Potential Dialogue Between Civilizations And The Clash Of Civilization

These associations gave rise to the formation of regional organizations such as the North American Fair Trade Agreement, Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the European Union. After presenting an thorough explanation behind the formation of these organizations the author talks about countries which have yet to align themselves with any of these or other organizations. To that effect, the author explains how new civilizations are centered around a small number of powerful countries which he refers to as core states. Throughout the remainder of this book the author goes into detail regarding the makeup and construct of those core states. The explanations presented here in this part of the book could be what many conspiracy theorist use as reference when they speak about a New World

Samuel Huntington’s controversial article “The Clash of Civilizations?” was first published in Foreign Affairs in 1993 and was subsequently turned into a book in 1996 titled The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. As this paper will show Huntington’s work can be seen as a product of the post-Cold War context it was written in. Huntington’s article takes a new perspective on the new world order and outlines a different way a thinking about how future world conflicts will unfold. Since the initial journal article was published in 1993 there has been a great deal of response from academics and also from Huntington himself. A majority of the responses come in the form of critiques, with the authors offering their own insight into how the post-Cold War World will operate. Although the validity of Huntington’s arguments have been questioned, it did create a great deal of controversy in the academic world. As Huntington explained in the preface of his 1996 book, the original article published in Foreign Affairs created more discussion in three years than any other article published in the journal since the 1940s.

In fact, while the distinctive ideologies and religious groups still exist, the clear boundaries of different civilizations characterized by Huntington have blurred. When this dichotomy to recognize the world as direct confrontations between ideology and culture groups becomes no longer valid, the theory of the inevitability of the clash of civilization, thus, are now flawed, because it is realistically unreasonable, ethically wrong, conceptually biased and historically inaccurate. These problems regarding the clash of civilizations embody a misleading western supremacy shown in Bush’s speech as well as the war on terror on a larger

The civilizations, as identified by Huntington are Sinic [Chinese or Confusious], Japanese, Hindu, Islamic, Orthodox [Russian], Western [Europe, North American, Australia, New Zealand], Latin American and possibly African. And it is among these groups that share a “common interest and common values” and have a “common culture or civilization” that will lead to more interdependence on members of the same civilization and less dependent on the West. Huntington’s theory is that the West has had [at one time or another] a negative impact on every other civilization, and this has led to a decline of power and influence around the world, especially the Islam civilization. Therefore he predicts, “the fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”

Huntington also does not see westernization as a desirable surge that engulfs world politics. Conflict is very natural and history proves that argument. The author takes away focus from states as a foundation of war in the future and more on conflict between major culture regions. He states that peoples cultural and religious identities will be the primary bases of conflict post cold war. The world is becoming a smaller place with modernization and technology; thus, relations between people of different civilizations deepen consciousness and awareness. Post cold war, the role of the Western society enhances the growth of civilization. Unlike Fukuyamas argument, Huntington states that cultural characteristics and differences are more complex to solve than political and economical

More so than that, Huntington was writing during a time when the United States was the world’s only military superpower which lead to the idea that America should take the lead in establishing the “new world order”, one which would be dominated by the United States and their allies. Because of this, American diplomats and officials were faced with regional, religious and ethnic conflicts that, as Huntington argues, could not be easily solved. During this time the United States were making major decisions about the layout and status of the new world order. It becomes clear that Huntington would believe future conflicts would arise from cultural differences due to previous cultural clashes and that the most powerful country in the world, the United States, was also unable to create solutions for conflicts fueled by cultural differences.

Huntington that hypothesised a new post-Cold War world order. Prior to the end of the Cold War, societies were divided by ideological differences such as the struggle between democracy and communism. Huntington’s primary thesis argues, “The most important distinctions among peoples are [no longer] ideological, political or economic. They are cultural.” Huntington makes a very persuasive argument as to how new patterns of conflict will occur along the boundaries of different cultures and patterns of cohesion will be found within the cultural boundaries. The book goes into extensive detail of how world systems between civilizations, which he divides by culture into 7 main global civilizations, are impacted on an international relations scale by this changing nature of conflict. He focuses a great deal on the West’s ability to maintain military superiority through the nonproliferation of emerging powers. In particular relation to 9/11 he focuses on the emerging influence of Islamic culture (which he classifies as it’s own civilization) being quintessential in the emerging new global conflict arisen out of hundreds of years of conflict, military and cultural, between Western civilization and Islamic civilization. The clear limitation of this work is that it is based on his own perception of history and is purely a hypothesis, however it clearly has a great degree of validity to it as we have already seen through the last decade in the rise of terrorism as the new global conflict. This book will assist my essay writing particularly in analysing how 9/11 marked the beginning of a new era of global conflict between powers larger than nation states alone, and thus how this has created increasingly complex paradigms of unprecedented effects on international

Following the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, questions regarding what the new world order would began to arise. In the article published in 1993 “The Clash of Civilizations?”, Samuel Huntington predicts that the conflicts of the new world order would be between civilization and based in culture, rather than in ideology or economics (22). In his paper, he identifies seven (or possibly eight) civilizations that will interact with each other, provided six reasons as to why these civilizations will clash, recognizes the idea that civilizations other than the West are on the rise and makes suggestions as to how the West should act if his initial is to become true. Since the publication of his article over 22 years ago, Huntington

Human history has demonstrated that conflict is inevitable. As long as there are differences of opinion, there is fuel for anything from a brief argument to a war that lasts for years. This truth prevails through ancient history and modern day issues. Over time, conflicts grow, compound, and set the archetypal stages for new issues to be born: conflicts between the rich and poor, the religious and political, the loyalists and rebels, and particularly, the East and West. Since people acknowledged those living in opposite sides of the world, the assumption that they themselves were opposites followed. Often, each thought the other was barbarian, an enemy, and would

Huntington’s essay on the Clash of Civilizations is persuasive in historical anecdotes and real world current events. Most of Huntington’s essay need not say anything more then what is already repeated on major media outlets around the world. The essay states what has long been opposed by the far left; namely, that people choose to interact, trade and form alliances with “like peoples”. It then, shouldn’t come as a surprise that the author needs to say little in order to sway an audience to his hypothesis by simply relating real world events such as rising nationalism in Russia2, Greece3 and France. One only has to look at the Anglo sphere of alliances in areas of conflict in the Middle East to find that Huntington’s persuasive argument is a narrative of real world events4. Non-Western nations that hope to transition into modern nations form alliances with Western nations but such alliances only serve to further destroy the credibility of the elites within those non-western countries. The elites are viewed simply as “puppets” of foreign interest. The rise of extremist organizations such as Hezbollah5 that have successfully achieved legitimacy through the democratic process of their respective nation states further proves that the will of the people in non-western

From1945 utill the end of World War II, the United States considered the most dominant country in the world economically and militarily. Moreover, many philosophers have said that the United States was and is the closest country to a global hegemon. Hegemon being defined as a dominant state that has a majority of power; often creates and imposes the rules and standards in the global system (Mingst, & Arreguín-Toft, 2013). Due to the amount of power and wealth obtainable to the

In modern times the term “Western Civilization” is a broad term referring to an amalgamation of societies that are all derived from Europe. Although many believe that western civilization is superior to the rest due to its ability to control, western civilization incorporated beliefs and ideas from many cultures around the world. The phrase “western civilization” is a social construct that was never concretely defined. When western civilization is defined as all modern advancement to be European derived, it is opposed to its reality as the result of joint effort of many cultures.

Samuel Huntington has made famous his thesis "the clash of civilizations", which was developed in his article in Foreign Affairs in 1993 and in the book that followed, in which the author expanded his thesis and reaffirmed the validity of his theory after the success and controversy that followed the publication of his article. In fact, the “civilizational” approach of conflicts today is now intrinsically linked to a comprehensive theory of international relations, which Samuel Huntington has developed by giving it an important value and a dominant paradigm

This essay addresses the question of how, if at all, does the trend of intra-state conflicts among groups that have far outnumbered state vs. state conflicts, and if that trend in internal conflict within states over the last 20 years supports Samuel Huntington’s major hypothesis in his essay “The Clash of Civilizations.”

In The Clash of civilizations Huntington argued that the future conflict would be different in the Post-Cold war era. In which different ideologies would not be the main reason for world problem but instead it would be because of the differences between cultures. The division of power would be placed in the civilizations that have the similar cultural norms. Huntington states that the “most dangerous enmities occur across fault lines between major civilizations” (20). This argued that foreign affairs cannot be peaceful or accommodating rather that these affairs go onto the basis of the influence of power based on different civilizations societal norms. The major societies that Huntington included were the western, Sinic, Islamic and Orthodox civilizations. The “ fault lines” between these societies