Francis Fukuyama, Ph.D.

Council Member

Francis Fukuyama is Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Fukuyama’s book, The End of History and the Last Man, was published by Free Press in 1992 and has appeared in more than twenty foreign editions. It made the bestseller lists in the United States, France, Japan, and Chile, and has been awarded the Los Angeles Times' Book Critics Award in the Current Interest category, as well as the Premio Capri for the Italian edition. He is also the author of Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (1995); The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order (1999); and Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (2002). His most recent book, State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century, was published by Cornell University Press in the spring of 2004.

Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues relating to questions concerning democratization and international political economy. He has, in recent years, focused on the role of culture and social capital in modern economic life, and on the social consequences of technological change.

Francis Fukuyama was born in Chicago on October 27, 1952. He received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation from 1979-1980, then again from 1983-89, and from 1995-96. In 1981-82 and in 1989, he was a member of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State, the first time as a regular member specializing in Middle East affairs, and then as Deputy Director for European political-military affairs. In 1981-82 he was also a member of the US delegation to the Egyptian-Israeli talks on Palestinian autonomy. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University.

Dr. Fukuyama is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics. He holds an honorary doctorate from Connecticut College and Doane College, and is a member of advisory boards for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), The National Interest, the Journal of Democracy, and The New America Foundation. As an NED board member, he is responsible for oversight of the Endowment's Middle East programs. He is a member of the American Political Science Association, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and the Global Business Network. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.

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