There's no one single ideal type of government for everyone in this room. I think there will be slightly tattered liberal democracies. There'll be illiberal democracies, autocracies and theocracies. And they'll be parts of the world where there's no state at all - just zones of anarchy. It is nice to have a free press and free elections but i've lived by it. People don't only want free speech very important. But legitimacy in regimes isn't a matter of fitting any theory,. Like liberalism or omarxism or some other theory. So that's, as it were, a my my answer to you.
Following the fall of communism in 1989, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama shot to fame with his thesis about the ‘end of history’ – the idea that the entire world was set on a path towards universal liberalism. But 30 years on, liberalism is under attack from both the Right and the Left – and from Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Professor Fukuyama was joined in conversation by John Gray, the British political philosopher, who rejects the idea of a universal momentum towards liberal values and human progress. Despite the view of many that the Russian invasion of Ukraine marks the end of the post-Cold War era, Fukuyama believes that it is a wake-up call for the West to rekindle the spirit of 1989, while Gray holds that the idea that liberalism will ever triumph is a mirage. Chairing the discussion is the journalist, author and broadcaster, Helen Lewis.
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