Francis Fukuyama, Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and Professor by Courtesy, Department of Political Science, Stanford University; Author, The End of History and the Last Man (1992) and Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy

Professor Fukuyama presents the keynote lecture of our special August series, Big Solutions for Big Problems. He asks whether our current “vetocracy” has made it easier to stop our government from doing anything than to accomplish something for the common good. Meanwhile, the presidential race has caused a lot of apprehension. The Republican Party has succumbed to Donald Trump’s hostile takeover, and the ultra-insider Hillary Clinton had to face surprisingly strong competition from Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders.

Whatever the issue—from immigration to financial reform to trade to stagnating incomes—large numbers of voters from both ends of the spectrum have rejected what they see as a corrupt, self-dealing establishment, and turned instead to radical outsiders in the hopes of a purifying cleanse. But is that what we will be getting?