Francis Fukuyama Quote
In both Europe and the United States, that debate is currently polarized between a right that seeks to cut off immigration altogether and would like to send current immigrants back to their countries of origin and a left that asserts a virtually unlimited obligation on the part of liberal democracies to accept migrants. The real focus should instead be on strategies for better assimilating immigrants to a country’s creedal identity. Well-assimilated immigrants bring a healthy diversity to any society, and the benefits of immigration can be fully realized. Poorly assimilated immigrants are a drag on the state and in some cases constitute dangerous security threats. Europeans pay lip service to the need for better assimilation, but fail to follow through with an effective set of policies. The reform agenda here is highly varied since individual European countries approach the problem very differently. Many countries have in place policies that actively impede integration, such as the Dutch system of pillarization. Britain and a number of other European countries provide public funding for Muslim schools, just as they support Christian and Jewish schools.
In both Europe and the United States, that debate is currently polarized between a right that seeks to cut off immigration altogether and would like to send current immigrants back to their countries of origin and a left that asserts a virtually unlimited obligation on the part of liberal democracies to accept migrants. The real focus should instead be on strategies for better assimilating immigrants to a country’s creedal identity. Well-assimilated immigrants bring a healthy diversity to any society, and the benefits of immigration can be fully realized. Poorly assimilated immigrants are a drag on the state and in some cases constitute dangerous security threats. Europeans pay lip service to the need for better assimilation, but fail to follow through with an effective set of policies. The reform agenda here is highly varied since individual European countries approach the problem very differently. Many countries have in place policies that actively impede integration, such as the Dutch system of pillarization. Britain and a number of other European countries provide public funding for Muslim schools, just as they support Christian and Jewish schools.
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About Francis Fukuyama
Fukuyama has been a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies since July 2010 and the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. In August 2019, he was named director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy at Stanford.
Before that, he served as a professor and director of the International Development program at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. He had also been the Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University.
He is a council member of the International Forum for Democratic Studies founded by the National Endowment for Democracy and was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation. He is also one of the 25 leading figures on the Information and Democracy Commission launched by Reporters Without Borders. In 2024, he received the Riggs Award for Lifetime Achievement in International and Comparative Public Administration.