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The New York Times bestselling author of The Origins of Political Order offers a provocative examination of modern identity politics: its origins, its effects, and what it means for domestic and international affairs of state

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.

Identity is an urgent and necessary book--a sharp warning that unless we forge a universal understanding of human dignity, we will doom ourselves to continuing conflict.

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Publishers Weekly Review

Political scientist Fukuyama (The End of History and the Last Man) makes an ambitious and provocative critique of identity politics, which he locates in both the leftist crusade for equality for marginalized people and right-wing ethnonationalism and "economic anxieties," which he says are "actually rooted in the demand for recognition." He organizes his analysis around the concept of thymos, "the part of the soul that craves recognition of dignity," which results in either "a desire to be respected on an equal basis with other people" (which, thwarted by marginalization, spurs leftist identity politics), or a "desire to be recognized as superior" (which he connects to dictatorial leaders). He draws from philosophers such as Hegel and Marx; traces the ascendancy of modern liberal democracies, specifically the French Revolution; and turns a critical lens on the Arab Spring, Europe's immigrant crisis, and Donald Trump to argue that identity politics has morphed into a "politics of resentment." The analysis ends with proposals for promoting broader conceptions of identity that bring people together to support liberal democracy's functioning. This erudite work is likely to spark debate. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

CHOICE Review

In Identity, Fukuyama (Hoover) attempts to explain the emergence of nationalist movements in the US, Great Britain, and elsewhere, as well as the attraction of jihadist movements among second-generation European Muslims. He suggests that the liberal world did not benefit everyone. Rising inequality within nations has led to feelings of invisibility and resentment. The white working classes have seen their earning potential decline with little attention paid to that reality by those who had previously championed the working class. With the Left seeking policy reform for those most marginalized, the needs of the working class have been forgotten. Similarly, young Muslims living in the West feel caught between two worlds, not accepted by the countries in which they live nor feeling close to the culture of their parents. Nationalist and religious movements based in identity politics have allowed both to reclaim their dignity and pride, and to be visible again. In order to move beyond such rigid views of nationalism, Fukuyama suggests the need for policies encouraging nationalism based on democratic ideals as opposed to ones based on race, religion, or even multiculturalism. Highly recommended. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. --Marie Olson Lounsbery, East Carolina University

Booklist Review

Leading political theorist Fukuyama (Political Order and Political Decay, 2014) suggests that liberal democracy is in global crisis because of knotty, interrelated problems having to do with thymos, the human desire for dignity and respect. An ancient concept, thymos is described by Plato as the source of both anger and pride, a permanent part of human nature and the foundation of social hierarchy. But modern concepts of personhood have universalized notions of dignity and allowed the private quest for self to become a political project. So now, economic inequality and rapid, disruptive change have intensified identity confusion and exacerbated age-old tensions between the isothymic, who demand to be respected equally with others, and the megalothymic, who insist upon being respected as superior. Thus, democratic institutions strained by tribalism and the politics of resentment. The solution, suggests Fukuyama, is not rejection of identity politics, but rather a reinvigorated creedal identity in which national identity is tied to shared values as opposed to race, ethnicity, or religion so that thymos is channeled into constructive ends, like civic engagement. Keenly thought-provoking and timely.--Brendan Driscoll Copyright 2018 Booklist

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama was born October 27, 1952 in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Fukuyama received his Bachelor of Arts degree in classics from Cornell University, where he studied political philosophy under Allan Bloom. He initially pursued graduate studies in comparative literature at Yale University, going to Paris for six months to study under Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida, but became disillusioned and switched to political science at Harvard University. There, he studied with Samuel P. Huntington and Harvey Mansfield, among others. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard for his thesis on Soviet threats to intervene in the Middle East. In 1979, he joined the global policy think tank RAND Corporation. Fukuyama was the Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University from 1996 to 2000. Until July 10, 2010, he was the Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy and Director of the International Development Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University, located in Washington, D.C. He is now Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow and resident in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Fukuyama is best known as the author of The End of History and the Last Man, in which he argued that the progression of human history as a struggle between ideologies is largely at an end, with the world settling on liberal democracy after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Fukuyama predicted the eventual global triumph of political and economic liberalism. He has written a number of other books, among them Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity and Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. His latest work The Origins of Political Order: From Prehistoric Times to the French Revolution made Publisher's Weekly Best Seller's List for 2011.

(Bowker Author Biography)