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Francis Fukuyama Turning Point Or Breaking Point

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TITLE: FRANCIS FUKUYAMA: Turning Point or Breaking Point? CHANNEL: IWMVienna DATE: 2026-04-22 ---TRANSCRIPT--- [applause] [applause] [applause]

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. A very warm welcome at the Wien Museum. My name is Florian I’m, amongst other things, head of catering here at the museum. So, if the debate is very heated, please don’t hesitate to leave the room, grab a beer, and come back. That’s good for revenue. So, um please do that. This is the Wien Museum. This is the museum up about the history of the city. A historical museum. We rarely look into the future. And we think this might change tonight, where we might have the opportunity to glance into the future. Very exciting for us. I don’t have to say, and I will say nothing about Francis Fukuyama. Um this is an event that hasn’t been in the planning for too long. But, I mean, look at this. Francis Fukuyama is like Paul McCartney or Lady Gaga. Everybody knows him, and everybody wants to come and see him. There’s one reason why we’re specifically excited these days, and this is Hungary. I mean, everybody was so eagerly awaiting the results of the election, and everybody was so happy. I think in Hungary, in Europe, and around the globe, people were dancing in the street that democracy, um fought back. And was able to defeat somebody who was trying to destroy it for 16 years through democratic means. Very exciting times. I’m sure we’re going to have it in the museum soon. And just to finish, um my welcome, whether this is the end of history or the beginning of history, we at the Wien Museum, we will keep on collecting objects to show you what history looks like. We will try to keep on learning from history, and give people the opportunity to learn from history, and create events like this one, where we enjoy ourselves, and again, learn. Um feel fun again and a good evening. Thank you. [applause] [applause] Well, thank you. Good evening. My name is Christian Ultsch. I’m deputy editor-in-chief of Die Presse. I do not want to take too much of your time, because I think that everybody wants to hear Paul McCartney or Francis Fukuyama. Francis Francis Fukuyama. So, I’m very happy that you’re here, and to welcome you here in the political salon, which is organized by the Institute of human sciences, and co-hosted by the Erste Foundation and the newspaper Die Presse. Today, we we want to to talk about in fact, a lot. How the world is falling apart. So, the title was very well chosen, because everything fits fits in. Turning point or or breaking point. Let me first introduce our panelists. First of all, of course, Francis Fukuyama. In fact, no need to introduce him. Everybody knows why she or he is here. He famously wrote the essay about the end of of history, and this was in 1989 in summer before the wall fell in in Berlin. Since then, he’s written a lot of of very interesting books. The latest ones, um identity and liberalism and its discontents, if I remember it right. He’s professor at Stanford University, director on the center of the center on on democracy, and holds several chairs there. He’s also a fellow of of the EVM. So, it’s a great honor to have you here. Please give a warm hands to Mr. Francis Fukuyama. [applause] So, next to him, Andreas Treichl. I know him a little bit better since some few weeks, because he’s not only everybody knows him in fact in in in Austria, because he’s been CEO of the Erste Bank since the 19s 90s, and um head of the Erste Group, and he he really is a visionary, and has changed this bank, and has paved its way as being one of the most efficient number one banks in in Central European in Central Europe. So, it’s glad I’m glad to have you here. As I mentioned, he was our editor-in-chief for a special edition of Die Presse am Sonntag. And I have to say, he really pushed us to the limits, and was one of the best editions since

  1. I have to say that.

[laughter] Great to have you here, Andreas Treichl. [applause] So, well, and last but not least, Ivan Krastev, the man who who who who brought Francis Fukuyama here, um basically. So, I did some interviews with him. It’s always you have to concentrate in the end of 10 interviews, if you interview him. It’s it’s always brilliant, full of ideas. He has a think tank of his own in in Bulgaria. He’s a permanent fellow at the EVM, which he’s leading as a rector, but only at the interim, because, if I get you right, you prefer to think, write, maybe to travel, and to read a lot. You got me wrong. So, great that you’re here, and have organized it. So, please give a hand to Ivan. [applause] [applause] So, we thought it’s it’s a good idea to to start with Francis Fukuyama. He would give a lecture of about 15 minutes, and then Andreas Treichl and Ivan Krastev would jump in. So, Mr. Fukuyama, the floor is yours. Okay. Thank you very very much. It’s really a delight to be here in Vienna with such an enthusiastic audience. I’m really appreciative to EVM for bringing me here, particularly this week, because I think that the Hungarian election really is going to be extremely significant in my country, in the United States, but in other parts of the world. So, I want to just talk a little bit about the way that I have seen the events flow over the last 35 years since that original essay. I was actually in Berlin in late October 1989, when I was working in the State Department. And I remember at the time, the German foreign ministry official that was in our group said that Germany will never unify in my lifetime. And this was on about October 27th or 28th. And who knew, but 2 weeks later, uh you have this complete change. And for me, this was one of the most important events in my life. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the unification of Germany, and then the collapse of the former Soviet Union. I just want to say a little bit about the way I think about democracy and and these events, because I think that many people misunderstand what motivates people in politics. In all of my books, beginning with The End of History and the Last Man, I talk about something that comes out of Plato. Socrates in The Republic asks his young interlocutors, “Okay, you have desire, you have reason as parts of the human soul, but isn’t there a third part that he labels thumos?” It’s a Greek word that means spiritedness, sometimes anger, pride. And isn’t this also constitutive of what human beings are? Something Economists don’t understand this at all. They they think everything is just, you know, desire and reason, preferably what they call preferences. But, I think a lot of our politics is driven by a desire for recognition. We want other people to recognize our basic dignity. And I think that what the fall of the wall and the fall of communism meant was the emergence of a principle. It’s basically a liberal principle that every human being, as a human being, has a certain basic level of dignity, and that the state needs to recognize that dignity by granting people rights to speak, to assemble, to participate in politics. And this was the meaning of that, you know, momentous set of events. So, people want equal dignity. They want recognition of their equal dignity as human beings, and therefore their right to participate in democratic politics. Now, you move the clock forward to the 2010s, and a lot of that seems to have fallen apart. We have a world with backsliding in in democracy in many respects and Hungary was one of the key players of that. Orbán was in power since 2011. I think that one of the things that he did was to articulate what the alternative to liberal democracy would be in the speech that he gave in Romania in 2000, I believe 17 or so, where he talked about illiberal democracy, that he was not a supporter of liberal democracy, meaning okay, you have democracy, the people rule, you have elections. The liberal part of liberal democracy means a rule of law. It means restrictions on the power of the state to violate the rights of individuals. It it means constitutional checks and balances on the power of the executive and that’s the part that he didn’t like and that’s the part that he began to attack. And I think most of the backsliding we say democracy has gone backwards, but it’s less democracy, it’s more the liberal part of liberal democracy. Every one of these strongmen hates the idea that their power is limited by courts, by the press, by all of the obstacles that a liberal democracy places in front of absolute power. And that’s the vision that he articulated. I think that it’s driven by a different desire for recognition. Not everybody is content to be recognized as the equal of every other human being in the world. Some people want to be recognized as being superior. And I actually wrote about Donald Trump in the original book, The End of History and the Last Man. What I said back then, hopefully, was that in a capitalist democracy the private sector will give people an opportunity to be better than other people. They can get rich and all their energy to this desire for superior recognition will bleed off into the business world and that should be enough for them. Little did I know that this wouldn’t be enough for this real estate developer, you know, from New York. And I think that what he represents is the pent-up resentment of people who do not feel that the liberal order that has been created over the last 70 years recognizes them. That you have a bunch of elites in the press, in the universities, in the corporate world that have a certain privileged position and they are cut out of it and what his movement represents is anger against those and desire to tear all of that down. And I think that you’re seeing, you know, the results of that in country after country where you have you know, sometimes they’re called populist movements. I think more properly they’re illiberal movements. They’re movements that want to concentrate power. It could be in the name of the people, but, you know, what is important is that ability to use power outside the constraints of law. Now, since I’m an American, I want to talk about my country because I think we’re the number one example of illiberal democracy. I did not think 30 years ago that the United States could be in the position that it is today in which you have a president who basically has switched sides in this big struggle between liberal democracy and either illiberal democracy or outright authoritarian government. And I think we’ve seen demonstrated now that Trump is in his second term, the second year of his second term, what his real intentions are. He’s tried to basically rule the United States as an autocrat. Everything comes in the form of executive orders. He doesn’t want to work through Congress. So, Congress itself has basically said you can do whatever you want and we’ve seen the steady erosion of our liberties in the United States. He’s created this new police force, ICE, that basically is his private militia that, you know, went to Minneapolis a few months ago, killed a couple of American citizens and there’s no accountability for for any of that and it’s just the beginning, I think, of an effort to turn the United States itself into a Hungarian-style illiberal democracy. I think that the problem that the world faces right now is that this is happening in the world’s most powerful country. And that makes things, you know, doubly difficult. I I feel terrible because I personally and my center at Stanford and many of my colleagues have been very heavily involved in Ukraine trying to help build Ukrainian institutions because it is a genuine liberal democracy that is under, you know, serious attack from one of the worst authoritarian regimes in the world. And we have a president that seems to like, you know, Vladimir Putin more than President Zelensky. It’s just inconceivable that an American could abandon this long-standing leadership position of the United States as the supporter and backer of democratic movements around the world. And I think that now things are getting worse because Donald Trump I think no longer can be explained in ideological terms. I think that you need to be a kind of psychologist to really understand what’s happening. I think that you know, he has been driven personally by an intense resentment of Obama, of the liberal establishment, of, you know, the world that he came into and wants to basically undermine. And he tried to subvert the election in

This should have been the end of his career. For an American president to not peacefully step down after he’s, you know, after an election is unheard of. There’s no precedent for this happening. Yet, he did that. He tried to storm the capital and then Americans voted for him a second time. And this for Europeans, I think, creates this gigantic problem of trust because you know, the United States was supposed to have rejected Trump and Trumpism in 2020 and yet in 2024 they’re back again. And I think that that’s we we need to talk about what this means because I think that the United States, unfortunately, is never going to go back to the country that it was in 2016. It’s just not going to happen. And that means that Europeans have to take much greater responsibility for their own security and for their own political system that will support actual liberal democracy. I think that what we’ve seen unfold over the past year in foreign policy is very, very dangerous. You know, Trump domestically wants to do everything by executive order and, you know, king makes a proclamation and everybody has to obey that. But now that’s happening in foreign policy. And I think that he didn’t get there immediately. He was actually quite uh he didn’t want to get involved in the Middle East, you know, last year when the after the attack, you know, the Hamas attack led to the Israelis pounding Hamas in Gaza and then opening up Iran as a target, but it turned out that he sent some bombers over. They looked like they were successful. He was praised for having done that and I think at that point he began to say to himself, “Wow, I’ve got this gigantic military instrument and I can use it and I can do it you know, use it whenever I want.” He then snatched Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. It was actually quite a remarkable operation that that came off successfully. And once again, you know, he saw that he had this instrument that he could use and he could do things with it that he really didn’t expect. And he gave an interview after the Venezuela operation where the interviewer said, “Well, in international affairs, are there any limits to what you can do?” And his answer was, “Well, the limit is my own morality.” Now, he doesn’t have a morality, so that’s not much of a limit, right? Um And I think that what we’re seeing unfold in in the Persian Gulf is what happens when somebody really believes that you know, you’re running a very powerful country and you don’t have to observe international law, you don’t have to care about the norms that have uh you know, provided basic order in that liberal universe. And he made a mistake. He really misjudged things because he his judgment in foreign policy is really not all that good and that leads us to the current extremely dangerous situation that we now face where this action that he believed would be very quick like Venezuela has turned into a prolonged conflict, closure of the Strait of Hormuz, rise of global energy prices. Now, this brings us to the present moment where so it’s a it is a breakpoint. It could go very badly. I don’t think I have to I I you don’t need my help to imagine, you know, very bad outcomes from what’s uh from the point we’re at now, but it does seem to me that we could be at an important turning point uh in terms of the backlash against this kind of illiberal uh governance. Uh so, not only did Victor Orbán lose uh and lose by a big majority, but every indication is that the Republicans are going to lose very big uh in our midterm elections in uh in November. Um J.D. Vance, as you’re well aware, went to try to support uh uh Victor Orbán at the last minute. Uh if anything, it seems to have backfired, you know, it made him made Orbán less popular. I don’t think that uh most Europeans, including those illiberal parties in many European countries, like the idea of a United States that simply wants to grab Greenland and other parts of countries that don’t belong to it. This is not the kind of a partner that anybody, I think any sane uh leader, wants geopolitically, and yet that’s what’s on offer from the United States. But, I do think that there is a global uh illiberal uh alliance that uh where Hungary has really been the linchpin of it. Every conservative Republican, you know, has gone to these CPAC meetings uh where Victor Orbán has appeared, uh and they’ve been busy constructing an illiberal international uh that gives mutual support to all of these parties. And the fact that the center pin, centerpiece of this alliance is now uh taken off the board, I think will have big effects uh way outside of Hungary, uh beginning with the United States because uh you know, Trump likes to say that the United States has never been as respected as it is under my presidency. This, I think, indicates how [snorts] out of touch he is. I I would say, you know, it’s kind of the opposite. I don’t think the United States has ever been less respected, uh and if you asked him, “Well, who is it exactly that respects you internationally?” He’d point to Hungary. Say, “Look, the Hungarians really like me.” And now he can’t do that anymore. So, uh I think there’s a certain kind of reality is beginning to uh uh seep in. I think the lesson from Hungary is that democracy actually does work. That if you mobilize, if you make coalitions, if you make the kinds of compromises to build a pro-liberal, pro-democratic majority, uh and if elections are still possible in your country, uh then that is the route that you have to take. It’s kind of hard, boring work. Uh it’s intensely political, but there is still a way out of the kind of illiberal uh world that we have been moving into, and it’s a lesson that every everyone that believes in liberal democracy, I think, needs to learn uh very carefully and to imitate. The Poles did it uh you know, uh a couple of years ago. Uh the work of actually restoring Hungary to uh to you know, what it was, you know, the first democracy after the fall of communism, is going to be incredibly hard because having been in power for 16 years, you know, that regime has really taken over virtually every institution in the country. And I think what the Polish experience shows is that it’s really hard to reverse that. You know, Peace was in power a much shorter time, and yet, you know, they’ve been incredibly difficult to root out of the system. And so, there’s a lot of hard work ahead of um Mr. Magyar, but, you know, for the first time, I think, in the last several years, I feel a little bit optimistic that this breakpoint may actually move in a good direction. So, with that, I look forward to your comments and uh yeah, thank you.

thank you. Uh [applause] [applause] So, let us first see whether András Schiffer is uh as optimistic as Mr. Fukuyama. I found it interesting that that on the one hand, uh you have said uh that there will be no return to a pre- uh 2016 world. On the other hand, you believe that this could be a turning point in the backlash [clears throat] uh for illiberal uh democracy. So, I wonder, Andreas, what is your What is your take on that? Uh shall I start with Trump or with Orbán? Whatever who you like more. I I have a a little bit of a of a different uh view on on what what the effect of this uh election actually will be. Cuz everybody um is now incredibly happy about it, and there are a lot of things about it where we should be happy, but um we shouldn’t mix up um things. Uh Ivan and myself uh have uh both had the pleasure of knowing Orbán for over 35 years. And um I have to admit that when I met him, I was a big fan of his. Um and I really thought great to have a politician like that uh in Hungary, and he will he will change the country to the better. Then he became prime minister in 1998, and at that time, he already turned um anti-democratic and and and and illiberal. Um But, he was not corrupt. Um so, from 1998 to 2002, he acted like a normal right-wing uh nationalistic politician. Then he lost, um and then you know, we had many occasions where he complained dramatically about um the um corruption of the then socialist government in in Hungary, and that that we have to help him to stop that, and it’s also disgusting, and this prime minister has just stole 10 million, and the other one has stole 5 million. You have to stop it. And then he became prime minister again in 2010, [clears throat] and within the speed of light, he turned into the most corrupt uh politician I’ve ever met in my life in Europe, and I’ve met many of them, and he’s not the only one, but he’s by far the leader. Um And first of all, I mean, it’s it’s amazing how somebody can change so dramatically, and what drives a person to to to become what he became. And then he ruled the country for 16 years. Um he did a couple of good things for for the middle class in Hungary. Not everything he did was bad, but overall, and I think that is one of the reasons why he lost, and why we should not be so incredibly happy that this could be an example for other um autocratic illiberal regimes in Europe. Um In the ’90s, when he was a liberal guy, Hungary was by far the leading country in all of Central and Eastern Europe. It was the most advanced institutionally and wealth-wise. It has the best central bank. Um um the currency was okay. Um and it was years years ahead of uh Czechoslovakia or then Czechia and and Slovakia or any other country. Um within the last years, Hungary is at the bottom of uh Central and Eastern Europe. Croatia has overtaken Hungary. Romania has overtaken Hungary. Bulgaria has overtaken Hungary. They’re light-years behind the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland. So, and there’s a direct relation between the deterioration of the Hungarian economy and the incredibly corrupt regime and society that he built up. So, it’s surprising that Hungarians took them 16 years um to to to turn against that. The second thing is um let’s not believe that this now has been a change from in the mindset of of the Hungarians, and that they now um love would love to have a liberal democratic uh government. Um 80% of the population voted. That’s fantastic. That’s one of the most uh beautiful things about it that a country that usually had 50 or 55% now suddenly the people went out, and it cannot only be the young ones in the cities, but also the older ones on the countryside, and said, “We go and vote. We want to get rid of this guy.” That that’s brilliant. But, um Magyar um is What is he? Hm? Let’s wait and see. But, social democrats voted for him. Greens voted for him. Christian democrats voted for him. All the people with all the different ideologies who just want to have democracy united behind Magyar. Um What’s the lesson that we should take out of the Hungarian election? Is it I am convinced that the problem that we have and will have in Austria and the problem that we have and will have in Germany is not the strengths of the illiberal right-wing nationalist but is the weakness of the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, the Greens, and the and the Liberals to unite behind one cause. By coincidence, this is what happened in Hungary. Will that now bring the Socialists in Germany, the ÖVP in Austria, or the Liberals who don’t exist in Germany anymore? Here we still have them. And the Greens to get together and say, “Hey, we don’t have a Magyar and we don’t have want to have a Magyar.” But shouldn’t we unite in a cause that is so strong for our electorate that they’re going to vote for us instead for a right-wing radical nationalist idiot? Well, the thing is that they are in power now here in in Austria and in other countries and it’s a different But being in power and making that move would be a wonderful in in in in my view because part of the reason why people are so disillusioned with politics in our country is that what the parties that are in power for the moment offer is just not very attractive. Um so it’s a bit more difficult to change while you’re in power, but it’s doable. And that should be a wonderful electorate if they would just start thinking about the turnaround in Hungary happened because somebody was stealing. Here, okay, governments don’t steal that much, but the second reason is that they found a Magyar basically um benefited from the fact that he represented the hope of all liberal democratic people in Hungary. Whether he really will be that, I don’t know. So I would love parties in our countries and in Germany to think exactly about that. It’s the fight between the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats and the Greens that make our politics so boring because they compromise their politics down to a level that it becomes totally uninteresting for everybody. Uh thank you. Thank you. Uh [applause] Uh Ivan, Ivan, I wonder uh what do you think will be the impact of the elections in in in Hungary beyond the borders of of of Hungary? And and what is your analysis? Why did why did uh Orbán lose? Why did Magyar win? Was it because of corruption, economy, or simply because Orbán was too long in office? What was the reason? Uh I’ll I’ll start with something because certain things which we take kind of a being normal are quite surprising. Listen, the fact that everybody is interested in the Hungarian elections is extremely surprising. It’s a small European country. This is not the United States and so on. So from this point of view and here there is a historian who knows much more about revolutions, you’re interested in small countries only in two occasions. When they go into revolution because you have the idea of the infecting others or in a case of war. Normally the democratic politics of a small countries are not much of an interest to anybody. It’s not about Hungary and Bulgaria. So it’s it’s about all of the small countries. Secondly, what was extremely interesting is that not simply that 80% of the people voted but contrary to the fears of many Mr. Orbán conceded in the 10 minutes which President Trump didn’t do in 2020. Which by the way is an important message for Europe being on a different place. Uh the idea of conceding elections is critical. Why then everybody was interested in Hungary? Because in a certain way Viktor Orbán was quite important uh for a certain type of a political option that came and my joke always was that he became for the right what Castro was for the left in the 1970s. In one way Cuba was very much important, but if you’re disappointed with the Soviet Union and so on, the idea was that the real revolution is somewhere there and you go to Cuba and all these intellectuals go to Cuba. So I’m going to say that the first thing is that Trumpian revolution stopped in Budapest. It does not mean that far-right parties are not going to get votes or they are not going to win elections anywhere. But what they’re going to get out of what happened is that aligning with Trump and seeing themselves as a part of a bigger kind of a global conservative revolution probably does not work. By the way, the irony is that during these 16 years uh Mr. Orbán was talking about as a sovereignist fighting globalism. But he lost with a globalist. Look at his election campaign. American Vice President leaders of all these parties. Normally this is what’s happening kind of in a revolutionary situation where revolutionary governments come. So in a certain way I do believe that the first thing is going to happen is that all the parties not only in the center and I agree with Andreas on this, but on the far right should decide who they are. With respect to to the United States, to be honest, with respect to Russia, too. Because bet on Russia didn’t work, too. Uh and I do believe this is an important and probably different far-right parties in different countries are going to give a different uh answer. Uh but the idea that history is on the side of a right-wing movement and if before it was the end of history, now this is the end of liberalism. This is not The story is different. The third thing which in my view is also going to change is for the European Union. It’s psychologically very important. You’re getting a self-confidence. For me what was very interesting to notice is we knew the opinion polls. And to be honest, the opinion polls was signaling that Orbán is losing for a long time. We were not ready to believe it. Why were not ready to believe it? Because we are not sure that Hungary is a democracy and only in a democracy basically the governments lose elections. And after losing elections basically peacefully they move from power. So now suddenly you have the feeling that in Europe all these kind of a illiberal regimes they still keep a democratic framework in which the will of the people when it is a strongly expressed matters. It can go in different reactions because this type of an anti-corruption energy which Andreas was talking about, it can go against liberal governments, too. And by the way, this idea that you are trying to find the way and try to find the energy to redefine democracy is critical. Uh but for the European Union it means that more self-confidence. Secondly, basically the locking on Ukraine is going to be out, which is very difficult. The veto power Mr. Orbán should not be underestimated. Now when he’s defeated basically people are just talking about his corruption and so on, but he was a political interpreter of a very high level. Listen, leader of a small country that was vetoing all other European countries on existential issue for the European Union. So he had the head of a hedge fund manager. High risk for high reward. Uh he was trying to make Hungary so central in European politics. The very fact that we talk about this in the way we talk what is happening in the United States is saying what is happening in the world. And then comes the Trumpian story and this is going to be my last point. I don’t know what Vice President Vance thinks after leaving Budapest and watching the election results. But this is changing very much the idea of the United States of what they can achieve or not achieve in Europe. Because the major promise of Mr. Orbán to the United States was in 2029 Europe is going to be governed by governments which are very similar to yours. His message was Europe is one electoral cycle after the United States. Just give us support and we are going to be like you. Uh this is like 1989 in reverse. And I’m going to step on this because this was by the way a major difference between East Europeans and West Europeans when we have been watching uh the second coming of Trump in 2020. Uh West Europeans, my feeling was that they were very much scared because they don’t know what is going on. And East Europeans were scaring because we had the feeling that we know what is going on. [laughter] [applause] Well. Well, uh thank you, Ivan. Uh well, um somehow the question is not maybe not whether uh right-wing populist will distance himself uh um uh to Trump uh because they have won before Trump. They maybe they will win elections after him. Maybe the question is more whether they will keep a distance to uh to Mr. uh Orban. So, I I would like to corroborate your thesis that this could be a turning point of the of the uh success story of right-wing uh populists. Maybe you can also uh talk about where you see the the roots uh of the surge of right-wing populism. Maybe take a look back and uh to the year 2016, when they uh they had reached uh a peak. Uh and then this first right-wing uh populist uh wave broke back then. Maybe you can talk about this a little bit. Yeah, so I think the idea of political momentum is important because you know, in the last few years uh including in the United States, there was a lack of self-confidence on the part of basically liberal-minded people. Uh you heard a lot that we’re in a post-liberal world and that, you know, liberals made a lot of mistakes and that model just isn’t going to work and we have to make all sorts of uh adjustments and you know, Orban was leading a um movement that would replace liberalism with something else. You know, we didn’t know exactly what that was, but uh but that was what was going on in the world and I think that’s why this defeat kind of breaks that momentum and it shows, you know, maybe actually liberalism does work. That uh uh you can actually get rid of a corrupt leader and you know, uh the system can correct itself and you can’t do that in Russia, you can’t do that in China, you can’t do that in other uh authoritarian political systems. So, I think in that sense, it’s important. Uh I think that the other thing I mean, Ivan was uh telling [snorts] me, I I guess that Viktor Orban likes to spend a day a week reading books and he was able to articulate uh in a way that Donald Trump absolutely could not. Uh you know, what what an illiberal political system might look like and on what basis uh it exists. And now that project, it seems to me, is uh is gone. Now, to get your question about what is driving all of this, that’s why I started talking about this Greek word thumos because I think that after 2016, we had this huge debate among pundits and journalists and social scientists and historians, what the hell is going on? Why why is this happening? Uh for me, I think the biggest puzzle was that the the major arguments that were being put forward at that time were economic. You know, you have globalization, there’s all these working-class people whose jobs have been outsourced to China and they’re very, you know, their incomes are are disappearing uh and so forth. Now, there’s obviously something to that, but I don’t think that that was really an adequate explanation for what was happening because in many respects, you know, the world has never been uh better uh for precisely, you know, that uh class of people. You know, like Germany in the 1930s, you can see why people turn to an extremist ideology. They just suffered in this horrendous uh lost a a horrendous world war, you had hyperinflation, everybody’s savings were uh uh destroyed, you had militias, communists, fascists, you know, they were fighting in the streets of uh cities all over Central Europe. And so, you can see why people would say, “Okay, we need a really radical upending of that whole system.” And that’s the origin of National Socialism. 2016, that wasn’t the case anywhere. You had a little bit of inflation, you had a little bit of, you know, I mean, yeah, you had outsourcing, some factory workers were losing their jobs, but in most respects, uh the economy just did not uh justify these ideas that the whole system is so deeply broken that we have to upend it completely. And that’s why I think this idea of thumos and respect is important because uh you know, if if it were just economics, everybody should be voting for a socialist or a social democratic party that would redistribute income and help all these workers. And they weren’t doing that, you know, they were preoccupied with cultural issues, you know, immigration and you know, this feeling that somehow the world was taking away something that they had possessed, you know, the majority uh uh ethnicities in in every uh country. And I think that that gets more at what was really happening, that it really had to do with people’s self-respect and sense that they were in control of their own societies. I think that’s why migration became such a big issue that united uh all of these uh populists and uh it was that much more than any kind of simple economic explanation um that it’s you know, we we kind of know through social democracy how to redistribute income and wealth. We don’t really know how to redistribute respect. Uh that’s much harder to do. Uh how do you actually make people that don’t live in Vienna or in San Francisco or, you know, any of these big cities, uh how do you convince them that the country takes you seriously, that you actually have agency to affect, you know, your society. I think that’s what people were rebelling against and I think that’s what, you know, has driven a lot of the support for these But do you think that that centrist parties have learned the lesson and that those people feel less estranged now and more respected? Or isn’t it the other way around that the the polarization has in fact increased in the last 10 years? Yeah, well, I’m afraid that that’s that is the case and also I think that the centrist parties don’t have a program to really address this, you know, this [snorts] respect problem. Uh so, I I don’t want to talk in Europe about your politics. I I do know in the United States, we have a big problem because although Trump has become extremely unpopular, I don’t think that the Democrats or the, you know, his opponents have a program that they can actually sell to the American people that will be at all inspiring. Uh I think that you know, I don’t believe that you can defeat uh Trumpism uh you know, simply by criticizing Trump and saying, “Oh, he violated the rule of law and he did this and he did that terrible thing.” I think that you have to offer a positive vision of what the country is going to look like if we come to power. You know, how are things going to be different in you know, 5 years or 10 years or whatever. Uh and I don’t see anybody in the United States on the anti-Trump side really articulating something like this. I have a particular uh Well, so there’s this abundance movement in the United States that I actually think is the root to getting out of Trumpism. This is based on a book that was written by the New York Times columnist Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson uh about how liberal governments have trouble doing stuff like building infrastructure, like building adequate housing, uh you know, like constructing a health care system that isn’t overly bureaucratic and full of red tape and, you know, uh actually delivers services effectively to people. And I think that if you can actually fix [snorts] the state to do things uh effectively, visibly, then I think that that will build legitimacy for, you know, the non-populist uh uh liberals. Um and that’s one of the is is in geopolitics, you know, that’s the big advantage that China has right now. China can build stuff. You know, in in in the COVID epidemic, they built all these COVID hospitals over a weekend. Uh and there’s no European country and certainly not the United States, you know, that has the capacity, the state our states don’t have the capacity to do things like that any longer. And I think the positive vision, as far as I’m concerned, has to be to rebuild a liberal state that can actually deliver on some of these social goods. Thank you. Uh Andreas, uh somehow for me, the the elections in Hungary also showcased that uh in the end uh economy matters because people in in in Hungary, they were simply worse off than uh compared to to Poland and and and other countries. What what is your take on on the uh theories of uh Mr. Fukuyama? Well, I I I think that the the the the the the difference between what happened in in Hungary and what might happen in in November in in the United States um will also depend very much on on on how the economy in the United States will develop over the next 6 months. And and you’re saying it yourself uh yesterday, that you know, maybe was a pretty good move on part of Trump, all the things that he’s doing for the moment because the economy might go up again if if if if gasoline prices uh uh go down and they find some kind of peace. So we’re 7 months ahead of the midterm. So a lot of things can change until then. But You know, what is striking difference between the United States and and Hungary? There’s so many similarities between between Trump and and and Orban. And Orban did a lot of things what you would say with Central and Eastern Europe. You know, different world. But Trump is changing the world not only because of his politics, but of the fact that the mother of corporate governance and compliance the world country that introduced corporate governance and compliance in the world that was the example for all of us the way we should go that looked down on us in the 90s and and and early 2000s as a continent that is not up to corporate governance and compliance is now turning into the most brutal corrupt leadership that we’ve ever seen. And he’s using ice. Hungary would have had a lot of chances and Orban had 16 years to install a militia. He would have never thought about it. He ruined freedom of media in Hungary. He infiltrated the judiciary system. He enriched himself, his family, his friends. Um All of those things that Trump is now doing exactly the same thing. But he would have never in these 16 years ever would have come to his mind to have a Hungarian militia that he can use to which probably Trump might be doing already in November in the midterms use use ice to to to to change the results of the of of the election. So yeah. There’s something pretty good about the result in in Hungary because it weakens this right-wing intellectual and financial connection between the United States, Hungary, and Russia. And Hungary was the the the the European hub. And Orban was the European representative of that financial circle. That’s also why I believe is the main reason why he stepped down very quickly. Um because he wants peace accept the defeat Um and remain the intellectual hub for the right-wing nationalist movement between Russia and the US. But that is definitely has been very much weakened and that’s really that’s really good. Ivan, please feel free to to react to what the other said. But but listen this because there there several very interesting things. Let’s first start to his first Fukuyama who said it’s about redistribution of respect. But when you put your hope it was in a very economy centered approach. The abundance. And the abundance is that there’s so many lawyers now in the United States that basically you cannot do anything. Probably AI is going to solve this problem. But what I think is first one of the risk that we have is to try to see all these regimes as the same. And I have a very favorite Swiss joke which in my view works very well in this situation. There were three boys, French, German, and Swiss, 9 8 years old and they have been discussing where the babies come from. And the German boy said they come from the sky and the parents find in front of the door. And the French boy start laughing and said no no they’re coming from the bedroom. But then the Swiss boy became very nervous and he said do not generalize. It’s different from canton to canton. [laughter] And I do believe this is important because in the moment of crisis there are certain type of similarities that are structurally important. But then they’re going to be differences. For example, Poland was the most successful in economic terms not Central and East European but European country for the last 30 years. For the last 30 years Poland did not have recession. And nevertheless twice right-wing government is elected and then he’d been reelected. So if it everything about economy you’re right. You can explain Hungary. You cannot explain Poland. But then obviously this is also not only about identity because if you see the generation and how they look at around housing and their perspective and how they live probably we talk about something more transformative. And my major argument is the following. What has changed? And what is the problem for everybody for liberals and illiberals is our relations towards the future. If you see the difference in the opinion polling between for example Brazilian, Indian, Chinese different type of regimes and Europeans, Americans they’re optimistic. They’re optimistic about themselves. They’re optimistic about their own societies. They’re optimistic about their power. Come to Europeans and to the Americans and we’re totally pessimistic. So our view of politics is totally based on fear. We try to prevent things. And not simply that we try to prevent things, but we have also five very different nightmare scenarios. I still remember a short science fiction story in which people have been traveling to the future and they’re spending their holidays going to try to see how the world is ending. But when they go back they’re telling different stories what they have seen. And I’m saying this because in Europe you have people who fear that we’re going basically to end up because of climate. People who fear that we’re going to end up because of the nuclear war. And by the way we’re going to have probably proliferation of nuclear weapons. You have people who believe that we’re going to end up because of AI. You have people who believe that we’re already ending up because of demography because we cannot reproduce itself. But the problem with democracy is that if you believe that future is against you and if you believe that if you’re not going to do something now tomorrow is going to be too late then democracy cannot function. In a certain way my view democracy is preconditioned on a certain type of an optimistic view of the future. You believe that you can do things. By the way, democracy is the art of postponing. We’re going to do some things today and other things tomorrow. If you believe that these elections are the last elections you cannot lose them. You should not concede. And in my view this is the paradox which I see at the center of European politics. On one level all these fears are legitimate. There is a problem with climate. And time is a factor. And by the way, there is a problem with nuclear. And there is a problem with demography and there is a problem with AI. But if we’re going to adopt this emergency mentality we’re going to change democratic regimes without even understanding this and not because of the decision of one person or one political party. So from this point of view in my view the real the real paradox is that in order to face all this incredible emergency we should relax. We should restore our idea of a much more positive future. We should try to basically think in different terms. And for me this is critically important. And I’m going just to end on something about about Hungary. Listen, 16 years in power is a long time. There was a generation of young Hungarians who basically don’t know anybody but Victor Orban. So this is not simply about policies only. And by the way, he was redistributing a lot. There was a lot of money being done. This is why they have they have such a big budget deficits and others. And of course European money didn’t go and didn’t help him. But in my view it’s also very important and this is going to be a challenge for these leaders. All of these leaders are going to live longer than ever before. As we have heard in Beijing when basically President Xi and President Putin were talking they imagined that they can live for 150 years. You cannot expect in a country in which you have elections people to tolerate you for very long regardless of how you’re governing. Every generation is showing agency by basically killing the father. And in a strange way I do believe this is also part of the democratic story. Rotation, cycle. Even if he was less corrupt you cannot stay forever. And in my view this kind of a story is also part of the charm of democracy. You’re allowing every generation to reaffirm themselves. And for me this is also one of the things that he is saying. And this is why President Trump and I’m ending on this is so interesting because what I find absolutely amazing about Trump very different than Putin or Xi is that he’s a person who’s not interested in his predecessors. He’s not obsessed with history. We don’t know any previous American president that he’s emotionally connected to. And in my view, he’s also not very much interested in his successors. If you see what is the time that he’s using when he talked politically, it is either he’s going to solve a problem in 1 day or several weeks. But but this is literal. There is not metaphoric. He basically said in 2 weeks, in 3 weeks, in 4 weeks. So, you see a very strange collapse of time. Both the past and the future has collapsed. And they’re collapsing in the somebody who is old enough. So, in a certain way, because you don’t have time, everything should happen in weeks. And I do believe this kind of a politics of time is something that is going to be critically important for political regimes to try to find a new equilibrium, which I agree very much with all of you that we have lost. Actually, can I Yes, sure. just make a a comment about the relationship between building things and abundance and pride. Um I don’t think that you should think about this abundance movement just in terms of economic benefits being given to people. Uh there’s a very interesting set of interviews. Uh you know, the Chinese built this high-speed rail system through these ex- very poor provinces, you know, in South um Southwest China where the peasants mostly living there can’t even afford a ticket uh for the train. But you know, when you talk to them they’re very proud of the fact that this train exists and their government actually created this thing within, you know, 3 4 years of of having started the project. And I think that simply the ability of the state to accomplish things that are visible uh is a source of pride for people. So, I really like this Artemis 2 moon mission. Uh and I think that actually one of the to me one of the signs of the decline of the United States was the fact that it took us you know, 50 years to get back to the moon after we did this for the first time in 1960. I mean, when you see these images, you know, they’re taken of the far side of the moon it’s American astronauts doing that, you say, “Wow, you know, that’s really something.” Uh and I haven’t really felt that since the 1960s, you know. Space Shuttle was kind of stupid program, but you know, this was really quite impressive. So, I think that there are ways that governments can set ambitious goals for themselves. And if they can actually pull them off it does become a source of pride where, you know, you say you’re part of a larger project that uh you know, was successful and we can see the visible results of it in these pictures, you know. In a way, Orban did this. He said, “We made Hungary the capital of right-wing world.” You have basically all these leaders going there in the way you go to Jerusalem. Uh and then suddenly people said, “But probably it’s your pride.” But it’s not our pride. What is for us? So, from this point of view, how to distinguish the pride of the state from the things that people can be proud I agree with you, but it’s not easy. Because he played big on pride. Right. Gentlemen But I think maybe it’s also the the the the the the Russia thing also played an incredibly important part. I think Magyar played that extremely well during the last weeks that he portrayed him as what he actually is, the puppet of Russia. Um and that weakened him also a lot. And that that doesn’t create any any any kind of pride. But now maybe I just two or three years of of Magyar could really change the whole region if he does a good job. And he he took some very good people um in in in in in into the government. There’s some very talented uh people who are not politically here or there, who just want to do uh bring up Hungary up to the top again. There’s so many things they could do now. He travels to uh Warsaw. That’s his first trip. Then he actually comes to Austria. Uh and then he goes to Brussels. So, that’s a very strong sign on his part that the V4 is much more important for him um um than anything else. Just imagine these countries would now start working again together and do what China has done. This would be an ideal place to build a high-speed rail network. Hm? So, that you you can go from Vienna to Budapest in 1 hour, from Budapest to Prague in an hour and a half, from Vienna to Warsaw uh in 2 hours, from from from Warsaw down to Budapest in in in an hour and a half. We would create a wonderful thing in the region that all we all want it. We want more railways. We want better railways. We would create jobs. Um um the the the automotive industry that’s down the drains in all our countries, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland Slovakia all depend 25% of the economy on the automobile industry that doesn’t work anymore. Let’s rework it. But they have to work together. And that’s the great chance now with with a nationalistic populist like Orban, you cannot work together. Maybe maybe that that that would that would be great. And I hope they include Austria, too, so something happens in our country. [laughter] Don’t wish. Um before I open up uh the floor, I would like to do a a last uh quick uh round. Because at the very beginning you said um the thing is that somehow it seems that the president uh of the of the United States, former hegemon of the liberal world, although has changed sides to the liberal to the liberals. Um Today uh he said uh again, NATO is completely useless for for him. I don’t believe uh that the war in in Iran did anything good for the for the transatlantic uh alliance. So, I wonder how do you see the future of of uh of NATO? Uh Can there be something like the West without its former hegemon, uh the US? Well, unfortunately, I think there has to be something like that uh because I think that the United States, you know, uh now has this part of the political system that is actively anti-European. That’s what J.D. Vance uh represents. You know, the the things that he said in that Signal chat that was supposed to be secret, but wasn’t. It reveals this just almost visceral hostility to the whole idea of Europe. And I think that it’s not a dominant uh view in the United States, but it’s now taken root in an important part of the Republican Party. And what I’m afraid is, you know, the United States does not have to formally withdraw from NATO. All you need is a president that isn’t willing to meet the Article 5 commitment if there’s a real threat from Russia or China or some external uh party, and it’s over. You know, NATO no longer means anything. And I just think that unfortunately, Europeans are going to have to get used to that idea that they’re going to have to do things on their own. You look at the statistics. I mean, Europe has a bigger population and collectively, you know, very large GDP. And it’s this internal cooperation issue I think that’s the real, you know, obstacle. But it’s time to get serious about figuring out how to do that. Now that Hungary um isn’t vetoing uh fundamental change, you know, maybe it’s time to think about qualified majority voting. You know, we But but is Europe prepared for that? Is is Europe prepared to to defend I mean, we’re talking about it for for years now with growing intensity that the the that Europe has to it will happen. I I think we we will see we will see uh the development of uh European defense procurement. I think that what is going on in Ukraine for the moment is absolutely amazing. Um the digital warfare systems that they’re developing um um now are just mind-boggling at a speed of light. That’s so for from a pure defense point of view is Ukraine has to be part of Europe. Because if Ukraine becomes part of Russia, which it will if they take it over, uh we have the Ukraine against us uh 20 years from now. And Europe will be much stronger if uh Ukraine is part of I think we will have a European defense procurement. It will take uh 5 to 10 years. Um and we will have some form of European defense alliance uh during the next 10 to 15 years, whatever way, with NATO or or or without without NATO. What we have to realize, however, that this is an enormous cost of Europe. Um that investing in defense is the biggest waste of money that you can actually do. But we have unfortunately uh we have to do it. It will have dramatic effects on the social fabric in in in Europe. Poland is now spending 5% um of its budget on defense. Um and and that is an enormous amount of money. Because of that, the deficit is going up 7%. So, um we need much better politics within Europe, and we have to get rid of the uh of of the veto right of one country. That has nothing to do with democracy. This is the dictatorship of minority. Democracy is majority. And if we don’t get there, Europe is not going to work. And we have to accept it. If If we want to If we want to have a strong European Union, the small countries will have to accept the fact that if Poland, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain say yes, it’s done, and we have to follow. If we don’t accept that, forget it. [applause] EVEN DO YOU SEE NOT ONLY A CHANGE OF discourse about defense, but also a change of of action? I I I just read that for instance Friedrich Merz is very much going into this discussion of strengthening the European pillar of of native NATO. The Germans were hesitant before. So, what’s what’s your take on that? My position always was that there is no weaker position than try to defend the status quo that does not exist anymore. And we are slightly putting ourselves into this. But then, the the real story is that what is going to save Europe was could be also the thing that can destroy Europe. Listen, in 5 years, the German defense budget is going to be bigger than the defense budget of France and the United Kingdom together. So, if you’re a French nationalist or Polish nationalist, probably you’re not going to be over excited unless they’re going to be a project to which you participate. Because the problem in Europe is that probably we have a common dreams, but our nightmares are strictly national. They comes from concrete history, and so on. So, from this point of view, for me, the major story is to try to agree that European Union is not going to look in the way we know it. By the way, even with this story about veto, I cannot see how you’re going to adopt this, but I can see something totally different. Some countries starts to cooperate very actively on certain areas, and then others, if they’re not going to join, basically are going to pay much higher price. When you talk about defense, there is already you have a major Europeanization, not of the planning of the armies, but of the defense sector. Basically, Rheinmetall is almost anywhere. All over Eastern Europe. So, you start to have this on the level of companies, not on the level of states. And suddenly, of course, uh this can go, but my story is this can go in different direction, and it means a different consensus on what European politics is. And here, there are two things coming at the same time. Many of the mainstream parties are becoming more nationalistic than they were. And this is true for everyone. We can do it. On the other side, many of the far-right parties are becoming less Eurosceptic than they were, because on Brexit, it was clear that outside of the European Union, there is nothing for them. And now, with the United States as we strong, and this is why distancing from Trump is very important, is this civilizational alliance, and so on, it does not work. How to make out of it a positive project? I agree with Andreas this. Try to allow all these very different people. So, from this point of view, this slightly like the magic magic, where you’re putting basically the socialists and the ex-Fidesz people together, and all of them believe that they’re sharing a victory. It’s going to be critically important, and it But it can go in all directions. The good things and the bad things are the same thing. And for me, the most important is that this is not anymore about defending Europe in the way it was. The problem is what kind of a different European Union we can come with that can function in the world in which, I agree, the United States, even after Trump, is not going to be the same America. It does not need to be a Trumpian America. China is not going to be what it was. The the power in the world is going to change dramatically. German kind of industry, you’re saying 25% and so But this is big. And it’s not about Germany. Look at Slovakia. Look at the Czech Republic. How many jobs are there? And plus, put AI as the result of it, and how many jobs are going to change, and how the way we’re living is changing. So, here my positivity come from something that is very strange. European Union was the most experimental part of the world for the last 30 years. Listen, getting the East in, in particular Eastern Europe, so much is changing. I’m somebody who was 25 years in 1989, and basically, the world is changing for you dramatically. If we are betting on this, that we have developed much more adaptability than many other places, probably this is our strength. Because people are going to change. The only thing is not going to change is that people are going to come to the Vienna Museum. Listen. Let me just say something to Yes. Even because Even is a The problem with experienced politicians and experienced political advisers, like Even, is that they know what is doable and what is not doable. And naive business people like myself um don’t know that. So, he says, “Come on, don’t be naive. Uh there’s no way that you’re going to get rid of unanimity in in in Europe.” And then Wolfgang Plasnic said, “Yes.” Little try, so dream on, baby. Um every successful company in this world has been built by dreamers. And politicians and their advisers have become so realistic that they have lost their ability to dream. And we all know that Europe would work a lot better if we would get rid of unanimity. Everybody knows it, but experienced politicians say, “Come on, guys. That’s not possible. That’s not possible.” And Even deals a lot with experienced politicians, so he says, “It’s not possible.” I would like you to change your mind and make pressure on politicians so that they start dreaming big, then we can turn Europe around. Thank you. This is great. Just um [applause] Andreas is absolutely right in one thing. If Magyar was realistic, he should not have run against. On the other side, dreaming can go in different directions. People like to talk about startup companies and how well they’re doing. But keep in mind, 99% of them bankrupt. [laughter] Thank you. So, there is at least for some minutes the possibility to to ask ques- questions. Please introduce yourself and uh direct your questions to one of the panelists. We start uh in the first row, and no co-speeches, please. Thank you. Yeah. First of all, that was a fantastic conversation. Thank you, not only because of the quality of the contributions, but also because of the way you all listened to each other. Um but I just wanted to ask a question in particular, Professor Fukuyama. Um you mentioned that the problem is not with democracy. Democracy is in rude health. The problem is with the liberal dimension of democracy. But there we run into another problem, which is that that in the Anglophone world, the word liberal has been turned into a dirty word. And I just wondered if you could comment on that. For the left, it means neoliberalism or masked imperialism, masked authoritarianism. On the right, it means, you know, leftist um identitarian fads. What can we do about that? Thank you. May May we take uh two or three or four more questions, and I I write it down, so. Or Alexander Pavlov, um volunteer at UNA Austria. This is a question I’m directing towards Mr. Kristof. Um I’m going to shine the light on Europe’s next election, which could be again turning point or breaking point. It’s about Bulgaria, which has a strong candidate, president of 9 years, uh Rumen Radev, uh resigning, founding his party, and according to polls, about to take first place in the elections. Thank you. Has Bulgaria Sorry. gotten it that populists may uh not hold what they promise, coupled with the fact that every one of the last eight elections had has had a turnout of below 40%? Maybe your views on that. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. So, yeah, the lady in the fourth row, please. Yeah, but Okay. Um Thank you very much. Gudrun Steinacker, former German diplomat. I would refer to the first question, um which mentioned already neoliberalism, but it’s not neoliberalism, it’s neoliberal capitalism. Which impact did neoliberal capitalism, which had just succeeded in the West when communism collapsed for good reasons, uh have uh which impact did it have that things went so wrong? Uh I’m an expert on the Balkans, by the way, also a little bit on Bulgaria. But I also spent years in Russia, and I think that neoliberal class capitalism uh may be uh an explanation for what went wrong, and so I would like to get a comment Yes, thank you. let me do Yes, yeah. With pleasure. Uh the gentleman in the second row, please. Then we all wrap it up. Thank you very much for this panel Anton Shekhovtsov, Central European University. Synthesizing what this brilliant panel has said about respect and optimist about the future, I was thinking about Andy Warhol who said that and he might have been the great liberal and also optimistic about the future when he said that in the future everybody will have 15 minutes of world of being world famous. So we probably need for liberal democracies this Andy Warhol moment. But my question is very simple and and and very short. What do you think will be a takeaway from the Hungarian elections for the European right-wing populists? What will what lesson will they learn? Thank you. Okay. Mr. how much time have we got now? Like 10 more minutes? Okay. Uh Okay, we do the last question of the lady over there and then then we all wrap it up. Thank you. Many thanks for this great talk. I’m with UN IAA. And I want to put on the table the existence the existence of the UN and of the NPT. NPT actually since 1970, we still have four members that didn’t sign the NPT. We have all this international framework and we are in this situation. How we could go back to the decent diplomatic work that could be efficient. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, let’s start with the question by Mr. Crockett. How did liberal become a dirty word? Uh Well, I I agree that maybe we need to come up with another word other than liberal because it has so many of these uh uh I think bad connotations. Uh in my book about in defense of liberalism, I said that there were two distortions of liberalism and people had to recognize that they were distortions and not fundamental to the doctrine. So one is neoliberalism which is this overemphasis on markets and a uh downgrading of the importance of the state as a regulator of markets. That is one interpretation of liberalism, but I think it’s led to some you know, bad uh consequences and so we have to make clear that that is not the kind of liberalism we’re talking about. The other distortion is what you might call woke liberalism where you use the power of the state to actively redistribute to people, you know, formerly marginalized groups and you identify people not as individuals but as members of groups and that I think ceases actually to be liberal because, you know, liberalism really is a it it’s a liberalism of individuals that are presumed to have equal dignity and rights and that I think also provoked a big, you know, right-wing backlash and I think we need to move away from that interpretation as well. I I give up in terms of what word should replace liberal. I think that in light of Hungary and everything else we we maybe can agree that it’s the opposite of what Victor Orban represented. Could you please also take the the last question about the NPT the non-proliferation No, I’m I’m really worried about this because you know, in a way what has been demonstrated over the last 20 years is actually a good thing to have a nuclear weapon. If Ukraine had not given up its nuclear weapons when it did, Russia couldn’t do what it’s doing. If North Korea did get a nuclear weapon and nobody’s going to do regime change in North Korea, the problem is getting from no nuclear weapons to having a nuclear weapon. That’s really hard. But I just think that the incentives for other countries to go nuclear, Japan, Korea, you know, countries in Europe that have depended on the American nuclear umbrella are going to think very hard about, you know, getting an independent deterrent and I it’s just a terrible, you know, outcome of world politics right now, but I don’t see how you avoid that conclusion that the risk of proliferation is much higher than it’s been, you know, since the passage of the NPT. Andreas, maybe you could take the question about uh a neoliberal capitalism. You mean because I am one or what? I suppose. I I you know, I I I I would put away with all those words. Um they’re totally useless because they don’t mean anything anymore. Liberal for an American is something completely different than liberal for a European. Liberal for a Texan is something completely different than liberal for Minnesota. You have different forms of that. In Austria and Germany, we can’t speak about it because we don’t have any. And a few not too many. Socialism social democratism Christian democratism means totally different things in different European countries. A Danish social democrat stands up and builds capital funded pension system hm and loves capital funded pension system. An Austrian social democrat runs away if he or she hears the word capital. So it’s totally different. A Danish social democrat is happy if we work until we’re 70. A French Christian democrat goes out on the streets and burns cars if he increases the working age from 62 to 64. So what are we talking about? Explain to me what neo-liberal capitalism is. I have no clue what that is. Sorry. [applause] Ivan, there was one question about the elections in Bulgaria and then a question about what the lessons which lessons the right-wing populists will draw from the elections in Hungary. First, I hope that uh Professor Fukuyama is going to take the Bulgarian question. Uh and I’m going to stay with the nuclear one. But [laughter] Bulgaria is going to have an elections this Sunday. And this is interesting. Everybody knows about Hungarian elections. Nobody basically, [clears throat] if you’re not Bulgarian, know about Bulgarian elections. And the interesting story was that before Mr. Orban lost one of the question in Bulgaria was who is Bulgarian Orban. As who is the Bulgarian winner. And now basically again who is the Bulgarian Orban but who is the Bulgarian loser. And there is certain similarities honestly speaking. First, you have a political leader the former Prime Minister Borissov that he have been staying and dominating politics as much as long as was with basically with Mr. Orban. So in a certain way you have this generation story. You have a younger generation. You have the president Radev who basically was very much seeing him Mr. Orban as a model till yesterday. Uh I don’t know how he sees today. Uh but the biggest problem in Bulgaria is that for the last 30 years everybody was winning only on the anti-corruption campaign and everybody was losing of being accused of corruption. As a result of it, the policy debate is disappearing. You basically comes And by the way, on anti-corruption you can win once. [laughter] Uh and then basically either you’re winning on corruption or you’re losing. Uh and I do believe this is very important for Bulgarian politics because I don’t want to talk more about this, but keep in mind. Bulgaria is a country that in three things should be interested for those who interested in politics and even are not political scientists. For example, Bulgaria is a country in which now they’re going to be for the fourth time a party created six months before the elections is going to win the majority. It’s a newcomer’s party. And by the way, we have been governed from the left, from the right, from above the ex-king became a prime minister, from below the head of the security of the king became a prime minister. So from this point of view, it was a major experiment. But if corruption is the only thing that the country is talking about then I do believe this is creating this is creating a problem with home. And this is the story in which this is what worries me about Bulgarian politics because in six eight months you create a majority that does not know how to stay together. And this goes very much what the far-right parties are going to learn. I do believe they’re going to learn different things because they’re different parties. One thing that they’re going to learn probably is that being endorsed by President Trump does not bring votes. No, but this is an important story. To be honest, I have they believed that it can bring votes. Uh some of them can decide that probably also the Russians don’t have much. Uh and as a result of it, I expect and this is the positive scenario is some of them should start to be interested in European politics more than simply how to attack the European Union. Because the moment you start to imagine yourself as a government and here Meloni of course is the most interesting example. And it’s interesting how France will go. And this is why I believe that we can talk about new European consensus in a different way, which is not going to be the same. On the other side, they can go even more kind of a provincial. I don’t care about anything else. The only thing that I care is try to get my votes in my own country, and I’m not interested in anything else. This can also go through, and I can see countries going this way. But what is changing, and I want to to end up on this because for me this was the interesting about Hungarian elections. What brings Europeans together, paradoxically, was crisis. You remember the financial crisis in 2008 and 9. And then suddenly Germans became a specialist on Greek economy. And then you have the migration crisis 2015, and East Europeans, we became an experts on the German asylum policies. And now everybody is specialist on the Hungarian electoral politics. But listen, this is how you create political community. Yeah. So this is how you create community of faith. But that that is a wonderful community because now the head of the Eurogroup is a Greek. 16 years later, isn’t that wonderful? but no, no, I’m saying this in a very positive way. The only way people you understand themselves as we is when they shared crisis and understand that other people’s crisis is their crisis. So on this level I’m much more optimistic about this exactly because now we know about each other a lot, and now even you know that they’re going to be elections in Bulgaria on Sunday. [laughter] Well, thanks a lot. [applause] UH YEAH, THANK YOU FOR THIS wonderful debate. Thanks uh to the host, uh and I wish you all a very pleasant evening. Thank [applause] you. Good.