Francis Fukuyama in conversation with David Runciman - Democracy: Even the Best Ideas Can Fail

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In 1992 American political scientist Francis Fukuyama shot to worldwide fame with the publication of 'The End of History and the Last Man'. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and a wave of democratic transitions in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, Fukuyama argued that History, in the grand philosophical sense, was leading not to communism as the Left had asserted, but to liberal democracy and a market economy.

Professor Fukuyama came to the Intelligence Squared stage in September 2014, where he squared up with one of Britain’s most brilliant political thinkers, David Runciman, to assess how democracy is faring in 2014. We certainly haven’t attained the rosy future that some thought Fukuyama was predicting: authoritarianism is entrenched in Russia and China, in the last decade the developed democracies have experienced severe financial crises and rising inequality, and Islamic State militants are wreaking havoc in Iraq and Syria.

Runciman agrees with Fukuyama that in the realm of ideas liberal democracy doesn’t have any real competitors. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only option, he believes, and even the best ideas can fail. Take the Arab Spring where democratic hopes have largely come to nothing. While Fukuyama argues that we should consider the long view – it’s easy to forget that the European revolutions of 1848 took 70 years to consolidate – Runciman worries that we may not have enough time for the long view in a fast-changing world.

Is religion becoming the new politics? How will the technological revolution continue to impact our politics? And in the West are we in danger of becoming complacent about the challenges to democracy that we face?