it's now a millstone that hangs around francis fukuyama's neck. ies has increased since the end of history was published. and yet freedom house, when it studies democracies every year, says that over the last 12 years more countries have experienced a regression in their democratic values than those that have experienced an advanced. freedom house is one of the more pessimistic measures of democracy. freedom house is also an activist organisation and activist organisations are always biased towards a crying crisis and other indicators of democracies. so there's certainly been a deceleration. but freedom house has a somewhat alarmist picture. when you think about it, in our youth we both had 31 democracies in the early 19705, half of europe was behind the iron curtain. there was barely a democracy in latin america. taiwan and the philippines, indonesia, greece was a military dictatorship, spain and portugal were under the control of fascism. it's true that there has been a push back in countries like russia, turkey, poland and venezuela. but still t

. - the end of history is a phrase that was coined by francis fukuyama, essentially to mean that up until 1989 and the end of the cold war, history was dominated by a series of ideological struggles. - what is often forgotten though, is that fukuyama himself was signaling in that idea of the end of history, that there would be a problem, or there might be a risk. and the risk would be that liberalism did best when it had a rival. without a rival liberalism ran the risk of becoming intellectually flabby, lazy. - [narrator] now, that liberal order is showing signs of strain on a number of fronts. china has emerged on the world stage with its own model, eager to extend its influence. and russia has grown increasingly assertive in the use of its military power. - clearly the international liberal order that was ushered in by europe and the united states in the post world war two period is in a crisis mode and is certainly under attack. and countries like russia and china, but also others, see this as an opportunity to carve out a place for themself. - the russians worry about liberal ideology

it's now a millstone that hangs around francis fu kuyama's neck. in defence of fukuyama year, says that over the last 12 years more countries have experienced a regression in their democratic values than those that have experienced an advanced. freedom house is one of the more pessimistic measures of democracy. freedom house is also an activist organisation and activist organisations are always biased towards a crying crisis and other indicators of democracies. so there's certainly been a deceleration. but freedom house has a somewhat alarmist picture. when you think about it, in our youth we both had 31 democracies in the early 19705, half of europe was behind the iron curtain. there was barely a democracy in latin america. taiwan and the philippines, indonesia, greece was a military dictatorship, spain and portugal were under the control of fascism. it's true that there has been a push back in countries like russia, turkey, poland and venezuela. but still the overall trend continuing through the end of history has been towards democratisation. in your world view, is re