Francis Fukuyama remains one of the most influential political theorists of the modern era, a reputation forged in 1989, months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, when his essay “The End of History?” made the case that communism’s decline marked the end of humanity’s great ideological struggle and that Western liberal democracy would emerge as the final form of government. The book that followed was translated into more than 20 languages. Since then, Fukuyama has written extensively on history, the origins of political order, trust and identity, biotechnology and the crisis of liberalism. He has advised American governments, received the Johan-Skytte Prize and teaches at Stanford University. His new book, “Der letzte Mensch”, was published in Germany in June 2026.
In an interview with Die Zeit, Fukuyama rejects the suggestion that the Enlightenment has ended. “If it is only a yes-or-no question, then definitely: No,” he says. “The Enlightenment is by no means over. It is under pressure, but it is definitely not over.” His argument, however, is not one of complacency. He describes a political and intellectual order under significant strain, with liberal democracy retreating, authoritarian powers expanding their influence, public trust in science weakening and new technologies raising questions about who should control increasingly powerful machines.
For Fukuyama, the Enlightenment rests fundamentally on the rise of modern science during the 16th and 17th centuries. Scientific methods displaced dogma as the principal means of understanding the material world, creating new capacities to shape it and contributing to the emergence of the modern economy and the prosperity enjoyed today. The same intellectual transformation, he argues, also deepened understanding of individual motivations and the behaviour of societies.
Liberal democracy was one of the political consequences of that transformation. Fukuyama defines it as a combination of democracy, in which citizens determine who governs them, and liberalism, which limits what even an elected government is permitted to do. Governments cannot violate fundamental rights, and citizens retain freedoms including freedom of speech, freedom of association and the ability to govern aspects of their own lives. The liberal state therefore depends not simply on elections but on restraints on political power.
It is precisely those restraints that Fukuyama believes have come under increasing pressure. Looking back over the 35 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, he notes that the number of countries regarded as liberal democracies grew from about 35 in 1989 to well over 100 by the first decade of the 21st century. Since around 2008, however, that expansion has gone into reverse. China and Russia have emerged as authoritarian great powers seeking greater influence beyond their borders, while illiberal political movements have gained strength inside established democracies.
He points to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary as an example of the phenomenon, noting that Orbán himself described the system he sought to create as an “illiberal democracy”, in which elections remain but the rule of law and the rules of the European Union are not respected. Fukuyama argues that similar right-wing populist parties now exist in practically every European country.
But he identifies Donald Trump’s rise in 2016 and his re-election in 2024 as the most important development. Fukuyama describes Trump as illiberal in the same sense as Orbán: democratically elected, but unwilling to accept legal constraints on executive power. He says Trump’s second term has seen behaviour more characteristic of a monarch than a democratically elected president, including the issuing of executive orders, measures against undocumented migrants and dismissals of officials that Fukuyama says contravened legal requirements.
The danger, he argues, is that a retreat from liberalism can eventually undermine democracy itself. Yet Fukuyama’s concern is not confined to political institutions. He also sees a crisis in the authority of science. The scientific method, he explains, does not establish permanent truth but tests propositions and allows hypotheses to be falsified. The experience of Covid, he says, damaged the credibility of health authorities when recommendations based on incomplete information later proved inaccurate. He does not regard this as evidence of conspiracy, but says many people interpreted changing scientific guidance as deliberate manipulation by elites.
That distrust has contributed to the politicisation of science and the growth of anti-vaccine sentiment. Fukuyama points to the fact that about 20 per cent of the US population believes vaccines are harmful and says that, in some Republican-governed states, health authorities have discouraged childhood vaccination against a range of diseases. For him, the development is particularly troubling because it challenges the Enlightenment belief that scientific evidence should provide a basis for public policy.
The internet has complicated that struggle further. Fukuyama recalls that when the internet emerged in the 1990s, he and many others believed the expansion of information would strengthen democracy. Instead, he says, the internet has weakened the authority of traditional gatekeepers such as newspapers and broadcasters, which applied journalistic standards and generally rejected conspiracy theories and obvious falsehoods. Online, anyone can make claims, while popularity and the number of likes can become a substitute for scientific verification.
Yet Fukuyama rejects the conclusion that democracy is therefore doomed. He argues that established democracies have lost control over dominant narratives, but believes the resulting disruption will not necessarily destroy democratic government. Political mobilisation remains possible, he says, citing resistance to illiberal politics in Hungary and elsewhere and expressing confidence that American voters can still respond through democratic institutions.
The challenge now extends into artificial intelligence. Fukuyama says the potential threat from “agentic AI” is real because such systems can be given authority to make decisions on behalf of people rather than simply answer questions. He warns that machines could receive increasing decision-making powers because they can process more information, operate faster and avoid emotional fluctuations. Experiments in which machines have acted in ways their developers did not anticipate and attempted to conceal what they had done have, he says, heightened his concern.
Fukuyama therefore supports regulation, although he acknowledges that designing it will be difficult. AI could increase productivity and economic growth, and excessive regulation could obstruct useful research. The objective, he argues, should be to ensure that powerful technology is used for democratically legitimate purposes. His research group at Stanford University is working on precisely this problem: how to create institutions capable of managing technologies whose autonomy may continue to expand.
His conclusion is deliberately resistant to fatalism. Liberal democracy, he says, remains the strongest framework available because he has yet to see a plausible alternative that promises to be superior. China, despite its economic rise, still relies heavily on market-oriented principles that emerged from Western economic liberalism, while Fukuyama questions whether its present model can remain sustainable.
For all his concern about democratic backsliding, Fukuyama believes surrendering to pessimism would itself be dangerous. Political systems can be defended through mobilisation, organisation and alliances, but only if citizens believe that an alternative remains possible. The future of the Enlightenment, in his view, will therefore depend not on historical inevitability but on continued democratic effort.
Asked by Die Zeit whether the Enlightenment is over, Fukuyama gives a final, unequivocal answer: “It is not over. And we have to work hard to keep that light burning.”
