Francis Fukuyama

After the end of the world order of East and West, of communism and capitalism, and the collapse of the Soviet Union almost 40 years ago, did the hoped-for triumph of the Western liberal system actually occur—along with the end of competing ideologies, and thus the »end of history« as an era of conflict? How does Fukuyama, in retrospect, assess his utopia of that time? (As a »side effect«, he also predicted the emergence of an age of the »last man«—a more hedonistic species, lacking friction.)

How does he read our confused present? How are these two turning points connected? How does he see our future? Fukuyama thinks in connections. It is no coincidence that with his most recent book »The Last Man. Where Is the World Heading?« (2026), he returns to his famous title »The End of History and the Last Man« (1992).

What kind of world order are we heading toward? Liberal democracy is in crisis. After a long phase of democratization, we have once again arrived in a world of power, driven above all by authoritarian movements, technological change, neoliberalism, and identity politics. With his reflections on the state of the world, Francis Fukuyama shows why liberal thinking is indispensable for Western societies in the 21st century. Above all, however, he makes clear why we must fight for freedom if we want to secure its survival and contain the risk of an authoritarian world order.

Francis Fukuyama, born in Chicago in 1952, studied political science at Harvard. His 1992 bestseller »The End of History« made him internationally known. Fukuyama is one of the most important political theorists of our time. He taught at Johns Hopkins University, received the Skytte Prize in 2015, and has published numerous books on U.S. politics. He is currently Professor of Political Science at Stanford University.

The event will be held in English with German translation.