The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order Zach Reat

aegis 2006

reat

Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations

and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. 368 pp. Zack Reat

Samuel Huntington’s article entitled “The Clash of Civilizations?” was published in Foreign Affairs journal in the summer of 1993. In that article he proposed a theory on the future organization of world politics in the post-Cold War period. In brief, his thesis was that the the primary source of conflict in the world would be cultural, not economic or ideological. 1 Furthermore, the dividing lines of conflict would be along borders between nations that exist on civil boundaries. This theory for post-Cold War development ran directly counter to the more optimistic “‘end of history’ thesis advanced by Francis Fukuyama,” and thus, created a great deal of controversy in the field. 2 The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is Huntington’s response to the questions and critiques raised by the original article. In this book Huntington argues that the civilizations of the world will not naturally congregate behind one system of government and get along in relative peace and harmony in the post-Cold War world. Instead, civilizations will come into conflict over matters that are not economic or ideological, but cultural. Huntington’s thesis rests on the assertion that “culture and cultural identities, which at the broadest level are civilization identities, are shaping the patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and conflict in the post-Cold War world.” 3 Throughout the five sections of the book Huntington expands on this main thesis and comes to many conclusions about the future of civilizations and their part in global politics. The first section presents Huntington’s argument on the organization of civilizations on the global scale. The seven main civilizations presented in the first part of the book are as follows: Sinic, Japanese, Hindu, Islamic, Western, Latin America, and African. It is in this section that the make-up and relationships between these civilizations are revealed and discussed in the context of a universal civilization in the wake of modernization and Westernization. Section 2 addresses “The Shifting Balance of Civilizations” 4 by beginning with an explanation of the West’s decline in power on the global scale. Huntington offers a quantitative analysis of Western civilization’s power in comparison with the world’s other civilizations. From the data Huntington provides it is clear that the West is in a state of decline as other civilizations gain more power and influence throughout the world. The most impressive challenges to Western domination come from Islamic and Asian civilizations. According to Huntington these civilizations stand alone in defying the West as their culture is expanding without deference to the standards of Western civilization. In fact, “Both Asians and Muslims stress the superiority of their cultures to Western culture.” 5 The next section of the book deals with the grouping of civilizations around the world, and the effects that those groupings have on conflict. Huntington explains that in the post-Cold War world, “Countries relate to civilizations as member states, core, states, lone countries, cleft countries, and torn countries.” 6 These countries are classified in such a way

based on the culture’s present and their relations with each other. The next section of the book looks at how the civilizations come into conflict with each other in the contested nations. The first chapter of section 4 once again deals with the dominance of Western civilization in modern times. It discusses the spread of democracy as a result of Western influence throughout all major civilizations of the world, but reminds the reader that “the changing balance of power among civilizations makes it more and more difficult for the West to achieve its goals…”. 7 Furthermore, the rise in power of other civilizations has given rise to a new kind of warfare based not on ideology, but culture. Huntington claims that the wars of the future will be based on ethnic conflict, and occur along fault lines existing between civilizations. In the final chapter of this section Huntington discusses the nature of these fault line wars, describing them as wars that result from years of unresolved tension exploding on cultural, civilizational boundary lines. Huntington rounds out his discussion of the “clash” with some conclusions on the nature of civilizations in the world and some prediction for the future. Overall, this book was a very interesting read that made some eye-opening insights into the nature of relations between groups of humans. In reading this theory I was often disheartened by the picture being painted, but never did I feel that the picture was unreasonable. At times the reading became quite dense and sorting through all of the facts became tedious, but the book did have a nice through line to follow when I got lost. I would recommend this book to students studying the nature of global political relations, but I would not suggest it for a pleasure read.

Notes

1. Samuel P. Huntington. “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs. Summer 1993, v72, n3, 22. Access on http://www.alamut.com/subj/economics/misc.html 5/22/2005. 2. Samuel P. Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. (Simon & Schuster: New York, NY, 1996), 31. 3. Ibid., 20. 4. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, 81. 5. Ibid., 102. 6. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, 135 7. Ibid., 206

aegis 2006