In his 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama put forward one of the most challenging and enduring hypotheses in the International Relations corpus. As the unexpected fall of the Soviet Union and the ascendancy of the Western liberal democratic order seemed to herald the natural Long Peace after humanity’s most violent moment. For the proponents of Fukuyama’s hypothesis, this counterfactual unipolar moment could be seen as a linear progression, sustained by the triad of democracy, trade, and interdependence.
For others, it signaled a reminder of our captivity to history and a prelude to the eventual end of the current world order. However, the return of history does not mean its strict repetition. Today’s so-called “return to power politics” does not resemble a German-style rise to systemic confrontation, but rather marks a shift away from the U.S.-led Western status quo. The international system, as constructed after the Second World War, has become almost unrecognizable, owing to the rise of emerging powers, the historic transfer of relative wealth and economic influence from West to East, increasing globalization, transnational forces, and the narrowing gap in power differentials between states.
The failure of the “end of history” thesis stems from two key assumptions: (1) the necessity of a globally adopted democratic order, and (2) the universal acceptance of liberalism as the foundation for human theodicy. For Fukuyama’s hypothesis to hold, democracy and liberalism would have needed to spread universally, to every country. Yet, this convergence has not occurred. Some states, like China, have embraced aspects of economic liberalism without adopting democratic governance, showing that the liberal-democratic pairing is neither natural nor inevitable.
Even where liberal democracy has spread, it has not consistently demonstrated its superiority. In recent decades, some authoritarian regimes have outperformed democracies in areas such as economic development, social cohesion, and crisis management, challenging the assumption that liberal democracy is the most effective or desirable model. This performance gap has become particularly evident in response to social crises. The COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, exposed how certain authoritarian systems could act more decisively and effectively in times of global emergency. As the world grapples with increasing transnational crises—climate change, resource competition, pandemics, cyber threats, migration—resilience and adaptability may matter more than regime type alone.
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