been trying to cultivate a good relationship with India as a counterweight to China. Uh we've been doing this for the last 20, 30 years. Donald Trump really threw that away because Prime Minister Modi, Indian Prime Minister Modi, wouldn't support his bid for a Nobel Peace Prize. And so he's basically uh subordinated American national interests to his personal vanity. And I think that uh anyone hoping to see a consistent thread in any of his actions is going to have a lot of trouble doing that. Uh he didn't want to bomb Iran at first. He told Netanyahu to hold back, but then when Netanyahu provided him with an opportunity to strike Iran, uh he took it. And so, you know, it's it's very hard to predict where that foreign policy is going to lead. It's not isolationist. Uh he's perfectly happy to interfere in the uh uh internal affairs of other countries like Brazil. you know, he imposes a tariff on Brazil because they're trying to uh legally prosecute former President Bolsonaro. And you know, this again is is completely inconsistent with any uh uh form of isolationism. Uh but it is driven by personal uh you know, self-interest.
>> Obviously, you mentioned uh China. Uh how would you feel today if you're Taiwan?
Well, obviously ever since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, people have been particularly worried about Taiwan because uh Russia set the precedent for a superpower or a great power uh you know, simply marching an army across an international border. Uh and China, you know, has been promising to reunite with Taiwan for some time. And I think uh everybody can now see the prospect of that happening in terms of Donald Trump's uh policy towards Taiwan and China. We don't know what it is. Uh Biden made it very clear that the United States would support China against a military attack by China. Uh whether Donald Trump will do that uh is not clear. He clearly likes Xi Jinping and admires him in many ways. And I could easily see him making a deal with uh Xi to, you know, have Taiwan revert to Chinese control uh and then claiming that he's, you know, avoided World War II. Uh I think that would be entirely possible, but honestly, we don't know uh what he would do. I think he's very unlikely to take military action uh that would involve the United States in direct conflict with China.
As a conclusion, uh Mr. Fukuyama, do you really believe that the arc of history uh will make it so that liberal democracy will become likable again? You say sometimes maybe it's not uh very enticing, but you think uh that people will go back to that or are you concerned that the authoritarian drift that we've been discussing is what is going to have the upper hand in the near future?
>> Well, there's a couple of things to say. Uh first of all, authoritarian government does not always work out so well. And I think even in the case of China, there are really big problems with its economic model. Obviously, there are big problems with the Russian uh expansionist authoritarian model. The other thing to say is that the good thing about a democracy is it can self-correct. We had an election uh a couple of weeks ago in the United States in which the Democrats did extraordinarily well. Donald Trump's popularity has been falling very dramatically because of all of the chaos and inconsistency that he's created. And I think the American people don't like it. Uh next year we're going to have a midterm election. And I think we can already see the peak of Trump's power and a slow decline that in the in the end may undermine this whole authoritarian uh tendency of his. Uh so, you know, we'll have to see whether our democracy can save itself. Uh and other democracies you know obviously uh can do the same.
Francis Fukuyama, thank you very much for being our guest here on Tetat from Palo Alto in California. And thank you all for watching this show.