America’s strongman Fukuyama does not seem to realise that he is dropping knowledge on Hungarians based on his own sense of exceptionalism.

In Hungary, right-wingers think that Hungarians are exceptional, laments Japanese American political scientist and writer Francis Fukuyama, whose famous theory from 1989 that the end of communism is the end of history and that liberal democracy will bring eternal timelessness has since been proven wrong and is now a laughing stock, so much so that kicking him around for it feels unsportsmanlike.

Fukuyama spoke about ’Hungarian exceptionalism’ in a recent interview with Bloomberg. The topic of the conversation was the global state of democracy and the prospects the United States faces. The interviewer pointed out that, statistically, the number of liberal democracies in the world has decreased over the past two decades, while more and more people live in ‘illiberal democracies’ such as Hungary, Turkey, and India. (Formally, Hungary is still a liberal democracy, but never mind.)

According to Fukuyama, this is not down to a single factor. In the United States and Europe, where right-wing nationalists have gained strength, this process is often attributed to growing economic inequality created by globalisation. However, both the right and the left attack the basic principles of liberalism. The political scientist emphasised that

right-wingers want to return to a form of nationalism where they can say that Hungarians or Hindus or some other subgroup of humanity have an exceptional status,

while among leftists, it is more typical to question the basic liberal virtues of tolerance and freedom of speech.

It seems that Fukuyama cannot let go of liberal democracy as the most perfect state system in history, and regarding the sense of exceptionalism, his memory is quite selective.

As I wrote in an article on the United States in Mathias Corvinus Collegium’s conservative political science book Hungarian Political Encyclopaedia,

‘On the American continent, the first English settlers arrived at the beginning of the 17th century. The Virginians and the New Englanders landed with different motivations: the former were primarily looking for the opportunity to prosper and grow, while the Puritans, fleeing from royal oppression, wanted to realise their own ideal society. In 1630, John Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts, one of the colonies they established, said that

“we shall be as a city upon a hill—the eyes of all people are upon us,”

referring to the image of the biblical Jerusalem, the symbol of heaven. This is where the sense of dedication so characteristic of the American mentality today originates from.’

This sense of mission has been characteristic of America ever since, regardless of political affiliations, and, at least partly, its main subject is in fact liberal democracy.

For conservative patriots, this sense of exceptionalism—whether in its religious or non-religious form—is an integral part of patriotism: they are proud of the ‘American way of life’, of everything in which they differ from the ‘old’ Europe, and of the fact that, compared to former monarchies, they live in a republican country that values individual initiatives and lifestyles. As a result, American right-wingers also tend to look down on the rest of the world because they believe that they have realised the dream of humanity, which others should also follow. In its Neocon form, this meant exporting democracy, but this George W. Bush-type of democracy being exported also stems from Winthrop’s self-perception: America is a city built upon a hill that shines its light upon the world. In its right-wing form, this sense of exceptionalism means the pride felt for the American way of life and state system, and outwardly, the more or less overt assertion of interests beyond the export of democracy.

If we think that there is no left-wing form of the matter, then we are wrong. The assertion of interests works on the left as well, but no matter how much the American left tends to self-hate and self-flagellate, it also emphasises exporting democracy and the ‘checks and balances’ as key characteristics of the state system, not to mention the progressive interpretation of the ‘city upon a hill’, the main example of which is David Pressman and a US diplomacy that aggressively pushes progressive issues, typically under Democratic administrations.

The entire liberal human rights doctrine, as well as its violent dissemination, is the result of a progressive interpretation of American exceptionalism.

Whatever form it takes, whatever its emphasis, American exceptionalism does exist, and it is definitely reflected in the attitudes of both ordinary Americans and American politics. It is what American sociologist and political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset simply called ‘Americanism’. This whole sense of exceptionalism is part of the American identity. Therefore, Fukuyama could start worrying about national exceptionalism at home, as his own conception of the end of history is also a product of this very sentiment.

As for the types of democracy: there are not only several types of democracy, but also several kinds of democracy typologies. Among the many, one of the most interesting is based on a global research project of the University of Notre Dame in 2011, according to which a democracy cannot achieve all ‘democratic’ goals at the same time. It lists six types of democracies, which in one way or another are mutually exclusive, or at least they cannot be fully realised at the same time and in the same place: Schumpeter’s leadership democracy (minimalist, elitist); liberal democracy; majority democracy; participatory democracy; deliberative democracy; and egalitarian democracy.

In any case, formally, all of these can be liberal democracies, but they all emphasise different aspects, and they all have examples in Europe. The point is that there is no hierarchical relationship between them, i.e. none is better than the other. As the authors of the aforementioned research point out,

most of all, it is liberal and majority democracies that stand in contrast to each other.

Liberal democracy, which according to the authors can also be called consensual or pluralist democracy, is built around transparency, civil liberties, the rule of law, accountability, ‘checks and balances’, and minority rights, and contracts to ensure those. This viewpoint evaluates political power in a negative way, namely, in this case, democracy can be defined by the limitations and boundaries of power. In addition, a written constitution, the role of the media, the courts, interest groups, and decentralisation are also important.

In contrast, majority democracy (responsible party governance) approaches things from the opposite direction: it is the majority that is sovereign. For the sake of effective governance, political power must be centralised and concentrated in a majority democracy, and political parties have a prominent role in this, too.

According to this typology, Orbán’s ‘illiberal democracy’ (or more precisely, ‘illiberal state’ and ‘non-liberal democracy’, as it was worded in his speech at Tusványos in 2014) is a majority democracy, and it is in deep contrast to the liberal democracy promoted by the EU. However, this is mainly a contrast of attitudes and formally, there are no big differences between the two systems.

Perhaps Fukuyama should exercise some introspection at times, instead of worrying about the end of history, that is, the final victory of liberal democracies, being constantly put off, and instead of lumping India and Turkey together with Hungary. He could even visit here and talk to those illiberals suffering from a sense of exceptionalism—and then he might be confronted with his own sense of exceptionalism.

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