IDENTITY: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, Book launch

Abstract:

Please join Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) on Sept. 27 for the launch of Francis Fukuyama's latest book, "Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment." Fukuyama, the Mosbacher Director of CDDRL, will be joined in conversation with Michael McFaul, the director and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Affairs. The event will begin promptly at 4:00 pm and be followed by a light reception and book signing from 5:30-6:30 pm. 

Please note that there is only 1 ticket permitted per person. 

In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote that American institutions were in decay, as the state was progressively captured by powerful interest groups. Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatened to destabilize the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to the people, who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole. Demand for recognition of one's identity is a master concept that unifies much of what is going on in world politics today.

The universal recognition on which liberal democracy is based has been increasingly challenged by narrower forms of recognition based on nation, religion, sect, race, ethnicity, or gender, which have resulted in anti-immigrant populism, the upsurge of politicized Islam, the fractious identity liberalism of college campuses, and the emergence of white nationalism. Populist nationalism, said to be rooted in economic motivation, actually springs from the demand for recognition and therefore cannot simply be satisfied by economic means. The demand for identity cannot be transcended; we must begin to shape identity in a way that supports rather than undermines democracy.