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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 6:27 am Post subject: Fukuyama: Autocracy can only go so far |
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Liberalism has the historical dialectic at its back.
The world's bullies are throwing their weight around. But history is not on their side.
| Fukuyama wrote: |
We are certainly moving into what Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria labels a "post-American" world. But while bullies can still throw their weight around, democracy and capitalism still have no real competitors. The facile historical analogies to earlier eras have two problems: They presuppose a cartoonish view of international politics during these previous periods, and they imply that "authoritarian government" constitutes a clearly defined type of regime -- one that's aggressive abroad, abusive at home and inevitably dangerous to world order. In fact, today's authoritarian governments have little in common, save their lack of democratic institutions. Few have the combination of brawn, cohesion and ideas required to truly dominate the global system, and none dream of overthrowing the globalized economy.
If we really want to understand the world unfolding before us, we need to draw some clear distinctions among different types of autocrats. First, there's a big difference between those who run strong, coherent states and those who preside over weak, incompetent or corrupt ones. Musharraf was able to rule Pakistan for almost a decade only because the Pakistani army, his base of support, is the most cohesive institution in a state that's otherwise a basket case. Zimbabwe is in even worse shape, with Mugabe presiding over horrific economic collapse. Feeble autocracies such as Zimbabwe can threaten their own neighbors only by producing refugees desperate to escape hyperinflation and poverty.
Today's autocrats can also prove surprisingly weak when it comes to ideas and ideologies. Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and Mao's China were particularly dangerous because they were built on powerful ideas with potentially universal appeal, which is why we found Soviet arms and advisers showing up in places such as Nicaragua and Angola. But this sort of ideological tyrant no longer bestrides the world stage. Despite recent authoritarian advances, liberal democracy remains the strongest, most broadly appealing idea out there. Most autocrats, including Putin and Ch�vez, still feel that they have to conform to the outward rituals of democracy even as they gut its substance. Even China's Hu Jintao felt compelled to talk about democracy in the run-up to Beijing's Olympic Games. And Musharraf proved enough of a democrat to let himself be driven from office by the threat of impeachment.
If today's autocrats are willing to bow to democracy, they are eager to grovel to capitalism. It's hard to see how we can be entering a new cold war when China and Russia have both happily accepted the capitalist half of the partnership between capitalism and democracy. (Mao and Stalin, by contrast, pursued self-defeating, autarkic economic policies.) The Chinese Communist Party's leadership recognizes that its legitimacy depends on continued breakneck growth. In Russia, the economic motivation for embracing capitalism is much more personal: Putin and much of the Russian elite have benefited enormously from their control of natural resources and other assets.
Democracy's only real competitor in the realm of ideas today is radical Islamism. Indeed, one of the world's most dangerous nation-states today is Iran, run by extremist Shiite mullahs. But as Peter Bergen pointed out in these pages last week, Sunni radicalism has been remarkably ineffective in actually taking control of a nation-state, due to its propensity to devour its own potential supporters. Some disenfranchised Muslims thrill to the rantings of Osama bin Laden or Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the appeal of this kind of medieval Islamism is strictly limited. |
Click on link above to view the entire article.
Fukuyama is right. And its not at odds with realist foreign policy to acknowledge that liberalism has advantages and an attraction that other models do not have. |
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RufusW
Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Location: Busan
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| Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 12:14 pm Post subject: |
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| All aboard the End of History train!!!....toot!!! toot!!! |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 1:15 pm Post subject: |
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| It's true. There is no other attractive alternative that has an appeal outside it's own borders. This is what makes the US self-destructive policies so puzzling. An $8 trillion debt, mostly to protect itself from an imaginary threat. |
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