Selçuk Aydın, Mehmet Fatih İzgi
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the liberal West claimed ideological victory. This triumph is often narrated through a Eurocentric lens of historical continuity. But it is important to recall that Soviet Union considered itself rooted in Western Marxism, albeit refracted through Leninist anti-imperialist and anti-colonial perspectives. Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 declaration of the “End of History” (1) captured the prevailing belief that liberal democracy and free-market capitalism had triumphed as the final stage of human political, economic and ethical evolution inspired from the Hegelian progressive historical approach. Within this context, scholars such as Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye Jr. envisioned a world governed by “complex interdependence,” (2) where cooperation, rule of law and liberal norms would prevent large-scale conflict and global fragmentation.
But as the 21st century unfolds, the foundational assumptions of the liberal order are crumbling—not only because of external rivals, but also due to its own internal contradictions. The West no longer occupies the central position in shaping the dominant discourse on global challenges: its moral credibility has been undermined in places such as Palestine; demographic policies have failed to reverse declining fertility, while migration policies designed to compensate for population loss have transformed Western nation-states into multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multicultural societies, fuelling the rise of far-right politics; and its retreat from the liberal promise of free trade toward protectionism has coincided with the momentum of economic development shifting toward alternative centres such as China.
Hence, far from the end of history, we may be witnessing the implosion of liberalism itself, as its core premise of individual autonomy erodes the foundations of societies, nations and civilisations, and the West loses its moral, demographic and economic centrality.
The Demographic Collapse
Nowhere are liberalism’s internal contradictions more evident than in the demographic crisis engulfing the developed world. Fertility rates in nearly every Western country have dropped far below replacement level. (3) Traditional family structures are eroding; and marriage is increasingly delayed or abandoned altogether.
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