This question is explored in detail in the book "The Retreat of Western Liberalism" by Edward Luce (2017); it is one of the best books of the year according to

This question is explored in detail in the book "The Retreat of Western Liberalism" by Edward Luce (2017); it is one of the best books of the year according to The Economist. I haven't finished reading it yet, never mind digesting it, but it is fascinating and though-provoking. The following paragraph should wet your appetite: In Moscow’s view, history is back and nothing is inevitable, least of all liberal democracy. Others, in Beijing, Ankara, Cairo, Caracas, and even Budapest, share Russia’s hostility to Western notions of progress, as do growing numbers of apostates in the West. Are they wrong? This book is my attempt to answer that question. Let me declare now that nothing is pre-ordained. To a person whose life has coincided with the rise of democracy, the spread of market economics and signs that the world had finally subscribed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (even if much of it is paid only in lip service – hypocrisy, as they say, being the compliment vice pays to virtue), merely to pose the question is troubling enough. Wasn’t that debate settled a long time ago? Isn’t the march of human freedom unstoppable? Doesn’t the whole world crave to be Western? We can no longer have any confidence in that. It was remarkably arrogant to believe the rest of the world would passively adopt our script. Those who still believe in the inevitable triumph of the Western model might ask themselves whether it is faith, rather than facts, that fuels their worldview. We must cast a sceptical eye on what we have learned never to question.