The Rector’s Programme – Conversation with Kishore Mahbubani

How Democracies Fail

At the end of the Cold War, Francis Fukuyama said that we had reached the end of history. He also said that all societies would become liberal democracies. By doing so, he also suggested that achieving democracy meant achieving nirvana in the political sphere. Yet, 20 years later, we now know that many democracies are failing, both in the developed and developing worlds. This talk will try to understand why this is happening and look in particular at three case studies, Thailand, UK and USA.