The Cold War period was defined by the clash of two universalist ideologies - Western liberalism and Soviet communism - both born of the tradition of the European Enlightenment.
The post-Cold War period, by contrast, was defined by the absence of ideological alternatives. This is our first central argument. Many former communist thinkers and politicians have found it easier to accept that capitalism and democracy are the end of history than it is that history has no end at all.
The idea of historical-teleological development, of progress, of moving toward a specific goal, was very strong. This gave rise to the feeling that there was no alternative.
Our second main argument concerns the division into democracy and communism, into freedom and totalitarianism typical of the Cold War, which has been replaced by a division into societies that were already liberal democracies and those that wish to become them. This is the difference between the original and the copy.
