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	Books - Clash of Civilizations

The Clash of Civilizations is a controversial theory in international relations popularized by Samuel P. Huntington. The basis of Huntington's thesis is that people's cultural/religious identity will be the primary agent of conflict in the post-Cold War world.

Huntington's thesis was originally formulated in an article entitled "The Clash of Civilizations?" published in the academic journal Foreign Affairs in 1993. The term itself was first used by Bernard Lewis in an article in the September 1990 issue of The Atlantic Monthly entitled "The Roots of Muslim Rage." Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations

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 liberal democracy and Western values 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.

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 would be along cultural and religious lines. 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."

Due to an enormous response and the solidification of his views, Huntington later expanded the thesis in his 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

Huntington's civilizations

The definition, nomenclature, and even the number of civilizations are somewhat ambiguous in Huntington's works. Predominant religion seems to be the main criterion of his classification, but in some cases geographical proximity and linguistic similarity are important as well. Using various studies of history, Huntington divides the civilizations in his thesis as such:

Western Christendom, centered on Europe and North America but also including Australia and New Zealand. 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.
*The Orthodox world of Orthodox and/or Slavic Eastern Europe and Russia.
*Latin America
The Muslim world of the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, the northwest of South Asia (Pakistan, Bangladesh, and parts of India), Malaysia, Indonesia
Hindu civilization, located chiefly in India, Nepal, and culturally adhered to by the global diaspora
The Sinic civilization of China, Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan, which includes the Chinese diaspora, especially in relation to Southeast Asia.
Sub-Saharan Africa
The Buddhist areas of Northern India, Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia, Kalmykia, Siberia, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Tibet.
Japan, considered an independent civilization
Instead of belonging to one of "major" civilizations, Ethiopia and Haiti are labeled as "lone" countries. Former British colonies in the Caribbean are supposed to constitute an independent civilization. Israel is identified as a non-Western state having rather its own civilization.

Huntington's theories for civilizational clash

Huntington argues that the trends of global conflict after the end of the Cold War are increasingly appearing at these civilizational divisions. Wars such as those following the break up of Yugoslavia, in Chechnya, and between India and Pakistan were cited as evidence of intercivilizational conflict.

Huntington also argues that the widespread Western belief in the universality of the West's values and political systems is naïve and that continued insistence on democratization and such "universal" norms will only further antagonize other civilizations. Huntington sees the West as reluctant to accept this because it built the international system, wrote its laws, and gave it substance in the form of the United Nations.

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