Politics of Inevitability, Timothy Synder and Niskanen Center's Open Society Project

Timothy Synder said: "We allowed ourselves to accept the politics of inevitability, the sense that history could move in only one direction: toward liberal democracy. After communism in eastern Europe came to an end in 1989–91, we imbibed the myth of an “end of history.” In doing so, we lowered our defenses, constrained our imagination, and opened the way for precisely the kinds of regimes we told ourselves could never return. To be sure, the politics of inevitability seem at first glance to be a kind of history. "Inevitability politicians do not deny that there is a past, a present, and a future." (“How Simple Stories About Politics Delude Us - Current Affairs”) They even allow for the colorful variety of the distant past. Yet they portray the present simply as a step toward a future that we already know, one of expanding globalization, deepening reason, and growing prosperity."

Niskanen Center's Open Society Project agrees: "The post-1989 era of “end of history” triumphalism has ended. It is no longer possible to assume complacently that liberal democracy is the end point of political evolution toward which all countries will eventually converge. The basic principles of what Karl Popper called the “open society” are neither self-explanatory nor self-executing: Pro-Democracy policies must be constantly articulated, defended, and fought for if they are to remain vital. The Open Society Project was conceived and established as a pro-democracy policy reform organization to come to the intellectual and practical defense of cherished ideals and institutions now under siege."

Open Society Project link


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