:00:00. > :00:00.receiving is not available on the Health Service. Now on BBC News it's
:00:00. > :00:10.time for Hardtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. 25 years ago,
:00:11. > :00:12.Francis Fukuyama, one of America's leading political scientists watched
:00:13. > :00:15.the communist bloc unravel and declared that history had delivered
:00:16. > :00:26.a conclusive verdict ` liberal democracy had vanquished its
:00:27. > :00:29.ideological rivals. I wonder how wise that proposition sounds today
:00:30. > :00:41.in Ukraine, Syria, China, or even in credit`crunched Greece? Francis
:00:42. > :00:44.Fukuyama is my guest today. Has a quarter century of global tumult
:00:45. > :01:12.changed his mind about the end of history?
:01:13. > :01:19.Francis Fukuyama, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. As we sit here,
:01:20. > :01:24.US warplanes are in action in Syria and in Iraq. The world is in turmoil
:01:25. > :01:31.in so many places. Given that, I wonder if you regret coining the
:01:32. > :01:38.phrase about the end of history. Well, I think that people
:01:39. > :01:41.misinterpreted what the end meant. The end of history meant the
:01:42. > :01:50.direction of history as an objective rather than simply the ending of
:01:51. > :01:55.events. And I think that, you know, it's still a question about where we
:01:56. > :01:57.are evolving. Are we evolving towards liberal democracy or is
:01:58. > :02:01.there some alternative system up out there that is plausible that people
:02:02. > :02:08.would like to emulate, which is an open question. An open question, but
:02:09. > :02:12.at the time in 89 and 92, when you expanded it into a book, you seemed
:02:13. > :02:15.sure in your mind that there was a universally accepted model that
:02:16. > :02:17.would work for mankind all over the world and that model, in essence,
:02:18. > :02:24.was the liberal, democratic capitalist one. Do you still believe
:02:25. > :02:27.in the universality of that? In 2014, it hasn't been a good year for
:02:28. > :02:30.democracy because of two big authoritarian powers, Russia and
:02:31. > :02:45.China, at either end of Eurasia, asserting themselves. Turmoil in the
:02:46. > :02:48.Middle East. But I think... Do you still believe in the premise that
:02:49. > :02:55.that it is in the end the inevitable end? No, I don't think it's
:02:56. > :02:58.inevitable. I think democracy is fragile. Something I have come to
:02:59. > :03:02.recognise over the last 25 years is that democratic institutions are
:03:03. > :03:04.very difficult to establish. Particularly state institutions,
:03:05. > :03:06.where you can govern without corruption, deliver services and
:03:07. > :03:16.things that people want is something fairly rare in the world. I want to
:03:17. > :03:19.get to that, this sort of foundation that you propose to be so very
:03:20. > :03:22.important, that is, delivery of services, a government that actually
:03:23. > :03:25.works, whatever its make`up in terms of being democratic or not. In terms
:03:26. > :03:30.of basic efficiency. I want to talk about that. Before we get there,
:03:31. > :03:34.staying with broad concepts. It seems to me back then, as the
:03:35. > :03:36.communist bloc was collapsing, your idea was that across the world
:03:37. > :03:46.different societies and body politics would look up more Western.
:03:47. > :03:49.Even recently, in the first volume of a two volume study of politics
:03:50. > :03:52.through history, you've talked about the idea of getting to a sort of
:03:53. > :04:05.Denmark, and that being applicable across the world. Westernisation,
:04:06. > :04:09.does it apply all over the world? I think it is an aspiration that
:04:10. > :04:16.exists in many places but I think that not everyone will get there.
:04:17. > :04:19.That's the reality. It's still the case if you ` I know that the Arab
:04:20. > :04:25.Spring has disappointed virtually everyone. But if you saw the initial
:04:26. > :04:28.mobilisation against tyranny, you see... You see the same thing going
:04:29. > :04:32.on in Ukraine today and different parts of the world. It happened in
:04:33. > :04:35.Turkey, in Brazil, over the last year that people have gone into the
:04:36. > :04:37.streets because they want a government that is responsive. That
:04:38. > :04:44.is driven by rising middle classes and so, in some countries, the
:04:45. > :04:47.impulse doesn't exist. But that connection between growing wealth
:04:48. > :04:49.and the demand for political recognition and political
:04:50. > :04:56.participation is a foundation of democracy and it seems to me that
:04:57. > :04:59.transcends a lot of cultures. Now the hard part is getting to Denmark,
:05:00. > :05:09.to convert that initial impulse, that initial mobilisation into
:05:10. > :05:14.durable institutions. And I think that is where we have fallen. I will
:05:15. > :05:18.pick up on that in a moment. Another aspect of what you wrote back then
:05:19. > :05:20.and I am sorry to hark back to it, but it was so important and
:05:21. > :05:24.influenced so many other thinkers. Part of it was a set of assumptions
:05:25. > :05:26.about American power. About America's ability, through both its
:05:27. > :05:34.own model and through its projection of its power, to shape the world
:05:35. > :05:42.after its own image. I wonder whether you have fundamentally
:05:43. > :05:45.changed on that proposition. Well again, I never argued that America's
:05:46. > :05:49.model, in fact, the concept of the end of history applies more to the
:05:50. > :05:52.European Union more than it does to the US because the end of history is
:05:53. > :05:55.a place where law has replaced power politics as a way of resolving
:05:56. > :06:02.disputes and I think America still loves its military and in a certain
:06:03. > :06:05.sense they believe in power. That was one of the causes of the
:06:06. > :06:12.setbacks for democracy, that Americans thought that they could
:06:13. > :06:16.reshape the world using hard power. In a sense, I think, I don't want to
:06:17. > :06:19.put words in your mouth, you somewhat resented the degree to
:06:20. > :06:26.which some neoconservatives in the US used your ideas as a vehicle for
:06:27. > :06:29.their own thoughts. That's right. Your thoughts about how America
:06:30. > :06:35.should project itself around the world. That leads me to today. When
:06:36. > :06:38.you look at American warplanes bombing Iraq and Syria today, do you
:06:39. > :06:49.think that is fundamentally misguided? No. I don't actually. I
:06:50. > :06:51.think the thing is that America constantly oscillates between
:06:52. > :06:55.excessive involvement and hubris as we did in 2003 with the invasion of
:06:56. > :07:06.Iraq and then a retreat into a quasi isolationism, which happened in
:07:07. > :07:12.Vietnam. And I think understandably after Iraq and Afghanistan,
:07:13. > :07:18.Americans are tired of this thing. I think we have made some tentative
:07:19. > :07:22.moves away from that. But I think there are many regions in the world
:07:23. > :07:26.where that power is necessary and many areas count on the US to
:07:27. > :07:28.support them, hopefully not with the kind of noisy bomb blasts of the
:07:29. > :07:31.Bush administration, but through more effective and moderate
:07:32. > :07:35.application of force. Are you clear in your mind what America is bombing
:07:36. > :07:37.Syria and Iraq for? I have a clear idea of my preferable strategy, I
:07:38. > :07:41.think the United States shouldn't pick friends and enemies in this
:07:42. > :07:53.region. We need to prevent the bad guys from taking over, contain them,
:07:54. > :07:56.though that should be it. In this round of American military
:07:57. > :07:58.engagement in the Middle East, in your view, this isn't and shouldn't
:07:59. > :08:07.be about values being delivered through military might. I think that
:08:08. > :08:10.the one thing we should have learned from Iraq and Afghanistan is that
:08:11. > :08:13.the US doesn't have the resources, the staying power, the wisdom to do
:08:14. > :08:16.something like create democracy in a Middle Eastern country or even
:08:17. > :08:23.settle something as complex as the Syrian civil war. What we can do is
:08:24. > :08:30.contain it so it doesn't hurt other people that we care about or
:08:31. > :08:34.ourselves. We are not in a position to dictate outcomes. Let's pick up
:08:35. > :08:37.on another idea that is at the front and centre of this latest volume of
:08:38. > :08:40.yours, Political Order and Political Decay. It seems to me a shift in
:08:41. > :08:42.your focus away from individual rights, liberties and democracy
:08:43. > :09:00.toward the basic machinery of efficient government and delivering
:09:01. > :09:08.services to people. Why the shift? Well, it really has to do with my
:09:09. > :09:11.observation about the world. I think that in many poor countries it is
:09:12. > :09:14.the inability to deliver basic services and not the absence of
:09:15. > :09:16.democracy that has led to the delegitimation of democracy. A study
:09:17. > :09:24.in India showed 50% of school teachers weren't showing up despite
:09:25. > :09:29.the fact that they were being paid. This is such a basic failure, and if
:09:30. > :09:33.you think about Brazil last year, the protest that broke out in Sao
:09:34. > :09:36.Paulo and other cities, it was over bus services and wasting money on
:09:37. > :09:49.the Olympics and the World Cup when education was in such terrible
:09:50. > :09:53.shape. Am so I think that that `` and so I think that that is what
:09:54. > :09:56.democratic government means, it means giving people what they want
:09:57. > :09:59.in terms of the services governments are supposed to provide. The point,
:10:00. > :10:02.surely, is that it doesn't have to be democratic government. That is
:10:03. > :10:05.where Fukuyama 2.0 is so different from the original Francis Fukuyama.
:10:06. > :10:10.You, in essence, have to acknowledge the lesson of Asia and China.
:10:11. > :10:13.Putting the words of a former Singaporean diplomat, to put it
:10:14. > :10:20.bluntly, democracy isn't a necessary or sufficient condition for good
:10:21. > :10:27.governance. You now, today, appear to echo that. I think it is correct.
:10:28. > :10:30.If you compare China with Zimbabwe or North Korea, it provides those
:10:31. > :10:37.services and it is a better quality authoritarian government. And so I
:10:38. > :10:43.do think that is a separate way to measure the performance of states.
:10:44. > :10:47.Now I think in the long run, there is a connection between democracy
:10:48. > :10:49.and the ability to do these things well, because it is a tendency of
:10:50. > :10:56.authoritarian governments to lose sight of what their citizens want,
:10:57. > :10:59.because they aren't forced to. But you are absolutely right that you
:11:00. > :11:02.can have good government in the absence of formal democracy. Has
:11:03. > :11:05.China and what is, it has done in 30 years, transforming its society and
:11:06. > :11:14.the economy, and the lives of hundreds of millions, has it forced
:11:15. > :11:16.a rethink on your part? It is the most important challenge, I think,
:11:17. > :11:29.ideological challenge, to liberal democracy out there. Because it in
:11:30. > :11:32.certain ways has been more efficient in providing those services than a
:11:33. > :11:34.comparable democratic government like the one in India that has
:11:35. > :11:40.trouble making decisions, can't provide infrastructure and the basic
:11:41. > :11:44.needs to its citizens. I think though that we need to look in the
:11:45. > :11:47.long run at questions of sustainability, because the Chinese
:11:48. > :11:50.have bought this performance at a great cost in terms of not just
:11:51. > :11:52.human rights that haven't been respected, but poisoned air,
:11:53. > :12:06.poisoned water, one fifth of agricultural land that is too
:12:07. > :12:13.polluted to produce edible food. And so it is a complex story. But it is
:12:14. > :12:16.an impressive... It is a complex story... It's complex and no`one
:12:17. > :12:19.pretends there aren't problems in China. Here is something that Ronnie
:12:20. > :12:23.Chan, I met him at a conference the other day and he is fascinating, he
:12:24. > :12:26.is a very rich Hong Kong Chinese property tycoon and he puts it this
:12:27. > :12:29.way, he says "there are fundamental differences between freedom pursued
:12:30. > :12:32.by China and the way it is thought of in the US. The West emphasises
:12:33. > :12:35.personal liberty while in the East, some individual freedom can be
:12:36. > :12:44.forgone to foster greater cohesion in the group" . It is a refrain we
:12:45. > :12:51.hear quite a lot from China. They have fundamentally different values,
:12:52. > :12:54.a different mindset at work. You say that China is unsustainable. If that
:12:55. > :12:57.is true, maybe it is sustainable. This goes back to an argument I had
:12:58. > :13:00.with Samuel Huntington, my mentor, who said there were huge cultural
:13:01. > :13:03.differences. He was the clash of civilisations guy. He was and he
:13:04. > :13:05.said Chinese respect authority and America is much more
:13:06. > :13:17.individualistic. This is something that changes over time. It changes
:13:18. > :13:19.as people get richer. As you develop an educated middle class with
:13:20. > :13:22.aspirations, opinions, with assets the government can take away, cross
:13:23. > :13:25.culturally, these people have pushed for political participation. It is
:13:26. > :13:33.true in Europe, America and Asia and it will be true for China down the
:13:34. > :13:35.road. Let me shift the focus to a different sort of intellectual
:13:36. > :13:38.challenge to the notion of the ultimate triumph of liberal
:13:39. > :13:41.democracy and that is actually to be a little bit more negative about the
:13:42. > :13:45.liberal democracies we have, particularly in the US and Europe.
:13:46. > :13:48.Would it be fair to say that, as you have analysed very closely the way
:13:49. > :13:51.the politics of the US and Europe works, you have become more aware of
:13:52. > :14:04.the deficiencies and the inbuilt decay within Western democracies?
:14:05. > :14:11.Yes, that is true. In my book, Political Order and Political Decay,
:14:12. > :14:17.I talk about the fact the biggest example of decay is the United
:14:18. > :14:20.States. All political systems are subject to decay, either through
:14:21. > :14:28.intellectual legitimacy, or insiders use privilege to capture political
:14:29. > :14:31.power. They use it for their own purposes. If all systems are subject
:14:32. > :14:34.to decay, going back to this other one, the opening discussion, by
:14:35. > :14:36.definition, if everything ultimately decays, just as we know through
:14:37. > :14:46.history, empires have risen and fallen. There can never be an end to
:14:47. > :14:51.history. That's right, and understood as
:14:52. > :14:54.advanced, and understood as the normative ideal for what kind of
:14:55. > :15:03.political ideal you would like, I think you can maintain that. Can
:15:04. > :15:06.you, even if within what you regard as the best mankind model, liberal
:15:07. > :15:14.democracy with free markets, even then you say the internal dynamic is
:15:15. > :15:19.towards decay. No, you can say as an ideal it is there, that is how you
:15:20. > :15:23.know it is decay. It doesn't lead up to that ideal. We got rid of one
:15:24. > :15:33.form of the corruption in the 1970s, and it has returned. Some groups are
:15:34. > :15:41.able to influence Congress in ways that are not representative. In the
:15:42. > :15:43.banking sector, powerful corporate groups can shape policy to their own
:15:44. > :15:56.liking, establishing privileges for themselves. That is not democracy.
:15:57. > :15:59.That is not the ideal representative of one man, one vote. It is not
:16:00. > :16:04.democracy in economic terms. And genuine free`market capitalism
:16:05. > :16:06.either. The last five or six years have forced us to think carefully
:16:07. > :16:09.about whether free`market capitalism works. Thomas Piketty was on this
:16:10. > :16:18.programme recently, his contention is that we have inbuilt problems,
:16:19. > :16:20.the rise of inequality itself. His contention is that capitalism as it
:16:21. > :16:31.works today is self`defeating in some ways. That could be the case,
:16:32. > :16:39.but the formula that was the winning one is not capitalism by itself but
:16:40. > :16:45.capitalism with democracy. You have to have... This is what has
:16:46. > :16:48.happened, in capitalism with democracy. The theory would say in a
:16:49. > :16:51.democratic society where people generally have power, if a certain
:16:52. > :16:54.elite abuses its position, it is corrupt or takes away winnings, the
:16:55. > :17:06.political system will mobilise to stop them. That happened in the
:17:07. > :17:13.United States in the 1930s. After the last great economic crash, you
:17:14. > :17:18.have the rise of Franklin Roosevelt. Do you believe it is happening this
:17:19. > :17:21.time? Do you see self correction? No, this is what is troubling about
:17:22. > :17:23.the current period, after the financial crisis in the late 2000s,
:17:24. > :17:32.you have not seen this globalisation. Part of the reason is
:17:33. > :17:41.that the crisis was not severe enough. No`one should wish another
:17:42. > :17:44.great depression, but in a sense the policymakers put a floor under what
:17:45. > :17:48.happened, and now many people have forgotten they went through this. Is
:17:49. > :17:50.it possible that you have not been imaginative enough? You are being
:17:51. > :17:53.frank about the problems you see in the Western system, but you still
:17:54. > :17:59.sort of believe a Rightist Western system is the best. Some Leftists,
:18:00. > :18:03.for example, there is a commentator in this country who says surely the
:18:04. > :18:09.lesson of the last five years is similar to the lesson of 1989 when
:18:10. > :18:17.it comes to communism. That is that nothing is ever settled. He says the
:18:18. > :18:20.upheavals of the first part of the 21st`century have opened up the
:18:21. > :18:26.possibility of a new kind of global order? The question is really, is it
:18:27. > :18:32.a fundamentally new approach? Or is it basically the same formula but
:18:33. > :18:35.adjusted? More regulations. We've gone through this period from the
:18:36. > :18:37.rise of Reagan and Thatcher, markets were celebrated by regulation and
:18:38. > :18:43.privatisation, that was the name of the game. It didn't work. The system
:18:44. > :18:52.was unstable, and we are now readjusting it. As we did in the
:18:53. > :18:55.1930s. It is basically the same system. There is a deeper and more
:18:56. > :18:58.troubling thing going on which is technology, underneath all of this,
:18:59. > :19:00.you have the rise of intelligent machines, the possibility of
:19:01. > :19:12.increasing middle`class incomes will be eroded. And we see evidence that
:19:13. > :19:17.this is happening. This is not a problem of capitalism but economic
:19:18. > :19:22.advance. It is going on in China as much as it is here. But that's a
:19:23. > :19:26.question that I think throws the whole system into a lot of doubt.
:19:27. > :19:33.Because, it is not clear what the solution to this particular problem
:19:34. > :19:41.and inequality is. Another element I will throw into the mix which could
:19:42. > :19:44.raise questions about your analysis. It seems to me, overall, you apply
:19:45. > :19:53.rationality and rational analysis to the way you have seen the world
:19:54. > :19:55.working over the last 100 years. Maybe there are intangibles,
:19:56. > :19:58.important ones, connected with tribal identity, with religion and
:19:59. > :20:06.fear, with sometimes xenophobia among humankind. That does not
:20:07. > :20:09.really fit within your analysis but are very important to the way that
:20:10. > :20:13.sometimes people make decisions about the kind of body of politics
:20:14. > :20:16.they want to live within. I would be the first one to acknowledge that
:20:17. > :20:18.they are powerful forces, and actually when democracy is
:20:19. > :20:23.successful, it is not a purely rational process. The reason
:20:24. > :20:26.Americans are patriotic is not because they have looked at all
:20:27. > :20:29.systems around the world and made a careful decision theirs is the best,
:20:30. > :20:37.they do it because they are American and brought up in those traditions.
:20:38. > :20:40.I think the trick about democracy is to link that belief and national
:20:41. > :20:48.identity to a set of institutions, which is inclusive and truly
:20:49. > :20:51.democratic. But you have to build that identity out of these
:20:52. > :20:52.irrational sources, because that is what the political community emerges
:20:53. > :21:02.from. I want to end by bringing us back to
:21:03. > :21:04.the opening of this debate where we talked about American warplanes
:21:05. > :21:08.bombing Iraq and Syria. How on earth, when you look at those
:21:09. > :21:10.societies today, and you look at the example of the new potency of
:21:11. > :21:13.so`called Islamic State, now occupying swathes of territory
:21:14. > :21:16.across Iraq and Syria, how do you conceive a way of getting from where
:21:17. > :21:19.those territories are today to a place where, in any way, they
:21:20. > :21:28.resemble liberal democracies that you believe to be the best
:21:29. > :21:35.organisation of human society? What you have to do is look back in
:21:36. > :21:38.history. Europe went through a period of religious warfare between
:21:39. > :21:41.Protestants and Catholics in the beginning of the 16th and 17th
:21:42. > :21:56.centuries which resulted in the Peace of Westphalia. It went through
:21:57. > :21:59.another long period of nationalism. Both of these are a form of identity
:22:00. > :22:02.politics, which are destructive of liberal democracy. It was a matter
:22:03. > :22:05.of exhaustion, in 1945 Europeans looked up and said, this is crazy.
:22:06. > :22:11.We have to exclude nationalism from our political mix, that was the
:22:12. > :22:14.foundation of the EU. And the peaceful world... What worries me
:22:15. > :22:17.about this conversation is the direction of travel that you set out
:22:18. > :22:23.confidently 25 years ago is so misguided now. Europe looks so
:22:24. > :22:33.tired, and so much of the world is now driven by identity politics.
:22:34. > :22:41.Whether tribal, ethnicity based. You know as well as I do that is where
:22:42. > :22:49.so many nations are going. Look at the Middle East or Putin's Russia.
:22:50. > :22:55.Those are all true. We could be on the cusp of an authoritarian
:22:56. > :22:58.revival. That is very troublesome. The argument was never going to be
:22:59. > :23:05.this inevitable Marxist machine going on and individual agents
:23:06. > :23:12.didn't matter, I think democracy... You used the word "average". ``
:23:13. > :23:15."evolution". That leaves people like me to believe that rather than
:23:16. > :23:17.Darwinian survival of the fittest, perfecting a species, we were
:23:18. > :23:21.somehow going to perfect our modes of governance which does not seem
:23:22. > :23:31.right? You have to back up. In 1970, there were 35 electoral democracies
:23:32. > :23:34.in the world. In 2014, despite all of the things you've talked about,
:23:35. > :23:38.there are still 110, we've gone from one third of the world to two thirds
:23:39. > :23:45.of the world living in some form of democracy. So it is very troubling.
:23:46. > :23:49.I'm worried about the way the world is going right now. But I do think
:23:50. > :23:52.the acceptance of the principle of democracy and the general acceptance
:23:53. > :23:59.of a globalised market economy is much more widespread now than it was
:24:00. > :24:06.50 years ago. So, let's hope that we stay on that track and are able to
:24:07. > :24:09.stay there. That is a good place to end, with an optimistic view.
:24:10. > :24:43.Francis Fukuyama, thank you for coming on HARDtalk. Thank you.
:24:44. > :24:50.This very dry September continues. Very little rain this weekend. A few
:24:51. > :24:54.light showers but most places will be dry. There will be a lot of
:24:55. > :24:55.cloud. Where the