Francis Fukuyama is known on his thesis “The End of History” in which he depicted Liberal Democracy as the final destination of the world’s governments. The Western liberal democracy is the endpoint of mankind ideological evolution and at the same time the final form of human government. (Fukuyama,1989). It defeated the Communism ideology in Russia, the projected end of history according to Marxian philosophy and the Fascism of Japan. These two ideologies according to Fukuyama were dead already.
However, Fukuyama did not give any guarantee that the liberal democracy has no more competitors because in fact he mentioned the two possibilities, those of religion and nationalism. The two are notably rising in recent days. The Islam for example that is of the fundamentalists are tough reluctant to the idea of western liberal democracy. Their vow to tradition and religion is very strong that it would even go against the global flow of markets and economy - globalization. The work of Benjamin Barber “Jihad versus MacWorld is the ultimate image that shows the fundamentalists ideology is strong enough to go against the ideology promoted by the Western democracy or the MacWorld. Thus, fundamentalists challenge the end of history.
While some countries are tough reluctant to the liberal democracy some are actually desires to have it but leads to something else. This is the other competitor of Western liberal democracy that Fukuyama had failed to mention in his paper - the rise of illiberal democracy. According to Fareed Zakaria, there is a new wave that emerged nowadays. It composed half of the democratizing countries of the world as the Freedom House’s 1996-97 survey provided, and that is the illiberal democracy. Where it came from? How it existed?
There are different answers actually but if we just look at the main point of all it boil down to the fact that it is a transformation of the former Western liberal democracy. It changes as it touches to the other ideologies and civilizations. Asian style of democracy for example is the result of the mixture between Western values and the Asian values. The sense of individualism of the West is mixed with the sense of collectivity with the Asian; the consensus of Asian above dissent and of discipline over permissiveness. These contradicting ideologies are actually met themselves in one place and that existed the Asian style of democracy or simply the illiberal democracy. Thus, we cannot deny that this new wave of democracy is born out from the liberal democracy.
Interestingly, illiberal democracy is common much of the Asia, Latin America and Africa. In other words, this is the type of democracy of the third world. This is because of the historical origin of every civilization of every country that cannot be easily bargained or changed through external influences. Philippines for example has a long history of being a democratic country. It was in the 1940’s that it governed itself as an independent state from the United States. It performs regular elections, has a constitution of its own, etc. But we cannot really say that the democracy injected by the former colonizer is what the Philippines has in reality. There is a visible gap between the theory and the practice as the Philippines is concern. The fraud in the regular elections is indeed a concrete basis. The election as what the liberal democracy meant to be is not fulfilled in a way that the results of the polls are not anymore out of freedom and fairness.
There are these factors that are present in the third world democracies but not in the first world. The patron-clientilism and elitism are few examples of the existing factors that helped to form the new wave of democracy. Patron-client relationship is an exchange relationship between roles-may be defined as a special case of dyadic (two-person) ties involving a largely instrumental friendship in which an individual of higher socio-economic status (patron) uses his own influence and resources to provide protection or benefits, or both, for a person of lower status (client) who, for his part, reciprocates by offering general support and assistance, including personal services, to the patron. (Scott 1972). Elitism on the other hand, according to online free dictionary, it is the belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources. These factors are common in the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Jamaica, and among other democracies. It is beyond the provinces of the Western liberal democracy.
Another significant factor of the unnoticed development today is the growing number of people coming from developing countries to work abroad or the migration phenomenon. This is going to be a way of influence as the soft power of Joseph Nye defined - the recent dominant power of the world. This is the ability to get what you want by attracting and persuading others to adopt your goals. This is also what Huntington on his great essay “Clash of Civilization” that the world is of mixed with different civilizations. The west civilizations are combined with the rest civilizations. That Huntington projected that the next world war will be a cultural war.
The illiberal democracy is growing as it is really the final end of history. The growing number of democracies in the world is in favor not of western liberal democracy but of illiberal democracy. This is because the most of the number of states all over the world are developing countries. In addition, China that, is belong to third world countries, its economy has grown fast in recent days while the United States is on its state of economic and political crisis. This is an important event that we could anticipate the final victory of the new democracy. The tendency of China to be the next hegemonic state is great and somewhat becoming clear. Among other illiberal democracies that are rising includes the four tigers in Asia such as Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan.
The type of government that a country has is not a guarantee to the claim of Francis Fukuyama. Japan situation was acknowledged as the only modern state that is not western by Huntington. Indeed it is. The reason is because the spirit of Asian values remains in the heart of the Japanese people. The Japanese strong resistance on preserving their values and unique civilization is indeed a manifestation that the liberal democracy implanted to them by the United States is really not the ultimate end of history. There is something else beyond to the end of history given by Fukuyama that would fill the whole world. Thus, it is never the Western liberal democracy that takes the finished line but the illiberal democracy in which today gains legitimacy.
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