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ally NL and the site for asking
questions it's just a one-click process
will also appear every now and then in
the image on your screen after the
interview I will pass your questions at
least some of them to you or the
Albrecht Center professor Fukuyama you
can send in questions whenever you like
don't wait for us to invite to do you so
to do so after the interview and the
questions I will come back to you with
some short closing remarks last year on
March 8th john adams and the bali had
the pleasure of welcoming francis
fukuyama live in amsterdam yuri
Albrecht's was also the interviewer that
evening so we know we are in good hands
and actually we knew that already I will
now give the floor to him to UT thank
you very much Tracy Matz it's always a
great pleasure working together with the
John Adams Institute and it's wonderful
to be introducing professor Francis
Fukuyama to you welcome to everybody at
home I'm the director of the Center for
the Arts here and I'm from the Bali
professor Francis Fukuyama is truly one
of the most influential thinkers of our
time but I'm going to introduce him a
little bit for you professor at the
Center for democracy development at the
rule of law at Stanford University in
America the United States the author of
a large number of books including the
world known the end of history and the
last man 1992 which is an elaboration on
an essay of 1989 the last the end of
history but also the book trust 1996 in
which professor Fukuyama explains that
the most valuable commodity on earth
actually is trust of most viable
commodity in any state is trust because
it's the the commodity which enables
States to build wealth and build large
organizations which are necessary in our
world to bring wealth and stability but
recently the event you just talked about
Tracy and recently he published last
year actually 2019 identity the demand
for dignity and the politics of
resentment which sells a whole lot of
very very interesting things
the politics of our time and the
resurgence of the politics of identity
and the importance of identity in
politics it's been translated actually
into Dutch identity ID it's called
but lost contact you can still buy it
it's I think one of the most interesting
reads on what's happening to our global
political landscape you've referred
already on it to a Tracy
recently professor Fukuyama wrote an
interesting art only in the Atlantic in
which he states that indeed the response
to the kovat epidemic pandemic the
success of responses lies in the trust
citizens have in their state we were
talking about that welcome warm welcome
professor Fukuyama Francis Fukuyama's
great talking to you thank you for
joining us from Stanford life maybe
maybe just to start off Francis Fukuyama
why is it that this Trust is the most
important thing in the response in the
successful response to the pandemic why
would you say that just briefly to start
off so Yuri before I answer that
question I want to thank the John Adams
Institute Tracy Metz and you for having
me I'd much rather be an Amsterdam in
person but I guess this will have to do
in this period of lockdown so I think
the reason that Trust is employment it's
important in general it's important for
the economy it's important for politics
but I think at a moment when people are
asked to do something quite difficult
and and extraordinary like stay at home
for two months and not go to restaurants
and not socialize and not do all of the
things that they are accustomed to doing
you're not going to do that unless you
get a lot of voluntary compliance now if
you're an authoritarian country you can
threaten people you can put them in jail
you can use coercion but that's actually
not the most effective way of getting
compliance it's much better if people
follow instructions because you know
they believe that the government knows
what it's doing and they want to keep
themselves
their fellow-citizens safe and so they
do things voluntarily but that requires
actually believing in a number of things
obviously you have to believe your
governments legitimate but beyond that
you have to believe that it has the
requisite expertise that it's making
decisions based on some concept of
public interest and not simply narrow
political calculations there has to be
trust in the fellow citizens because
basically we're social animals and we
imitate you know what people around us
are doing so if you're going to a spring
of a Spring Break beach party because
you see all your friends doing it you
know you're not going to be obeying
rules and so you have to have you know
citizens that trust one another so for
all of those reasons I think in a period
of pandemic like the one we're
experiencing you know that's why this is
a very precious commodity yeah that's
that's that's we can follow that it's
interesting what you're saying among
other things that you can coerce people
into behavior but that's not too
effective dictators wouldn't agree with
you of course but but but it's better to
do it voluntarily and to to to to
understand what you're doing to trust
your government in that respect how
would you look upon the Chinese take on
this because they I mean they lock down
whole regions and I mean they are an
authoritarian one-party system of course
so but it seems to have been quite
effective so that would help that fit in
in certain ways so I I was actually
about to have that you know citizens
have to trust the government but the
government also has to trust citizens
because you know it's citizens that have
knowledge of what's actually happening
on the ground in their communities and
neighborhoods and so forth and that's
where I think China has a really big
problem because it basically doesn't
trust its citizens and so you know we
had the case of the starter Li wen Yan
early on tried to blow the whistle on
this spreading virus and he was you know
told to shut up and eventually you know
passed away and I think this continues
to be the case that the government you
know in a sense doesn't trust certainly
an independent media or citizen
watchdogs or whistleblowers to actually
reveal instances of non-compliance so
forth because they simply don't like to
be not in control of everything that's
going on in their society so I think
that's the big weakness of authoritarian
government since the lack of the
government not having trust in their own
people mm-hmm but that that would apply
for China you just explained that of
course but everybody seems to be under
the impression that the response of
China to this crisis was very effective
or would you say it was probably not or
is that a wesen overall look if you look
in terms of the statistics of per capita
deaths and infections and so forth there
is a problem with the statistics coming
out of China so now right a lot of
people think they're understated but
even if they're not understated I think
that you still have you know fairly
impressive performance in controlling
the disease however if you look at
neighboring South Korea the democratic
country they have even better statistics
you know they have fewer infections they
were able to control the disease despite
a big early outbreak and they have done
it through democratic means and again I
think that reflects the fact that it's
not a request of state that the
government can make use of information
coming from civil society from you know
from ordinary citizens so yeah I think
that China did this but it did it at a
big cost in terms of you know personal
personal freedom and it could have been
a better performance if the Trust had
gone both in both directions that's
interesting that's that's that's
demented a very interesting point it
could have done better if it would have
done different yeah and but you're
saying it doesn't so
democratic states and authoritarian
states could perform both quite well
it's that's not a defining difference
it's a trust in their population both
ways in the government and of the
government in their populations that's
that's what it may be it may be easier
to understand us if you think about some
contrary examples so I think among the
worst performing countries in the world
are Brazil under jr. bolsa narrow this
and populist president now and I'm sad
to say you know my country the United
States I mean we now account for by far
the largest number of deaths and
infections and so forth and part of the
problem in both of these countries is
that citizens don't trust each other you
know both of these countries are deeply
polarized and that's completely affected
the response of both places so in Brazil
and in the United States you have a
president but really didn't want to
believe that this was a serious crisis
in the beginning didn't take steps to
ramp up testing or to get prepared and
when fine and well both tomorrow hasn't
admitted it even to this point Trump did
it very late but now he is so I think
worried about his own personal political
fortunes that he's urging people to go
back to work even when the conditions
really aren't right for it and people
will follow that because he's got these
very loyal followers but then other
people are much more trusting in the
public health experts and so it means
that we don't have a you know a unified
response to what is the single biggest
public challenge to you know our health
and well-being in my lifetime would you
would you say that the distrust between
the two the bipartisan ISM in your
country in America let's turn to America
for a short while and then maybe to
Europe because we are where Europeans
but would you say that the bipartisan
distrust actually aggravates the crisis
in America oh by far I mean you see this
right now you know for the last several
weeks we've been having these
demonstrations in a number of states
against a shut
and in fact in Michigan you know a bunch
of these lunatics walked into the State
Capitol with you know semi-automatic
weapons and you know complaining about
threats to their freedom and you know
this is this is not individual
irrational behavior because you go to a
big rally with no social distancing you
know you're actually putting yourself in
in personal danger of getting the
disease but I think the kind of cultural
identification has gotten to the point
where you don't actually think you know
rationally about things we you say
what's my team doing and if my team is
saying oh we got to get back to work you
know the the virus the epidemic is a big
fraud it's way overstated it's really
not a serious issue then you're going to
take certain actions but if you believe
an alternative set of facts and you're
going to behave you know very
differently that's bipartisan distrust
and it feeds at least to irrational
behavior of citizens even because they
care more about being democrat or
republican than their own health order
or securing their own health you also
said that it's been aggravated the
situation the pandemic in America
because of the erosion of trust into
institutions by the central government
by the president is that right well you
know the United States has always had a
problem with government one of the most
fundamental facts about American
political culture is that citizens don't
trust the government they trust the
private sector but they don't trust the
government that's been true since the
founding of the Republic yeah but it's
been exacerbated in recent years with
the shift of the Republican Party to the
right this really began under Reagan but
it really accelerated with the rise of
the Tea Party after Obama was elected
where the government is seen as a
potential tyrant you know the reason
that these guys are carrying around
semi-automatic weapons is they think
they're going to have to defend
themselves against their government you
know it's
I think it completely crazy in a way of
looking at the world but that you know
it's true of a certain part of the
American public and that's led to this
gradual erosion of state capacity which
I think is also really critical in
dealing with a national emergency we
haven't invested enough in our pub in
our civil service we don't hire enough
experts and under this administration
the situation has actually deteriorated
because you know we've gone through this
whole series of events having to do the
Mueller investigation and the
impeachment and so forth where you have
you know permanent civil servants that
are simply stepping up and telling the
truth about behaviors that they saw and
they're being punished for it and this
has led to an empty out of expertise and
a politicization of many government
agencies and it includes the Centers for
Disease Control I mean I used to use the
CDC as an example of why it's important
to have an expert professional permanent
civil service but it turns out that over
the years you know the leadership of
that has gradually gotten more and more
politicized people have been leaving
positions there because if you don't
please please your clinical masters your
career is not going to go anywhere and I
think we're now paying the price for
that mm-hmm
if we turn to Europe and we see a very
different approach in the northern parts
of Europe and the southern parts of
Europe what's your what's your analysis
of that I mean the lockdown is much much
more severe in in the countries
bordering the Mediterranean than it is
in the Scandinavian countries it
couldn't be more apart actually they're
both members of the European Union but
they are approach totally different what
does that tell you about your hypothesis
of well actually your your observation
of trust in societies as a well yeah it
I think it actually confirms the overall
hypothesis because one of the things
that you have in Northern Europe you
know in Germany the Netherlands in
Scandinavia is a much higher degree of
social trust and social consensus which
has been reflected in
you know the continuing dominance of the
centrist parties in most of that part of
of Europe in southern Europe it's
different because you had a much higher
degree of polarization
I mean Spain has had multiple elections
because they can't agree on what kind of
government they want France has been
bitterly polarized with you know not
just a populist right the National Rally
but also the the gee Asian movement
Italy is even worse they've had a
populist government I mean now
temporarily out of power but very very
big divisions between the north and the
south of Italy get reflected in every
decision they make in national politics
and so I think it's that failure to have
a kind of broader consensus that can be
steered by the elites towards sensible
policies that's really weakened the
ability of southern Europe to deal with
you know with the current crisis and
it's going to get worse you know I think
that now the attention is going to shift
from public health issues to economic
issues you know who gets bailouts and
who gets public support and where does
the money come from and where does it go
to and again you know the same divisions
I think between north and south that we
saw during the euro crisis are coming
back you know in a even more intense way
and now actually it's overlaid by an
east-west slant because that's also
another big division that's opened up in
Europe the countries of Eastern Europe
none of them have been slipping
backwards frankly into
semi-authoritarian or maybe even
outright authoritarian government you
know Hungary and Poland and and then
would be entrance into the EU like
Serbia so all of these divisions you
know I think are going to make
decision-making in Europe much more
difficult you would you would say that
under the pressure of the pandemic of
the coronal crisis already existing
cracks would widen so the north/south
divide and east-west I mean I you know I
think they they already have been
apparent you know you had this recent
decision
by the the German Constitutional Court
yes this week basically undermines the
you know the power of the ECB to
essentially help some of the weaker
members of the of the euro
yeah European Central Bank Ian to help
the southern members of the of the Union
yes yeah right and and if we so if you
um you stated recently in because these
these these are worrying developments
and you could you could also say of
course that never waste a good crisis
the European Union has always overcome
the crisis and be a if it doesn't kill
you it makes you stronger the Union
actually tends to to to to change the
European Union only under pressure of
sort of major crises it has a tendency
to do that too how would you look upon
the chances of getting you know stronger
out of this sort of a corona crisis the
Union European Union the chance well
what doesn't kill you makes it stronger
but then sometimes it just kills you in
the long run so I'm not sure how far
that aphorism goes sure yeah so there
you know you can think of lots of
positive scenarios that will come out of
this because I think that you know this
crisis like other crises reveals
weaknesses and existing institutions and
political arrangements that people are
willing to let slide for long periods of
time because there seems to be no
urgency and then crisis comes and then
people realize they have to fix things
it's not just in Europe I think that's
true in the United States and many other
countries so a lot of that will depend I
think on how the economic part of this
crisis plays out if things resolve
themselves over the next few months and
then the pandemic recedes and things
begin to be you know get back to normal
then I think that you might say well it
was a big scare but it's really revealed
these weaknesses and we
to improve the decision-making capacity
of Europe and you know within each
country of national governments however
I think that the likelihood is that this
is going to be much more prolonged I
think the experience right now Asia
indicates that it's really hard to stamp
this thing out in the absence of a
vaccine or you know some technological
fix a treatment other ends you know I
think the you know the The Economist was
talking about a 90% economy it may
actually be an 80 or a 70% economy and
if that sort of thing persists for a
long period of time then you're going to
get all sorts of strange political
backlash movements because you know this
kind of prolonged pain is going to be
much harder to endure people just get
tired of living under these conditions
that they want to blame on somebody and
that I think you know could lead to much
more serious political consequences in
terms of the strength of the overall
institution and we just don't know what
the future is going to hold it so you
know you can imagine both good scenarios
and bad scenarios yes because yes you
you just stated yes that could be many
good consequences from it you know there
could be positive developments but if I
looked upon your facial expression if I
may say so
are you doubtful of that isn't it you
you were you're more unbalanced just
giving the epidemiological
characteristics of what we're going
through it looks like we're not going to
get out of it quickly mm-hmm and if
we're not going to get out of it quickly
then you know I think you're going to
face much more complicated and dangerous
long-term consequences because I'm just
thinking of a quote I read you I read an
interview you just recently gave I think
it was on on websites of China where you
stated I worry both about global
democracy and peace because we may be
losing both of them that's a much more
dire
scenario how I mean that this is really
really worrying and I think it's
extremely worrying if it's uttered by
the man who've been you know one of the
most influential writers on 1989 who's
been who's been very influential on
writing about the consequences of 2001
that the 9/11 crisis sowhat's if this is
a partly or wholly your take I mean how
come
will peace and well legacy and so my
opinion is not going to affect anything
in the long run and honestly you know we
just don't know what what's going to
happen but I would say that you're lots
of reasons for worrying about global
democracy mm-hmm because any kind of
external shock like this a national
emergency automatically creates
incentives to strengthen executive
authority and what we've seen in many
countries is executives that have
authoritarian instincts use this
opportunity to increase their power the
most obvious case of this is Viktor
Orban in Hungary who got his Parliament
to vote him emergency powers of course
the first thing he does with these new
powers is to rollback transgender rights
I was obviously the most critical thing
happening in Hungary at that moment but
but I don't think he's going to give
them back but it's not just that country
you know that this has happened and and
I think that one of the things that
worries me is that we're not even aware
of this happening in many countries
because we're so preoccupied with our
own domestic crisis that were just not
paying attention to other parts of the
world but it's been going on let's say
in Uganda in El Salvador in Turkmenistan
you know many other places where
authoritarian leaders are tightening the
screws and are unlikely to give back
power once the immediate crisis relents
and so that's something that I think
everybody that's interested in the
future of democracy we can see attention
to by the way you know so if you
actually this is a concrete suggestion I
can give to a European audience yeah
please
Europe is at
so you're talking about possible good
consequences yeah one of the one of the
failings I think of Europe is actually
been to prevent Hungary slide into
authoritarian government and I know that
there's a lot of you know political
calculations within the European
People's Party in New York in Parliament
about why the Germans in particular
haven't been willing to you know to
pressure them more but actually the
crisis gives you a perfect opportunity
to do that because there's going to be a
lot of you know funds that will be
availabe made available by the European
Union to countries that are in trouble
and I just don't think that they should
be given out unconditionally and this is
actually a great opportunity you know
with a country like Hungary or like
Poland both of which have been
backsliding in terms of democratic
practice to say you know you don't get a
single euro until you have fixed some of
these problems in your own democratic
institutions that's my little sermon
I'm not a European so I can't you know
without any European elections but I
mean there is an opportunity the eyes of
the outside are actually are sometimes
more important and then you know our own
eyes so it's it's very important
observation I would say you would say
but I can see your point about democracy
and the threat this crisis brings to a
liberal democracy and the global
democracy because you didn't mention Z
or Putin but they both you know are
liable to do the same thing as Viktor
Orban did of course and actually Putin
already did you know we really noticed
but he you know managed to stay in power
for another ten years or something but
you're saying world peace as well world
peace might be at stake for a prolonged
crisis well yeah so the reason I think
to worry about that really has to do
more with the developing world you know
people have been speculating for a long
time that climate change was going to
make a number of developing countries
basically unsustainable and that was
already beginning to drive conflict in
sub-saharan Africa and the Middle East
and met that in turn drove the earlier
refugee crisis and I think that the
epidemic has not even begun to play out
in many parts of the developing world
actually in Africa it's surprising that
the numbers seem to be as low as they
are but yeah that may be the result of
poor statistics and record-keeping on
the parts of governments but you know
given the conditions in many parts of
the developing world in the next two
years say this could you know evolve
into a really monumental health crisis
that then is going to drive people to
migrate to move you know to their
neighboring countries and then
eventually to try to get out of you know
their regions altogether and that will
bring them back you know potentially a
migrant crisis like the one that
happened in 2014 but attached on a much
larger scale and so that I think would
be the main worry about political
instability leading to potential
conflict I know that I could foresee
right now mm-hmm and also the fact that
we're so preoccupied by our own crises
are internal I mean our own national
crisis that we want that's right look
upon other places in the world
deteriorating or backsliding or big
famines or those sort of things
you also said in the same interview I I
read you saying there are some big
changes in global distribution of power
that have been created by this crisis
since you're an a good observer of
international relations there it's very
interesting and you're saying that
already have been some big changes and
where would we see them well I think
that the biggest shift is simply an
acceleration of something that was
underway before the crisis right is a
shift of global power to Asia obviously
this is the big story of the past
generation but because a number of Asian
countries have tended to get this
disease under control much more quickly
than Europe at the United
States mm-hmm it means that they're
going to start recovering economically
earlier than Europe or the United States
and that in turn is going to drive you
know the center of global economic
activity you know further to that region
now the one unknown factor has to do
with actually the relationship of the
rest of the world to China because I
think that in my view actually this is a
positive consequence of the crisis right
many countries are now reassessing the
extreme extraordinarily high level of
dependence that they've developed on
Chinese manufacturing and I think that
actually because of the degree of
globalization that had gone on over the
last 20 years we had created a lot of
fragility in the system that is now
being exposed by the epidemic and I
think that you know corporations
thinking about their supply chains are
going to think very carefully about you
know exactly where to locate them
I think previously it was simply driven
by very ruthless considerations about
efficiency you know that if you can
squeeze a couple of cents out of you
know a particular supply chain you know
you're going to move it to a different
country and I think that resilience is
going to be you know more highly valued
as a circle you know another way this
began with Trump's trade war already
because a lot of companies that were
sourcing things in China began to move
their factories out of China to other
you know parts of the developing world
or bringing them home in some cases and
I think that the one aspect of a kind of
future economic world that may develop
is that China itself will you know in a
sense become the target of a lot of
global anger and in other countries you
know will begin to reduce their
dependence on China so it cuts both ways
but overall it does seem to me Asia is
going to do better of all the parts of
the world and therefore you know
it's still going to be a pretty powerful
or an increasingly powerful Hector yeah
yeah yeah right so it's it's and for
reinforcing actually already existing
tendencies the crisis in that respect I
am looking for a closing question and
because we want to go to the audience as
well obviously if I look at the
interviews you're giving and the article
writing at the moment you're having a
close look at what's happening in the
world and this crisis are you preparing
a new book is there are you working on
on a book or is this just me hoping that
we can invite you back to Amsterdam no
actually I usually take a couple of
years you know to think about things and
you know the New York Times columnist
Tom Friedman yeah a few weeks ago wrote
a column saying that anybody that was
writing a nonfiction book before this
crisis hit has got to stop working on it
and we think the whole book because I do
think that this is one of those
monumental you know events like 1989 or
2001 that you know that's really going
to change a lot in the nature of global
politics and that requires I think a
little bit of patience as we you know
watch some of these trends play
themselves out so short answer to your
question is no but you know like
everybody else in the world I'm actually
just hoping to get back to some
semblance of a normal life at the
present moment yeah yeah we agreed
though that we thank you very very much
for right in the middle of this crisis
sharing your thoughts
that's wonderful it's it's very generous
of you because as everybody know events
are evolving rapidly so your willingness
to share your observations and thoughts
in the middle of this is really really
wonderful and courageous and is helping
I think us a lot and the audience to
understand what's happening in the world
so we we thank you very much for
doing that for by the way just one
comment yeah actually I don't think it's
courageous at all I think that there's a
lot of courage being exhibited by
doctors and nurses and emergency workers
and so forth one of the things that
worries me about the future actually is
in fact that people like me who are
professionals and largely in the service
economy should actually carry out our
lives on zoom' or you know other
software forms of connectivity but if
you work with your hands and you
actually have to be in a factory or in a
meat processing facility or you know
some other place you don't really have
that option no and I think that you know
another thing to worry about is that I
think the class divisions that were
already you know producing some real
political reverberations are going to
get more intense as a result of this
crisis because some of us are actually
going to be pretty much insulated from
the impacts but others are going to have
to face it very very directly
so I actually count myself as you know
be quite fortunate in that respect that
I don't have to go into the office and
you know I don't have to take the risks
that certain other people are are being
forced to it's a very interesting
observation as well is you would say
that it a grave AIT's to already
existing class division which the
globalization brought with it right so
actually the the the the more fortunate
classes are which are retreating into
cyberspace and the others need to keep
working in on a daily basis with their
hands it's and that's an important
observation I would say yes yes it's it
might even be one of the more in the
long run important consequences of the
crisis we're seeing now the division of
capital and labor again Marx wrote about
these sort of important things more than
100 years ago more than hundred and
fifty years ago thank you very much
there was time for questions people from
the internet watching a Tracy you've
been following the conversation and the
questions coming in
and maybe you have a question or maybe
you've already questioned we have many
already okay yeah people are eager to
put questions to you professor Fukuyama
one of them was about the one of the
possible positive aspects of the crisis
that we suddenly see that we need to fix
things the question is if there is so
little trust how will we ever get to a
consensus on what needs to be fixed and
how you know I think that that's very
specific to different countries and the
level of trust you know in the United
States or Italy is much lower than it is
in you know the Netherlands
you know m-mark or Sweden so I think
that generally speaking people have said
that you get back to a sense of common
purpose and trust by some big external
crisis that hits the country as a whole
and people realize they're all in it
together and you would think that a
pandemic would be a sufficiently big
external crisis that it would produce
that kind of result but I think what
we're seeing in you know the US and
other countries is it's actually just
exacerbating the existing you know
internal crisis of trust now at a
certain point so this is this
interesting cognitive issue that right
now I think people are drawing lessons
based on their partisan affiliations
more than actually processing real
empirical information at a certain point
the gap between what you want to believe
and what's actually happening gets to be
just so great that you know you have to
finally admit that you know maybe I got
to rethink some of my prior assumptions
and a lot of times that happens you know
when you personally are affected by
something that you dismissed as a you
know as an important issue so it's
possible that you know if this thing
goes on like that that will that will
happen but right now we're living in
this very strange world where people
have alternative facts
I mean again this is much more true in
the US than in the Netherlands but you
know depending on your political
affiliations you have simply different
facts how many deaths there been you
know what's the contagiousness of the
disease you know there's no agreement
about this sort of thing just as there
was no agreement about the facts of
global warming prior to this so I'll
have to see you know how all of that
plays out another question the the
question is should we understand trust
as coinciding with national identities
or as something super national and is
that perhaps the reason why the World
Health Organization is under attack well
trust exists at every single social
level that imaginable right it exists
between two friends it exists in the
family it exists in a neighborhood in a
company you know and then all the way up
to nations and in the global level the
problem with the global level is that
trust is a it's not something that just
in itself you know you have or you don't
have it's it's the byproduct of
trustworthy behavior and you know the
the more diversity and differences you
have in a group the less easy it is to
cooperate and therefore to generate the
kind of trust that's necessary to
lubricate subsequent social interactions
and therefore you know at an
international level since you have big
disagreements over the nature of
government and over ideology and
religion and you know ethnicity and all
of these other things it's very hard to
generate you know trust at that level I
think that in Europe it's a little bit
even more complicated because between a
global level and a national level you've
got you know the European level and you
know this is one of the things I argued
in my book identity that there had not
been enough investment by European elite
in creating a sense of European identity
as opposed to German or Italian or
French or you know member state level
identities to create this true post
national pan-european sense of
solidarity and we saw that you know in
the euro crisis a breakout and we saw a
luceat now in current pandemic where you
know members of rich northern countries
don't necessarily want to bail out you
know poorer ones because they don't
really trust the government to spend the
money properly and and so forth and so I
think that you have to worry about trust
and all of those levels and the the way
you build trust really depends on the
level but again it really can taste on
kind of trustworthy behavior so it means
behavioral changes you know for many of
you actors one of our the members of our
audience wonders whether the covert
crisis could be the spark in the
American political gun powder keg that
causes a new American Civil War coming
back to your comment on the danger for
for peace in the world well that's you
know that's a worrisome possibility I
think that one of the interesting things
in the United States up till this point
is that although we're extremely
polarized there has been very little
violence you know I lived through the
nineteen late 60s and 70s when there's
terrorism and bombings and you know
police shooting demonstrators and things
like that and we've had almost none of
that in this country despite the bad
feelings that people have for one
another I do think that there is the
combustible material there you know you
have all these people carrying automatic
weapons to a demonstration and you know
gun shot goes off and all of a sudden
you can end up with a lot of people dead
and then that begins to escalate and so
forth but you know actually I don't
think that that's likely I think what's
more likely is you're going to have an
election in November and
you know you may choose a completely
different kind of government and
actually this may be the opportunity for
democracy working the way it's supposed
to and actually between those two
scenarios I think the latter one is much
more likely than the former that's
reassuring at least perhaps this is my
opportunity to ask what you expect in
November will we actually have an
election I've read the hypothesis that
Trump will try to postpone the elections
and what do you see happening well I
don't think that that's going to happen
and I think that what's much more likely
is something like what happened in the
state of Wisconsin when it held its
primary elections a few weeks ago where
you still have a epidemic people don't
feel safe going to vote and there isn't
enough time to prepare mail-in ballots
or some alternative way of voting and as
a result people will start to contest
election results if you have a lot of
mailing votes for example I don't think
they're going to be able to call the
election on November 3rd and I think
it's probably going to take you know
several days until people really know
what the results are especially if it's
a very close election and that is like
in 2000 you know Bush v Gore that itself
could lead to all sorts of you know bad
feelings and mitigation you know between
the Republicans and Democrats and so I
think actually facilitating a really
fair election is going to be a really
big challenge
it'll be met by some states and I think
other states you know won't be them so
that's something you know to worry about
but the question there is a further
question which is what will be the
outcome of an election and there I think
there's a lot of soy signs pointing to
really big problems for you know for the
Trump administration because a voter
turnout in all of the primaries up to
this point for the Democrats has been
extremely high he got a little bit of a
bump in popularity at the beginning of
the crisis but it's
you know come down and I think that you
know the biggest selling point that he
had for getting reelected was the
strength of the economy which is now you
know banished him the management of the
crisis itself I think has been so bad
that you know I I think he has not done
himself any favors in the way he's
handled things so you know you could get
you know you could get a pretty strong
turnout of Democrats in November in a
very different kind of election outcome
remember of our audience is already
looking forward to Abidin administration
and has a question whether the Abidin
administration will manage to recommit
the us to multilateralism to trade to
climate all the major issues oh I think
there's no question that that would
happen under you know a different
administration the the thing that you
would have to worry about however is
that the underlying polarization is not
going to disappear even if you have a
big Democratic victory in November and
there's going to be a you know a third
of the country that remains extremely
loyal to trump or to you know his agenda
and that is not going to go away and you
know it was a little bit like what if
Obama inherited when he took office in
January of 2009 and was right after the
worst part of the financial crisis
unemployment was extremely high and it
was very hard to dig yourself out of
that hole and you know Biden
administration would have a similar kind
of problem and every step that they take
is going to be second-guessed and
criticized you know by the partisans on
my other side so I don't think that you
know even a fairly decisive election is
going to change things all that quickly
but certainly on international affairs
where the president really does have a
lot of power to change policy I think
that's going to go back to you know
something much more internationalist
than what
seen in the last three and a half years
a question that goes perhaps back to
your book the end of history asking
about your view on the concept of
democracy in today's world I assume with
the emphasis on today does it exist if
it has ever and should human
relationships interactions be
re-examined
well we won't solve that before a
quarter past nine no but perhaps some
sanguine words on the democracies
chances of survival well I think first
of all you have to break down democracy
into its components actually what we
have really is liberal democracy which
is the uniting of two different types of
institutions so the democratic
institutions are things like free and
fair multi-party elections that are
procedures that try to make sure that
the governments that are elected reflect
the will of the largest you know number
of people possible but then we have a
completely separate set of institutions
that are the liberal institutions that
are things like constitutions and the
rule of law which are intended to limit
the power of even democratically elected
government so that they cannot violate
the rights of citizens so that excessive
power is not concentrated in an
executive but their checks and balances
that apply to to state power and I think
democracy has never been in the threat
even with the rise of all these populist
government's I mean they're popularly
elected and so they actually like
elections the real threat has been to
Liberal government that is to say to the
rule of law and to constraints and so in
Hungary and Poland you know the first
things that are attacked or all of the
check and balance institutions so an
independent media and nonpartisan
bureaucracy the judiciary in both of
those countries
has been a big object of the the ruling
party trying to get control of judicial
nominations to make sure that judges
conform to the ideological outlook of
the ruling party and so forth and
similarly in the United States that's
really what Trump has tried to do he's
attacked every American political
institution that has gotten in his way
so you know the bureaucracy is really a
deep state trying to subvert his rule
the courts are similarly you know
dismissed the press the mainstream media
is dismissed as enemies of the American
people his own Justice Department and an
FBI when they start to try to
investigate him or his family are part
of this big conspiracy so this is a very
common pattern among all populist
government so I think the threat again
is really not to democracy at such it's
true liberalism and to the kind of
openness that liberalism tries to breed
and that's why you've seen this big
increase in nationalist movements
everywhere including in a lot of
established liberal democracies what
would be required to restore trust in
the u.s. is one of the questions here
simply electing a Democrat cannot be
enough what could he and the VP she do
to bring the country together no doubt
one of the greatest challenges faced by
D so that's not an easy question to to
answer I think that you know the
starting point has to be that any future
leader actually has to really want to
lead the whole country and you're not
going to be able to regain the trust of
everybody but you know there are certain
symbolic acts and policies that you can
undertake that you know will try to
really build that so for example one of
the big problems really does have to do
with working-class people who have not
benefited from globalization that feel
vulnerable and so forth so you know you
have to devise policies that will try to
take care of them in some way I think
there's a lot of symbolic acts that are
important unfortunately on both sides
you know you've had this tendency to try
to build your own base by mobilizing
them through anger at the other side and
if you stop doing that you know that
might help a little bit in terms of you
know kind of turning down the the volume
and that like I said at a certain point
reality begins to kick in I mean I would
have thought that this would have
happened a long time ago but you know it
shows how deep the polarization is but
at a certain point certain things that
you do just cease to mix I'll give you
an analogy and the the Great Depression
started with the crash of the New York
stock market in October 1929 but the
government kept pursuing these than
Republican policies of tight money and
fiscal austerity
several years after that until you had a
banking crisis in 1931 and then banking
system collapsed and then unemployment
skyrocketed you know 25 percent and it
took that long for people to realize
well actually maybe tight money is not
the best solution to our problems but
that's like three four years later you
know and so sometimes it really does
take a long time until the reality that
you're in a very different kind of
situation you know begins to really take
hold and so I think at some point you
know reality does you know it's like a
big two by four you hit a donkey over
the head and if you hit him hard enough
you're going to get his attention and up
till now you know the financial crisis
in 2008 was not enough of a shock the
early phases of this crisis have not
been enough but at a certain point that
you know that actually may come that
that can take quite a while I mean
you're right I mean reality is a bummer
you know it hits you after they had you
know indeed in the long term
just I think today CNN published a poll
an opinion poll where they said that 36%
of the American voters trust Trump to
tell the truth on the kovat pandemic
although 45% of the Americans still
approve of him as being president which
which is interesting there's there's a
big gap between that a lot of people
don't trust him to tell the truth but
they still agree with him as being
president would you say that's just you
know it takes longer for reality to
ahead or would that point to the fact
that maybe Trust isn't that important
anymore in your political leader or
could you
I mean comment on this I mean amazing
people I would say yeah it's hard to
know I mean his support has always been
different for different parts of the
population so there are certain core
supporters where they're they're going
to support him no matter what happens
and that's I think that 30% you know
that still think he's doing a great job
in a crisis there are other people that
came to support him because they like
overall things that he was doing like
deregulation or tax cuts or appointing
the right kind of conservative judges to
the to the courts who didn't actually
think that he was a you know a great
leader or figure you know the people
ought to follow but they said on balance
you know I still think it's better than
the alternative
and then there's a lot of people frankly
that just don't like the Democrats and
you know I think that was a particular
problem with Hillary Clinton because she
wasn't just any Democrat you know she
she pushed a lot of buttons for people
that really triggered this very negative
reaction and so there's yet another
group you know that they're voting
because they dislike the other side so
much and not so much because they like
and so I think that
you know those different pull numbers
kind of reflect those sorts of divisions
in the support for you
interesting question here from Gustav in
the u.s. is kovat bringing Medicare
nearer for all and would that be a way
to restore trust in government so again
this is a question about social learning
and rationality I think that you know
rationally what this crisis revealed is
the importance of the United States
having some kind of system of universal
access to health care as I think
everybody is aware of the United States
was the only rich country that did not
have a government mandated system of
universal health care until 2010 when
Obama's Affordable Care Act you know was
passed and even that one didn't really
cover everybody but it got us much
closer to that goal and then you know as
you're also where Republicans then spent
the next four years
you know relentless in fact I mean that
continues up to the present trying to
repeal Obamacare and to you know get rid
of you know what I think was one of the
great achievements of that
administration now you would think that
a public health crisis like the one that
we're facing right now would underline
the the need for universal care now
whether it's Medicare or some version of
Obamacare which still relies on private
insurance and private providers you know
that's still a matter that can be
debated I think there's actually reasons
why it was more sensible to go with the
private option than to try to you know
have the government run the whole thing
but that's an argument you know that's a
kind of second-level argument but
certainly the argument for reinforcing
the universal mandate and universal
coverage is very powerful but then you
get this whole question of social
rationality because
one of the things we've seen with the
rise of the Internet is that social
learning is very hard to when you know
you've got an Internet out there that
where anyone can say anything and if you
think about it you know in in a longer
term perspective most social learning is
basically done by elites you think about
the Great Depression and the lessons we
learned about monetary policy right
ordinary people really didn't learn
those lessons it was academics it was
bankers it was people that really
understood you know the causes of the
depression it was John Maynard Keynes
and you know people up at that level in
that man that by the time you got to the
2008 crisis Ben Bernanke was the
chairman of the Federal Reserve he was a
actually a historian of the Great
Depression unfortunately he understood
what the real lessons of that story were
but you still had populist like Ron Paul
that were running around saying we need
tight money we need the gold standard
you know and and so forth and
unfortunately one of the things that's
happened is that with the rise of the
Internet know the elites have lost
control over these narratives and anyone
can basically say anything so there's
this anti-vaccination movement that's
very powerful in the United States in
Italy in other parts of the world
and a lot of these people are now lining
up to say if there's a if there's a
covet VAX events develop I'm not going
to take it because this is part of a big
you know government-led plot you know to
control our our lives that's what I mean
by social rationality that social
learning really historically has been
the province of experts and elites but
with the decline of trust and elites and
the rise of populism I think that
becomes harder and harder to do that's a
very long-winded way of answering your
questions yes I believe we should learn
this lesson but whether we actually will
or not I'm not so sure
speaking of vaccinations one of our
questions I knew okay do you see a
reason to mistrust the strong emphasis
on developing a vaccine by Big Pharma or
other developments no not particularly I
think that basically you know there's a
lot of different labs all over the world
that are working on different you know
vaccines
I think Big Pharma has more resources
and therefore they're able to do this a
little bit more quickly and broadly than
others but I think that you know they
will be under a lot of scrutiny if
actually somebody does manage to come up
with a cure and I'm not that worried
that they're simply going to be able to
exploit it you know for their own
purposes because I think in the middle
of this kind of health emergency
politically they'll know no company is
going to be able to get away with
something like that if Asia come back
coming back to the role of China if Asia
comes out first from the kovat 19
pandemic and gets its economy
jump-started before the West does what
will the consequences be for global
relations well you know as I said it's
going to continue this shift of the
center of economic activity globally to
to Asia it's going to increase the
prestige you know so if you ask the
question our democracies or autocracies
doing better I think as I quote that you
had from my article in the Atlantic
indicated I don't think there's any
correlation I think there are some
democracies that have done very well
Taiwan Germany South Korea some that had
done very badly and there's some
authoritarian governments that have done
well and others that have done badly so
that's not the big issue however what
people are looking at is not you know
they're not comparative political
scientists that are looking at
sample of democracies and autocracies
they're looking at the US versus China
and right now that looks terrible for
for the United States and I think that
that's what people are paying attention
to because China and the US are seeing
is exemplars of their respective forms
of government and so that's the kind of
reputational damage that I worry about
that you know the China model will get
what in the end is an unfair boost as a
result of its apparent success you know
not in containing the virus initially
but in dealing with its dealing with its
aftermath but you know it's it's we're
not at the end of that story yet because
I think that there's also a lot of anger
around the world at China for the way
that they've covered up information and
you know I think that even in Europe
people can see that a lot of the Chinese
aid is kind of a publicity stunt rather
than you know something more
long-lasting so I I wouldn't I wouldn't
say that the short-term reputational
damage that democracy has suffered is
necessarily going to translate into
long-term damage and do you see given
this increasing east-west polarization
do you think there's a role for Europe
to come fill that power gap or are we
standing on the side looking on
ineffectively well so the first thing is
that I do not think that Europe can
possibly take this view well you've got
the US on one side and China on the
other side they're both big superpowers
and we're going to be equally distant
from both of them right that's just in
terms of fundamental European values
that's just impossible
one of them is a pretty brutal
dictatorship that's put a million of its
own citizens and concentration camps you
know that is militarizing the South
China Sea that you know and on the other
side you've got a you know the United
States that right now is
got a lot of problems politically but
because it's a democracy it can change
its government and it can fix a lot of
those problems and certainly is more
likely to fix them in the short run much
more quickly than China is so I just
don't think that Europe can say oh well
a plague on both your houses we're going
to somehow maneuver between the two of
you and that means that actually I think
Europeans need to think seriously about
their own values so for example just to
take the huawei controversy as an
example I think that just because the
Trump administration has been pushing
this line doesn't mean it's incorrect I
think any democratic country that allows
Huawei to build its information
infrastructure is crazy
it's crazy to allow them to do that
there is no such thing as a truly
private Chinese company by law all of
these private Chinese companies have to
grab the government access you know to
data to information if the government
demands it and so you've got to worry
that you know if you've got Chinese
infrastructure that's built by a company
like Huawei in a future crisis China
some suddenly decides to shut down your
communications infrastructure so the
internet stops working you know are you
going to really allow yourself to be put
in that kind of a situation so again I
mean that's a very concrete example of
where I just don't think that Europe has
the luxury of pretending that it's
somehow going to carve out this
reasonable middle position between these
two unreasonable you know super powers I
think that you have to take basic
European values into consideration and
between those two powers you know it's
not China that is really the the best
example of that here did you have any
closing questions for professor Fukuyama
well I'm very interested in the last
remark you made we cannot just sit on
the fence between two big powers you
mean we need to reevaluate our own
values and and and and see whether we
are Democrats or not
that are interested in authoritarian
government or not and I would say that
probably you know the large majority of
the Europeans would immediately you know
accuse democracy for that but coming
back to the introduction of Archon there
the first part of our conversation
you're saying interesting enough whether
you're not sure if Aryan or democratic
government it doesn't really make that's
not a divide not not the most that's not
what defining your effectiveness towards
this pandemic so in that light why would
you want I mean if there isn't any
difference between those two maybe two
to run to to to to round it off this
conversation what would be the reason if
there isn't any difference in the
response in the effective response to
work a pandemic why would we choose for
it precisely it's so exactly wrong
lesson to draw from this crisis is to
say oh we need authoritarian government
you know we need to move closer to the
Chinese model it's not true I think what
you need to do is move closer to the
South Korean model you know you remain a
democracy but you have good state
capacity you have good social consensus
where people will trust the government
and that's what will lead to you know
effective outcomes it's not by you know
being able to arrest people and you know
control the media environment and this
sort of thing that you're going to get
to to positive results and so I think
that's a really important lesson that
people need to take away being a
democracy does not guarantee that you're
going to do well but you know it sure
isn't the case that being an
authoritarian government that doesn't
guarantee good results either thank you
very much
yeah thank you okay you're gonna round
off Tracy
thank you very much again professor
Fukuyama thank you thank you thank you
and thank you Judy and the body and
thank you to our for us invisible
audience for joining us this evening on
May 26 the John Adams will be doing an
online interview
with Esther Safran for indeed the mother
of Joshua Jonathan and Franklin about
her new book I want you to know we're
still here a memoir and on June 20th we
are welcoming another returning luminary
in the field of international relations
Madeleine Albright make sure you check
out the lively online programming of the
ballet as well on their website thank
you for joining us and we'll see you
soon okay thanks I got to go to another
meeting so I'm going to log off

ally NL and the site for asking

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recommit::verb | Spocien Dictionary

recommit

verb

/,rikə'mɪt/

commit again

Type	Words
Type of	trust, commit, confide, entrust, intrust

It was recommitted into her custody.

recommit::verb | Spocien Dictionary

recommit

verb

/,rikə'mɪt/

commit once again, as of a crime

Type	Words
Type of	perpetrate, pull, commit

recommit::verb | Spocien Dictionary

recommit

verb

/,rikə'mɪt/

send back to a committee

Type	Words
Type of	refer

The bill was recommitted three times in the House.

How to pronounce recommit in Dutch?

recommit::verb | Spocien Dictionary

abandonment

Related words

recommit::verb | Spocien Dictionary

abandonment

Related words

recommit::verb | Spocien Dictionary

abandonment

Related words

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