Clash of Civilizations

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The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
Author Samuel P. Huntington
Publisher Simon & Schuster
Publication date
 1996
ISBN 0-684-84441-9
OCLC 38269418

The Clash of Civilizations is a theory that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. It was proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington in a 1992 lecture[1] at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article titled "The Clash of Civilizations?",[2] in response to his former student Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

The phrase itself was earlier used by Bernard Lewis in an article in the September 1990 issue of The Atlantic Monthly titled "The Roots of Muslim Rage".[3] Even earlier, the phrase appears in a 1926 book regarding the Middle East by Basil Mathews: Young Islam on Trek: A Study in the Clash of Civilizations (p. 196).

This expression derives from clash of cultures, already used during the colonial period and the Belle Époque.[4]

Overview

Huntington began his thinking by surveying the diverse theories about the nature of global politics in the post-Cold War period. Some theorists and writers argued that human rights, liberal democracy, and capitalist free market economy had become the only remaining ideological alternative for nations in the post-Cold War world. Specifically, Francis Fukuyama argued that the world had reached the 'end of history' in a Hegelian sense. The identification of Western civilization with the Western Christianity (Catholic-Protestant) was not Huntington's original idea, it was rather the traditional Western viewpoint and subdivision before the Cold War era.[5]

Huntington believed that while the age of ideology had ended, the world had only reverted to a normal state of affairs characterized by cultural conflict. In his thesis, he argued that the primary axis of conflict in the future will be along cultural and religious lines.[6]

As an extension, he posits that the concept of different civilizations, as the highest rank of cultural identity, will become increasingly useful in analyzing the potential for conflict.

In the 1993 Foreign Affairs article, Huntington writes:

It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.[2]

In the end of the article, he writes:

This is not to advocate the desirability of conflicts between civilizations. It is to set forth descriptive hypothesis as to what the future may be like.[2]

In addition, The clash of civilizations, for Huntington, represents a development of history. In the old time, the history of international system was mainly about the struggles between monarchs, nations and ideologies. Those conflicts were primarily seen within Western civilization. But after the end of the cold war, world politics had been moved into a new aspect in which non- Western civilizations were no more the exploited recipients of Western civilization but become another important actor joining the West to shape and move the world history.[7]

Major civilizations according to Huntington

The clash of civilizations according to Huntington (1996), as presented in the book.[1]

Huntington divided the world into the "major civilizations" in his thesis as such:

  • Western civilization, comprising the United States and Canada, Western and Central Europe, Australia and Oceania. Whether Latin America and the former member states of the Soviet Union are included, or are instead their own separate civilizations, will be an important future consideration for those regions, according to Huntington.
  • Latin American. Includes Central America, South America (excluding Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana), Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. May be considered a part of Western civilization, though it has slightly distinct social and political structures from Europe, the United States and Canada. Many people of the Southern Cone, however, regard themselves as full members of the Western civilization.
  • The Eastern world is the mix of the Buddhist, Chinese, Hindu, and Japonic civilizations.
    • The Buddhist areas of Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand are identified as separate from other civilizations, but Huntington believes that they do not constitute a major civilization in the sense of international affairs.
    • The Sinic civilization of China, the Koreas, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam. This group also includes the Chinese diaspora, especially in relation to Southeast Asia.
    • Hindu civilization, located chiefly in India, Bhutan and Nepal, and culturally adhered to by the global Indian diaspora.
    • Japan, considered a hybrid of Chinese civilization and older Altaic patterns.
  • Instead of belonging to one of the "major" civilizations, Ethiopia and Haiti are labeled as "Lone" countries. Israel could be considered a unique state with its own civilization, Huntington writes, but one which is extremely similar to the West. Huntington also believes that the Anglophone Caribbean, former British colonies in the Caribbean, constitutes a distinct entity.
  • There are also others which are considered "cleft countries" because they contain very large groups of people identifying with separate civilizations. Examples include India ("cleft" between its Hindu majority and large Muslim minority), Ukraine ("cleft" between its Eastern Rite Catholic-dominated western section and its Orthodox-dominated east), France (cleft between Latin America, in the case of French Guiana; and the West), Benin, Chad, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Togo (all cleft between Islam and Sub-Saharan Africa), Guyana and Suriname (cleft between Hindu and Sub-Saharan African), China (cleft between Sinic, Buddhist, in the case of Tibet; and the West, in the case of Hong Kong and Macau), and the Philippines (cleft between Islam, in the case of Mindanao; Sinic, and the West). Sudan was also included as "cleft" between Islam and Sub-Saharan Africa; this division became a formal split in July 2011 following an overwhelming vote for independence by South Sudan in a January 2011 referendum.

Huntington's thesis of civilizational clash

Russia and India are what Huntington terms 'swing civilizations' and may favor either side. Russia, for example, clashes with the many Muslim ethnic groups on its southern border (such as Chechnya) but—according to Huntington—cooperates with Iran to avoid further Muslim-Orthodox violence in Southern Russia, and to help continue the flow of oil. Huntington argues that a "Sino-Islamic connection" is emerging in which China will cooperate more closely with Iran, Pakistan, and other states to augment its international position.

Huntington also argues that civilizational conflicts are "particularly prevalent between Muslims and non-Muslims", identifying the "bloody borders" between Islamic and non-Islamic civilizations. This conflict dates back as far as the initial thrust of Islam into Europe,[citation needed] its eventual expulsion in the Iberian reconquest and the attacks of the Ottoman Turks on Eastern Europe and Vienna. Huntington also believes that some of the factors contributing to this conflict are that both Christianity (which has influenced Western civilization) and Islam are:

  • Missionary religions, seeking conversion of others
  • Universal, "all-or-nothing" religions, in the sense that it is believed by both sides that only their faith is the correct one
  • Teleological religions, that is, that their values and beliefs represent the goals of existence and purpose in human existence.
  • Irreligious people who violate the base principles of those religions are perceived to be furthering their own pointless aims, which leads to violent interactions.

More recent factors contributing to a Western-Islamic clash, Huntington wrote, are the Islamic Resurgence and demographic explosion in Islam, coupled with the values of Western universalism—that is, the view that all civilizations should adopt Western values—that infuriate Islamic fundamentalists. All these historical and modern factors combined, Huntington wrote briefly in his Foreign Affairs article and in much more detail in his 1996 book, would lead to a bloody clash between the Islamic and Western civilizations. The political party Hizb ut-Tahrir also reiterate Huntington's views in their published book, The Inevitability of Clash of Civilisation.[8]

Why Civilizations will Clash

Huntington offers six main explanations for why civilizations will clash:

  1. Differences among civilizations are too basic in that civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, language, culture, tradition, and, most important, religion. These fundamental differences are the product of centuries, so they will not soon disappear.
  2. The world is becoming a smaller place. As a result, the interactions across the world are increasing, and they intensify civilization consciousness and awareness of differences between civilizations and commonalities within civilizations.
  3. Due to the economic modernization and social change, people are separated from longstanding local identities. Instead, religion has replaced this gap, which provides a basis for identity and commitment that transcends national boundaries and unites civilizations.
  4. The growth of civilization-consciousness is enhanced by the dual role of the west. On the one hand, the west is at a peak of power. At the same time, a return to the roots phenomenon is occurring among non-Western civilizations. A west at the peak of its power confronts non-Western countries that increasingly have the desire, the will and the resources to shape the world in non-Western ways.
  5. Cultural characteristics and differences are less mutable and hence less easily compromised and resolved than political and economic ones.
  6. Economic regionalism is increasing. Successful economic regionalism will reinforce civilization-consciousness.Economic regionalism may succeed only when it is rooted in a common civilization

The West versus the Rest

Huntington suggests that in the future the central axis of world politics tends to be the conflict between Western and non-Western civilizations, in Kishore Mahbubani's phrase, the conflict between "the West and the Rest." He offers three forms of general actions that non-Western civilization can take in response to Western countries.[9]

  1. Non-Western countries can attempt to achieve isolation in order to preserve their own values and protect themselves from Western invasion. However, Huntington argues that the costs of this action is high and only a few states can pursue it.
  2. According to the theory of "band-wagoning" non-Western countries can join and accept Western values.
  3. Non-Western countries can make an effort to balance Western power through modernization. They can develop economic, military power and cooperate with other non-Western countries against the West while still preserving their own values and institutions. Huntington believes that the increasing power of non-Western civilizations in international society will make the West begin to develop a better understanding of the cultural fundamentals underlying other civilizations. Therefore, Western civilization will cease to be regarded as "universal" but different civilizations will learn to coexist and join to shape the future world.

Core state and fault line conflicts

In Huntington's view, intercivilizational conflict manifests itself in two forms: fault line conflicts and core state conflicts.

Fault line conflicts are on a local level and occur between adjacent states belonging to different civilizations or within states that are home to populations from different civilizations.

Core state conflicts are on a global level between the major states of different civilizations. Core state conflicts can arise out of fault line conflicts when core states become involved.[10]

These conflicts may result from a number of causes, such as: relative influence or power (military or economic), discrimination against people from a different civilization, intervention to protect kinsmen in a different civilization, or different values and culture, particularly when one civilization attempts to impose its values on people of a different civilization.[10]

Modernization, westernization, and "torn countries"

Critics of Huntington's ideas often extend their criticisms to traditional cultures and internal reformers who wish to modernize without adopting the values and attitudes of Western culture. These critics sometimes claim that to modernize is necessarily to become Westernized to a very large extent.

In reply, those who consider the Clash of Civilizations thesis accurate often point to the example of Japan, claiming that it is not a Western state at its core. They argue that it adopted much Western technology (also inventing technology of its own in recent times), parliamentary democracy, and free enterprise, but has remained culturally very distinct from the West, particularly in its conceptions of society as strictly hierarchical.[11] Contradictory evidence on a more granular scale in turn comes from empirical evidence that greater exposure to factories, schools and urban living is associated with more 'modern' attitudes to rationality, individual choice and responsibility.[12]

China is also cited by some as a rising non-Western economy. Many also point out the East Asian Tigers or neighboring states as having adapted western economics, while maintaining traditional or authoritarian social government.

Perhaps the ultimate example of non-Western modernization is Russia, the core state of the Orthodox civilization. The variant of this argument that uses Russia as an example relies on the acceptance of a unique non-Western civilization headed by an Orthodox state such as Russia or perhaps an Eastern European country.[citation needed]

Huntington argues that Russia is primarily a non-Western state although he seems to agree that it shares a considerable amount of cultural ancestry with the modern West. Russia was one of the great powers during World War I. It also happened to be a non-Western power.

According to Huntington, the West is distinguished from Orthodox Christian countries by the experience of the Renaissance, Reformation, the Enlightenment, overseas colonialism rather than contiguous expansion and colonialism, and a recent re-infusion of Classical culture through ancient Greece rather than through the continuous trajectory of the Byzantine Empire.

The differences among the modern Slavic states can still be seen today. This issue is also linked to the "universalizing factor" exhibited in some civilizations.

Huntington refers to countries that are seeking to affiliate with another civilization as "torn countries." Turkey, whose political leadership has systematically tried to Westernize the country since the 1920s, is his chief example. Turkey's history, culture, and traditions are derived from Islamic civilization, but Turkey's elite, beginning with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who took power as first President of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, imposed western institutions and dress, embraced the Latin alphabet, joined NATO, and is seeking to join the European Union.

Mexico and Russia are also considered to be torn by Huntington. He also gives the example of Australia as a country torn between its Western civilizational heritage and its growing economic engagement with Asia.

According to Huntington, a torn country must meet three requirements to redefine its civilizational identity. Its political and economic elite must support the move. Second, the public must be willing to accept the redefinition. Third, the elites of the civilization that the torn country is trying to join must accept the country.

The book claims that to date no torn country has successfully redefined its civilizational identity, this mostly due to the elites of the 'host' civilization refusing to accept the torn country, though if Turkey gained membership of the European Union it has been noted that many of its people would support Westernization. If this were to happen it would be the first to redefine its civilizational identity.

Criticism

Huntington has fallen under the stern critique of various academic writers, who have either empirically, historically, logically, or ideologically challenged his claims (Fox, 2005; Mungiu Pippidi & Mindruta, 2002; Henderson & Tucker, 2001; Russett, Oneal, & Cox, 2000).[13][14][15][16] In an article explicitly referring to Huntington, scholar Amartya Sen (1999) argues that "diversity is a feature of most cultures in the world. Western civilization is no exception. The practice of democracy that has won out in the modern West is largely a result of a consensus that has emerged since the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and particularly in the last century or so. To read in this a historical commitment of the West—over the millennia—to democracy, and then to contrast it with non-Western traditions (treating each as monolithic) would be a great mistake" (p. 16).[17]

In his 2003 book Terror and Liberalism, Paul Berman argues that distinct cultural boundaries do not exist in the present day. He argues there is no "Islamic civilization" nor a "Western civilization", and that the evidence for a civilization clash is not convincing, especially when considering relationships such as that between the United States and Saudi Arabia. In addition, he cites the fact that many Islamic extremists spent a significant amount of time living and/or studying in the Western world. According to Berman, conflict arises because of philosophical beliefs various groups share (or do not share), regardless of cultural or religious identity.[18]

Edward Said issued a response to Huntington's thesis in his 2001 article, "The Clash of Ignorance".[19] Said argues that Huntington's categorization of the world's fixed "civilizations" omits the dynamic interdependency and interaction of culture. A longtime critic of the Huntingtonian paradigm, and an outspoken proponent of Arab issues, Edward Said (2004) also argues that the clash of civilizations thesis is an example of "the purest invidious racism, a sort of parody of Hitlerian science directed today against Arabs and Muslims" (p. 293).[20]

Noam Chomsky has criticized the concept of the clash of civilizations as just being a new justification for the United States "for any atrocities that they wanted to carry out", which was required after the Cold War as the Soviet Union was no longer a viable threat.[21]

Opposing concepts

Mohammad Khatami, reformist president of Iran (in office 1997–2005), introduced the theory of Dialogue Among Civilizations as a response to Huntington's theory.

In recent years, the theory of Dialogue Among Civilizations, a response to Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, has become the center of some international attention. The concept, which was introduced by former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, was the basis for United Nations' resolution to name the year 2001 as the Year of Dialogue among Civilizations.[22][23]

The Alliance of Civilizations (AOC) initiative was proposed at the 59th General Assembly of the United Nations in 2005 by the President of the Spanish Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and co-sponsored by the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The initiative is intended to galvanize collective action across diverse societies to combat extremism, to overcome cultural and social barriers between mainly the Western and predominantly Muslim worlds, and to reduce the tensions and polarization between societies which differ in religious and cultural values.

The Intermediate Region

Huntington's geopolitical model, especially the structures for North Africa and Eurasia, is largely derived from the "Intermediate Region" geopolitical model first formulated by Dimitri Kitsikis and published in 1978.[24] The Intermediate Region, which spans the Adriatic Sea and the Indus River, is neither western nor eastern (at least, with respect to the Far East) but is considered distinct.

Concerning this region, Huntington departs from Kitsikis contending that a civilizational fault line exists between the two dominant yet differing religions (Orthodox Christianity and Sunni Islam), hence a dynamic of external conflict. However, Kitsikis establishes an integrated civilization comprising these two peoples along with those belonging to the less dominant religions of Shiite Islam, Alevism, and Judaism. They have a set of mutual cultural, social, economic and political views and norms which radically differ from those in the West and the Far East.

In the Intermediate Region, therefore, one cannot speak of a civiliational clash or external conflict, but rather an internal conflict, not for cultural domination, but for political succession. This has been successfully demonstrated by documenting the rise of Christianity from the hellenized Roman Empire, the rise of the Islamic caliphates from the Christianized Roman Empire and the rise of Ottoman rule from the Islamic caliphates and the Christianized Roman Empire.

See also

Individuals
Book
  • The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ "U.S. Trade Policy - Economics". AEI. 2007-02-15. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Official copy (free preview): The Clash of Civilizations?, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993
  3. ↑ Bernard Lewis: The Roots of Muslim Rage The Atlantic Monthly, September 1990
  4. ↑ Louis Massignon, La psychologie musulmane (1931), in Idem, Ecrits mémorables, t. I, Paris, Robert Laffont, 2009, p. 629: "Après la venue de Bonaparte au Caire, le clash of cultures entre l'ancienne Chrétienté et l'Islam prit un nouvel aspect, par invasion (sans échange) de l'échelle de valeurs occidentales dans la mentalité collective musulmane."
  5. ↑ |Google books results in English language between the 1800 - 1960 period
  6. ↑ Rashad Mehbaliyev: Civilizations, their nature and clash possibilities
  7. ↑ Murden S. Cultures in world affairs. In: Baylis J, Smith S, Owens P, editors. The Globalization of World Politics. 5th ed. New York: Oxford University Press; 2011. p. 416-426.
  8. ↑ The Inevitability of Clash of Civilisation
  9. ↑ Hungtington SP, The Clash of Civilzations? In: Lechner FJ, Boli J, editors. The globalization reader. 4th ed. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell; 2012. 37-44
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Huntington, Samuel P. (2002) [1997]. "Chapter 9: The Global Politics of Civilizations". The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (The Free Press ed.). London: Simon $ Schuster. p. 207f. ISBN 0-7432-3149-X. 
  11. ↑ Ronal Dore, Unity and Diversity in World Culture, in Bull & Watson eds. The expansion of International society, 1984, OUP. p.416
  12. ↑ Inkeles and Smith, Becoming Modern: Individual Change in six developing countries, Harvard 1974 p.19
  13. ↑ Fox, J. (2005). Paradigm Lost: Huntington's Unfulfilled Clash of Civilizations Prediction into the 21st Century. International Politics, 42, pp. 428–457.
  14. ↑ Mungiu-Pippidi, A., & Mindruta, D. (2002). Was Huntington Right? Testing Cultural Legacies and the Civilization Border. International Politics, 39(2), pp. 193 213.
  15. ↑ Henderson, E. A., & Tucker, R. (2001). Clear and Present Strangers: The Clash of Civilizations and International Conflict. International Studies Quarterly, 45, pp. 317 338.
  16. ↑ Russett, B. M.; Oneal, J. R.; Cox, M. (2000). "Clash of Civilizations, or Realism and Liberalism Déjà Vu? Some Evidence". Journal of Peace Research 37: 583–608. 
  17. ↑ Sen A (1999). "Democracy as a Universal Value". Journal of Democracy 10 (3): 3–17. doi:10.1353/jod.1999.0055. 
  18. ↑ Berman, Paul (2003). Terror and Liberalism. W W Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-05775-5.
  19. ↑ Edward Said: The Clash of Ignorance The Nation, October 2001
  20. ↑ Said, E. W. (2004). From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map. New York: Pantheon, 2004.
  21. ↑ Clash of civilizations? Noam Chomsky
  22. ↑ http://www.unesco.org/dialogue2001/en/khatami.htm Unesco.org Retrieved on 05-24-07
  23. ↑ http://www.dialoguecentre.org/about.html Dialoguecentre.org Retrieved on 05-24-07
  24. ↑ Dimitri Kitsikis, A Comparative History of Greece and Turkey in the 20th century. In Greek, Συγκριτική Ἱστορία Ἑλλάδος καί Τουρκίας στόν 20ό αἰῶνα, Athens, Hestia, 1978. Supplemented 2nd edition: Hestia, 1990. 3rd edition: Hestia, 1998, 357 pp.. In Turkish, Yırmı Asırda Karşılaştırmalı Türk-Yunan Tarihi, İstanbul, Türk Dünyası Araştırmaları Dergisi, II-8, 1980.

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