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Francis Fukuyama

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Francis Fukuyama (born October 27, 1952 in Chicago) is an influential American philosopher, political economist and author.

Contents

Education

He received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science, and is currently Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy and Director of the International Development Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University. He has been affiliated with the Telluride Association since his undergraduate years at Cornell, an educational enterprise that was home to other significant leaders and intellectuals, including the Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg and the defense and foreign affairs official, Paul Wolfowitz.

Writings

Fukuyama is best known as the author of The End of History and the Last Man, in which he argued that the progression of human history as a struggle between ideologies is largely at an end, with the world settling on liberal democracy after the end of the Cold War and when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Fukuyama's prophecy declares the eventual triumph of political and economic liberalism. Fukuyama's thesis in this first book was based on a misprision of Kojeve and Hegel's thesis that history in the limited sense of the struggle of ideologies had ended in the 19th century.

He has written a number of other books, among them ' and '. In the latter, he qualified his original "end of history" thesis, arguing that since biotechnology increasingly allows humans to control their own evolution, it may allow humans to alter "human nature", thereby putting Liberal Democracy at risk. One possible outcome could be that an altered human nature could end in radical inequality. The current revolution in biological sciences leads him the theorize in an enviroment in which as he says history is not an end because science and technology are not at an end.

Relationship to Neoconservatism

Politically, Fukuyama has in the past been considered neoconservative. He was active in the Project for the New American Century think-tank starting in 1997, and signed the organization's letter recommending that President Bill Clinton overthrow the then-President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. [link] He also joined in its similar letter to President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks, a letter that called for removing Saddam Hussein from power "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack". [link]

Thereafter, however, he drifted from the neoconservative agenda, which he felt had become overly militaristic and based on muscular, unilateral armed intervention to further democratization within authoritarian regimes (particularly in the Middle East). He did not approve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq as it was executed, and called for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation as Secretary of Defense [link]. He said that he would vote against Bush in the 2004 election [link], and said Bush made three major mistakes:

Fukuyama's current beliefs include: the US should use its power to promote democracy in the world, but more along the lines of what he calls realistic Wilsonianism, with military intervention only as a last resort and only in addition to other measures. A latent military force is more likely to have an effect than actual deployment. The US spends more on its military than the rest of the world put together, but Iraq shows there are limits to its effectiveness. The US should instead stimulate political and economic development and gain a better understanding of what happens in other countries. The best instruments are setting a good example and providing education and, in many cases, money. The secret of development, be it political or economic, is that it never comes from outsiders, but always from people in the country itself. One thing the US is good at is the formation of international institutions. These would combine power with legitimacy. But such measures require a lot of patience. #redirect

In an essay in the New York Times Magazine in 2006 that was strongly critical of the invasion [link], he identified neoconservatism with Leninism. He wrote that the neoconservatives:

...believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will. Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United States. Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support.

He also announced the end of the "neoconservative moment" and argued for the demilitarization of the war on terrorism:

"[W]ar" is the wrong metaphor for the broader struggle, since wars are fought at full intensity and have clear beginnings and endings. Meeting the jihadist challenge is more of a "long, twilight struggle" whose core is not a military campaign but a political contest for the hearts and minds of ordinary Muslims around the world.

If he has distanced himself from the label of neoconservatism, he remains indebted to Leo Strauss, purported father of neoconservatism, for much of the theoretical basis of his political economics. In Our PostHuman Future he takes a Straussian stance, defending a classical doctrine of natural right. He says his argument is Aristotelian and that

Aristotle argued, in effect, that human notions of right and wrong--what we today call human rights--were ultimately based on human nature.

Affiliations

In August 2005 Fukuyama, together with a number of other prominent political thinkers, co-founded [The American Interest], a quarterly magazine devoted to the broad theme of "America in the World". The editorial tone of the publication is largely bi-partisan and is an attempt to transcend the polemical discourse that dominates discussions of contemporary American foreign policy.

Fukuyama was a member of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2001-2005.

Fukuyama is on the steering committee for the Scooter Libby Legal Defense Trust [link]. Fukuyama is a long-time friend of Libby. They served together in the State Department in the 1980s.

Fukuyama is also a part-time photographer and has a keen interest in classical furniture which he makes by hand. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.

Selected Bibliography

Books

Essays

See also

External links

 

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