The fragility of liberty : a reconstruction of republican citizenship

Abstract

Historical memoiy is often short, but we all recall the great experience of the popular revolutions in East Central Europe, The collapse of state-socialism had tremendous repercussions all over the world, and a large number of undemocratic regimes, no longer sheltered by East-West bipolarity, have crumbled. Francis Fukuyama made a name for himself by proclaiming the approaching end of history as the victory of liberal-democratic political orders. There is, Fukuyama boldly stated, “a fundamental process at work that dictates a common evolutionary pattern for ail human societies - in short something like a Universal History of mankind in the direction of liberal democracy". Fukuyama was making the broad point that the idea of liberal democracy, or some recognlsably liberal version of the conceptual pair of liberty and equality, was triumphant in the sense that it was no longer rational to imagine better worlds that were not liberal, that attempts to do so were local leftovers, and that, give and take setbacks and delays, governments across the globe would find it increasingly difficult to secure a minimal degree of popular legitimacy, save by taking decisive steps towards conforming to liberal ideas.