In a famous 1989 essay, the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama declared `the end of history.` Put simply, by the end of history, Fukuyama meant that the era of political and economic ideas battling each other for global dominance was coming to an end. According to Fukuyama, in the long conflict between communism and liberal democracy/capitalism, the latter had prevailed.

By 1989, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was coming to an end. The Soviet Union had been greatly weakened as a `world power` and, in 1991, it collapsed. This was also when Fukuyama expanded his essay and published it in shape of a book, The End of History and the Last Man.

The fall of the Soviet Union meant that the US was now the sole superpower`. As communist regimes started to crumble, and an increasing number of countries began to adopt democracy, Fukuyama`s book became one of the most influential reads of the period.

Fukuyama had borrowed the phrase `end of history` from the 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Hegel, who had explained the French Revolution as the (possible) `end of history.` Fukuyama acknowledged this when he wrote, `Hegel saw the victory of the ideals of the French Revolution, and the imminent universalisation of the state incorporating the principles of liberal democracy.

To Hegel, history progresses through a constant battle between contrasting ideas (`dialectics`). In1806, he wondered whether the French Revolution had triggered the end of this process, with the ideas of the French Revolution becoming the most dominant. The `end` in this context means the achievement of that near-perfect idea/system that has little or no competition left. In 1861, the philosopher Antoine A.

Cournot summarised the concept as `the end of the historical dynamic with the perfection of civil society.` Hegel was by no means a liberal, as such. In fact, it was the 19th century communist ideologue Karl Marx who was greatly influenced by Hegel`s idea of dialectics. To Marx, history progresses through a struggle between opposing economic forces or between the owners of the means of production (capitalists/bourgeoisie) and the workers (the proletariat).

Marxists began to refer to this as `dialectical materialism.

Marx predicted that this struggle would end in the defeat of capitalism and the establishment of communism.

This conclusion can be called Marx`s end of history thesis. To Fukuyama, though, the struggle was eventually won by the bourgeoisie, because they had a more robust economic system (capitalism) and a superior political idea (democracy).

However, a little more than a decade after Fukuyama`s book was published, his once readily-embraced thesis began to face fierce criticism and, in some cases, outright ridicule. The criticism initially emerged during the rise of militant Islamism something which, ironically, Western liberal democracies had previously facilitated and funded to challenge Soviet communism.

For some critics of Fukuyama`sproclamations, Islamism had risen to replace communism as a competing ideology. This meant that the `end of history` did not take place because democracy was now in conflict with another `global` idea, which was as anti-democracy as communism. But, after surviving episodes of `new democracies` mutating and embracing `electoral authoritarianism`, Fukuyama`s thesis somewhat bounced back when Islamism started to recede from the mid-2010s.

However, it is important to note that this was only possible through military action in countries most affected by militant Islamism (such as Algeria, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria etc). Islamism`s gradual erosion was not due to the `supremacy of liberal democracy.` One example in this regard is democracy`s failure to prevent the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, even though,in this case, military action too had failed.

Fukuyama`s thesis once again came under fire from various quarters when right-wing populism began to surge, not only in the so-called `Global South`, but also in the bastions of liberal democracy in Europe, and in the US. The Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde calls populism `a thin ideology` or a theatrical style of politics that borrows from `thick ideologies`, such as fascism, Nazism, libertarianism and socialism. Yet, despite being `thin`, right-wing populism is imposing a serious challenge to liberal democracy.

Fukuyama began to see populism as a reaction to `cultural wars` and `identity politics.` To him, these were an outcome of the cultural left`s critique of the established democratic order in the West. The cultural left`s critique triggered an equally vehement response from the far-right, but one that too detests the existing order.

The `cultural wars` and `identity politics` were perhaps the last manifestations of the so-called `postmodernist condition` that the world apparently entered from the late 1970s onwards a `condition` in which modernism had begun to be discredited and then recede. This flung open a window for ideas (both from the left and the right) that were once only present on the fringes of society.

They entered mainstream politics. But Fukuyama is unwilling to recognise the possibility that the rise of right wing populism may also be due to the failures of liberal democracy and of the capitalism that drives it.

To political scientist Cas Mudde, populism is the outcome of certain contradictions in democracy. For example, a party may come to power through a legitimate electoral process but use its `popular mandate` to start undoing democratic institutions and rights.

Therefore, Fukuyama`s 1991 claim that liberal democracy had triumphed (against communism) because it was the superior idea that willgo on to reach perfection in the absence of a serious challenger, is once again coming under scrutiny. Liberal democracy may have won the Cold War against Soviet communism but, instead of becoming stronger, its many contradictions have become more obvious than ever.

The outcomes of these contradictions, such as the electoral rise of right-wing populism in both developed as well as in developing democracies, suggests that liberal democracy`s Cold War victory did not announce the `end of history`, but perhaps the beginning of the end of its own history.