Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama (born October 27, 1952) is an American political scientist, political economist, and author.

He is best known for his book The End of History and the Last Man (1992), which argued that the worldwide spread of liberal democracies and free market capitalism of the West and its lifestyle may signal the end point of humanity's sociocultural evolution and become the final form of human government. However, his subsequent book "Trust: Social Virtues and Creation of Prosperity" (1995) modified his earlier position to acknowledge that culture cannot be cleanly separated from economics. Fukuyama is also associated with the rise of the neoconservative movement, from which he has since distanced himself.

Fukuyama is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. Before that he served as a professor and director of the International Development program at the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University.

Larry Diamond is a leading contemporary scholar in the field of democracy studies. He is presently a professor of Sociology and Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative policy think tank. At Stanford, he teaches courses on democratic development and supervises the democracy program at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. He has published extensively in the fields of foreign policy, foreign aid, and democracy.

Larry Diamond is also a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, which is Stanford University’s main center for research on international issues. At the Institute Diamond serves as the director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. The CDDRL’s most recent accomplishment came in the spring of 2011 by building a technological community between Tehrir Square (Cairo, Egypt) and Silicon Valley. This community was fully focused on helping mobilize protesters in Egypt who eventually helped in the downfall of the oppressive President Mubarak. Among the many governmental and nongovernmental agencies that he has advised, Larry Diamond served as a consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2002 to 2003. Diamond was named “ Teacher of the Year” in May 2007. At the June 2007 commencement ceremonies he was awarded the Dinkelspiel Award for Distinctive Contributions to Undergraduate Education. Among the many reasons for Diamond to receive this award it was cited that he fostered dialogue between Jewish and Muslim students. His book Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, published in 2005, was one of the first public critical analysis of America’s postwar strategy in Iraq.

Tu Weiming (Chinese: 杜維明; pinyin: Dù Wéimíng), b.1940, is an ethicist and a New Confucian. He is Lifetime Professor of Philosophy and founding Dean of the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies at Peking University. He is also Research Professor and Senior Fellow of Asia Center at Harvard University.

Tu was Harvard-Yenching Professor of Chinese History and Philosophy and of Confucian Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University (1999–2010). He was Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute (1996–2008) and Director of the Institute of Culture and Communication at the East-West Center in Hawaii (1990–1991). He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Tu was born in Kunming, Yunnan Province, Mainland China. He obtained his B.A. (1961) in Chinese Studies at Tunghai University in Taiwan and earned his M.A. (1963) in Regional Studies (East Asia) and Ph.D. (1968) in History and East Asian Languages at Harvard University. Tu taught at Princeton University (1968–1971) and the University of California, Berkeley (1971–1981) and has been on the Harvard faculty since 1981. In 1988, Dr Tu was one of many asked by Life Magazine to give their impressions on "The Meaning of Life." http://www.maryellenmark.com/text/magazines/life/905W-000-037.html Tu Wei-ming is the second from the last in this interview. Tu Wei-ming's response could be one of the most accessible about New Confucianism for the layman.