On Wednesday, November 2, 2005, at 6:00 p.m. the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the Embassy of Canada will host the second annual Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture on Democracy in the World. The lecture, which will be held at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC, will be delivered by Dr. Francis Fukuyama on the topic Identity, Immigration, and Liberal Democracy. An earlier version of the lecture was presented on October 19 at the Munk Centre for International Studies of the University of Toronto, which is a cosponsor of the annual Lipset Lecture.
In his talk, Dr. Fukuyama will explore the challenges faced by the liberal democracies of Western Europe, Canada, and the United States in integrating Muslim immigrants. In particular, he will seek to explain why the model of multiculturalism that originated in Canada and has been reasonably successful there is increasingly regarded as a failure in countries like the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
The Lipset lecture is named for one of the great scholars of democracy and public intellectuals of the twentieth century. “Marty Lipset’s scholarship on themes like the conditions for democracy, political parties, voting behavior and public opinion constitutes one of the most prolific and insightful bodies of work on democracy ever produced by a single author,” said NED President Carl Gershman. Lipset has also been one of the most important comparative analysts of the two great democracies of North America, and a strong advocate for US-Canadian cooperation. The joint US-Canadian sponsorship of the Lipset Lecture provides an opportunity for influential audiences in both countries to hear and discuss a major intellectual statement on democracy each year and serves as a catalyst for further cooperation between Canada and the United States in the promotion of democracy and democratic ideas around the world.
Francis Fukuyama is the Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. He has written widely on issues relating to questions concerning political and economic development. His best selling book, The End of History and the Last Man, (Free Press,1992) has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His most recent book is State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century, published by Cornell University Press in the spring of 2004. America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy will be published by Yale University Press in the spring of 2006. Fukuyama serves on the Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy.
For more information on the National Endowment for Democracy, please visit www.ned.org.
This event is open to the media.
What: Second Annual Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture on Democracy in the World
Where: Embassy of Canada, 501 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
When: Wednesday, November 2, 2005 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. Cameras preset by 3:30 p.m.
Contact: Jane Jacobsen (202) 293-9072;jane@ned.org
