Civil Society and Cultural Diffusion
Correspondent Marianna Dratch, on the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty web site, "interviewed" Francis Fukuyama who offered some provocative ideas that might be good as writing prompts or discussion starters.Maybe it's unfortunate that Fukuyama's ideas can only be dealt with in such truncated forms within the context of introductory comparative politics. There just isn't time for students to learn enough about Hegel, Marx, Lenin, Weber, Huntington, Kissinger, neo-conservative ideas, the politics of policy, and numerous other things to grasp the wider implications of the ideas stated and implied in the phrases "the end of history" or "They were really Leninists... I have always been more of a Marxist..." Then again, that's the nature of introductory courses. And perhaps carefully chosen quotations can whet students' appetites for more complex considerations in the future. Maybe this is one of those quotations. It does veer into international relations and foreign policy in the last question, but that helps illustrate Fukuyama's thesis.
How would your students respond to these ideas? If you asked them to write a response to one of Fukuyama's statements, how well would they analyze a case from a country they've studied? How, for instance, might they analyze the development of civil society in China or Nigeria in light of Fukuyama's contentions? Or could a discussion of these ideas be a valuable teaching tool? Try it out and tell us what happens. (Use the comment link at the bottom of the entry.)
Fukuyama Says Ideas On Liberal Democracy 'Misunderstood'
"Professor Francis Fukuyama is best known for his idea that the world settled on liberal democracy after the ideological struggle of the Cold War. After giving a lecture... in Kyiv, he spoke... [about] how his ideas on liberal democracy have been misunderstood and misused.
"Building A Civil Society
"RFE/RL: 'The crucial question is how to build social capital. Is it possible to build up social capital from top to bottom, or from abroad?'
"Fukuyama: 'No, I think that social capital is almost always built from the bottom up, through people working together, the way they're trained and educated and so forth. Governments can only create a framework in which people can create social capital for themselves, and so the government has to avoid being too interventionist in controlling everything. People have to be allowed freedom to associate and to work with each other. But the government has to provide the basic security stability, social order, and political order. That's also another necessary condition for social capital to arise.'
"RFE/RL: 'And what about foreign governments or foreign sponsors or international organizations trying to sponsor NGOs in certain countries?'
"Fukuyama: 'I think you have to put that into the broader context of globalization. It's simply the case that a lot of things move across international borders -- money, ideas, communication, information. So I think it's inevitable that people look to foreign models and ideas, they get funding from outside in shaping their own society. But in the end it is the people in the society that create civil society, they create social capital, they create democracy. It's not something that can really be done by any group of outsiders.'
"RFE/RL: 'You have often been criticized for cultural determinism... Ukraine has been torn between different empires and now the unity of the country is still a test that people have to face. What is your advice on this? How do you close the cultural gaps within a country?'
"Fukuyama: 'I think that cultures change over time. Right now you have a very different global condition where you have influences that don't come just from the neighborhood, they come from all over the place, from Europe, from America. I think the important thing is to remain open to those other types of ideas and models. Also the way that people get training and knowledge, that has a big effect on culture. So all of these I think will affect Ukrainian culture in the future.'
"RFE/RL: 'Professor Fukuyama, some of your critics say that your ideas about the primacy of liberal democracy created a climate suitable for the self-assured behavior of the U.S. government in world affairs. Do you feel responsible to any extent for this?'
"Fukuyama: 'Well, no. I think that the Bush administration, to the extent that they thought they were using my ideas, really misunderstood them.... They were really Leninists because they believe that they would use power to advance democracy. And I have always been more of a Marxist, in the sense that I believe that democracy comes about as a result of a long-term process of modernization that's driven by forces within each society but that you can't speed up that process from the outside. And so to the extent that they thought that 's what I was arguing, I think they misunderstood what I was saying.'"
Other Resources
- The introduction to Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man
- Francis Fukuyama's web site at Johns Hopkins University where he is the Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy and Director of the International Development Program
- Fukuyama's blog at the American Interest web site
posted by Ken Wedding @ 12:26 PM
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