Was democracy theorist Francis Fukuyama right all along?

Was democracy theorist Francis Fukuyama right all along?

Jeet Heer   From Saturday's Globe and Mail  Published Friday, Apr. 15, 2011 5:00PM

In 1989, as communism was collapsing in Eastern Europe, foreign-policy oracle Francis Fukuyama famously proclaimed that we were witnessing the end of history because, in the modern world, liberal democratic capitalism would have no rivals as a legitimate form of government.
His daring manifesto was widely derided as fanciful by critics, many of whom accused him of ignoring the fact that liberal democracy was hardly taking off in the Islamic world. More than two decades later, however, his ideas about the universal appeal of liberal democratic ideals look surprisingly robust in the wake of widespread popular revolts in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as persistent democratic tremors in China.

click here to read the full article