Faith in end of history narratives emergent at the end of the twentieth century carried powerful ethical implications for engagement with authoritarian regimes. The most widespread of these narratives was modernization theory: the idea that economic development would invariably lead to political democratization or liberalization. Asserting this relationship offered up the alluring possibility that engagement with authoritarian regimes posed no ethical qualms of complicity and only helped hurry such regimes towards their inexorable demise. For lawyers from liberal nations, this possibility was especially seductive exactly because they often assert their professions’ special links to promoting
liberal political values through a consonant logic of amoral professionalism.
Therefore, legal representation within and for authoritarian legal regimes was
absolved by virtue of the transformative future modernization theory promised. No quick adoption of this stance was more evident than the post-1978 engagement of American lawyers with the Chinese Communist Party.
Today, end of history narratives have succumbed to not only resilient authoritarian regimes but also a global resurgence in authoritarian ideologies in liberal regimes. Many authoritarian regimes have proven capable of sustained economic development, even economic liberalization, while keeping democratic institutions from forming or flourishing. This development thus demands a renewed examination of the ethics of legal engagement with authoritarian regimes, especially as they have become deeply integrated into the world economy. The American legal profession’s modern engagement with China is an acute case
of this renewed problematic, but only one example of a shared conundrum among liberal legal professions worldwide.
Recursively, the challenges of authoritarian engagement are illustrative for growing discontent concerning the fundamental empirical predicates of the amoral civic virtues promised by liberal legal professions. Rising authoritarian ideologies worldwide blur the line between foreign and domestic authoritarianism, as well as foreign and domestic legal practice. Thus, the fall of modernization theory exposes common issues regarding liberal legal professions’ regulatory autonomy—amid growing doubts over their systemic independence from market forces and service to democratic values.

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