Francis Fukuyama, an acclaimed American political philosopher, entered the global imagination at the end of the Cold War when he prophesied the "end of history" -- a belief that, after the fall of communism, free-market liberal democracy had won out and would become the world's "final form of human government."


Now, at a moment when liberal democracy seems to be in crisis across the West, Fukuyama, too, wonders about its future.


"Twenty five years ago, I didn't have a sense or a theory about how democracies can go backward," said Fukuyama in a phone interview. "And I think they clearly can." Read more