HISTORY UNENDED

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. The Cold War had ended, and it looked like liberal democracy had triumphed.

- BY RICHARD STENGEL

That year, Francis Fukuyama published his famous essay “The End of History,” which posited that with the fall of communism, an international consensus had been reached. No more communism, or fascism; no more theocracy, or monarchies. No more totalitarianism. Democracy had won.

The phrase the end of history comes from Hegel, who prophesied that “history” would end when there was no longer ideological competition in world affairs. This was not the end of “events” happening, but the end of history as a struggle for the best way for human beings to govern themselves. After the fall of the wall, dozens of nations in Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia embraced constitutional democracy. There was, in Bernard Bailyn’s wonderful phrase, a contagion of liberty.

But something started to change around 2005. According to the Freedom House survey, 2005 was the last year when global movement toward democracy outnumbered declines. Every year since then, the number of countries moving away from democracy has outnumbered those becoming more democratic. Political scientist Larry Diamond calls this the “democratic recession.” We are still in it.