A Response to Huntington´s "Clash of Civilizations":
Civilizations vs Nation State

by: Patrick Lubjuhn

Introduction: Huntington´s Clash of Civilizations 3

1) The Thesis of a “Clash of Civilizations” 4

2) Huntington´s “Civilizations” and the Reason for a Clash 7

3) Civilizations and Conflict 11

4) Conclusion 12

Introduction:

Samuel P. Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations

Samuel P. Huntington was born in 1927 and is at the moment director of the John- Olin Institute for strategic studies at the University of Harvard. He was the author of an article, first published in the Foreign Affairs magazine, which has, according to Russel, Oneal and Cox ( 2000, p.584) “turned into one of the most influential recent books on international relations”. This article was called “the Clash of Civilizations?” and afterwards was extended (in 1996) to his book, called “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order”. This book was meant to be seen as a response to his highly polarising and provocative article mentioned above. In it, he tries to give answers to the questions which arose from his article and tries to clarify his standpoints and claims to underpin his thesis. Samuel P. Huntington has given new currency to the notion of a clash of civilizations. His 1993 article on the topic in Foreign Affairs and his book following this article has gained a global audience.

Huntington argues that the bipolar division of the world based on ideology is no longer relevant. The world was entering a new period of intense conflict among civilizations. He states: “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 them 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.” (Huntington, 1993, p.22) In trying to understand the causes of actual events like the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States of America many authors have turned to Samuel P. Huntington’s provocative and controversial thesis of a ‘clash of civilizations’. In the following part of my essay I am going to comment on his main issues, presenting the main thesis and his general claims of his book and article, dealing with a possible “clash of civilizations”.

1) The Thesis of a “Clash of Civilizations”

One of Huntington’s central claims is the appearance of a “new world” after the age of the Cold War period. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought up new dangers to the international systems, which have to be faced in the common years and, perhaps, centuries. As it was said, the conflicts in this “new world” without bipolarity are no longer primarily of an economic or ideological nature. I agree with Huntington’s claim of the appearance of a new world, which in my eyes is characterized by multiplicity, with many rising civilizations and ethnic groups on the one hand, and many emerging, new conflict lines between cultures.

“In the new world”, Huntington argued, “[…] the most pervasive, important and dangerous conflicts will not be between social classes, rich and poor, or other economically defined groups, but between people belonging to different cultural entities. Tribal wars and ethnic conflicts will occur within civilizations […] And the most dangerous cultural conflicts are those along the fault lines between civilizations […] For forty-five years the Iron Curtain was the central dividing line in Europe. That line has moved several hundred miles east. It is now the line separating peoples of Western Christianity, on the one hand, from Muslim and Orthodox peoples on the other.” (1996, p.28) Therefore I think that it can be followed that according to Huntington, so called “traditional” conflicts concerning for example disparities between rich and poor countries are no longer that dominant and relevant. This shift of importance and relevance for conflict reasons (if there are any) can be seen also in the appearance of violent ethno-religious conflicts exemplified by Bosnia, the Caucuses, the Middle East, and Kashmir. “It seemed to explain the failure of political reform to take root in many Islamic states, despite the worldwide resurgence of electoral democracies around the globe.” (Norris & Ingelhardt 2002, p.3) The most important and, according to Huntington, new distinctions between peoples living in the international system are no longer political, ideological or economic. They are, of course, cultural. And Huntington’s suggested clash of civilizations will therefore bee the greatest future threat to world peace.

Although the nation state as such stays to be the most powerful actor in the international system the main conflicts will appear between nations and groups of civilizations, as we have seen from the 9/11 terror attacks. Commentators often saw 9/11 as a full-scale assault on the global hegemony of America, in particular, and a reaction by Islamic fundamentalists against Western culture, in general.

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