Author: Samuel Huntington
Publisher: Penguin Books, New Delhi
Year: 1996
Introduction
‘La revanche de dieu,’
a term that Huntington himself also uses, is apt in explaining the trends and
world view that the Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order
projects. The mainstream contemporary political theory, especially post-cold war
has tended to regard primordial identities of religion, race and ethnicity as
part of the old world and that these constructs have an insignificant role in
shaping the world order in modern times. Genocides in former Yugoslav followed
by an upsurge in separatist movements and religious militantism in the late
twentieth century, however, seem to suggest that identity politics have an
important role to play in shaping conflicts and wars in modern times. Primordial
identities based on religion and cultural and ethnic commonalities seem to be
reasserting themselves with a vengeance. There has been as Kepel originally
stated, ‘La revanche de dieu’ (the revenge of God).
Huntington, in the Clash of
Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, analyses and asserts the
resurgence of post-cold war cultural identities to explain the prevailing and
future world order. Discarding arguments and world views which assert the
existence and proliferation of a universal culture, Huntington argues that the
‘great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflicts will be
cultural.’ He then goes on to offer
a theoretical approach on how countries from common civilizations will align
themselves and what sort of inter-civilization alliances will be formed. In
order to assess how plausible such a framework is and the strengths and
weaknesses of his arguments, this book review looks at how Huntington has built
his argument through a chapter-wise summary of the book and then offers a
critique on the content.
Chapter Summaries
Huntington begins his argument by
looking at the weaknesses present in the four paradigms existing in the
political world after the cold war. He goes on to show how the rise of ethnic
conflicts and genocide has extinguished most hopes of a one world model. In
most cases, the one world model has been replaced by the ‘us against them’ (West
against the rest) model which Huntington regards weak, as it fails to look at
the differences in the non-western civilizations. He goes on to explain that the
realist model of international relation suffers from limitations as it calls the
sheer chaos model highlighting failed states as close to reality but simplistic
as it fails to see any order in the world at all. He goes on to state that there
may be a degree of truth in each of the models but that ‘the four paradigms are
also incompatible with each other’
making it difficult to accept different pieces from each model. He then goes on
to assert that the civilization model that he proposes eliminates this problem
as elements from each model can be incorporated into this model. He then
discusses the rise in ethnic conflicts to elucidate the need for a civilization
model to understand and predict political happenings.
The second chapter moves on to define
and explain the characteristics of a civilization. Huntington terms
civilizations as ‘broadest cultural entity… the biggest ‘we’ within which we
feel culturally at home as distinguished from all the other ‘thems’ out there.’
According to Huntington, the main civilizations that exist in the world today
are Sinic, Japanese, Hindu, Islamic, Western, Latin American and possibly an
African civilization. In later chapters Huntington also discusses the Russian
Orthodox civilization separately from the Western civilization. After
elucidating the civilizations that exist in contemporary times, Huntington
discusses that the rise of the west in the 16th century led to world politics
and other civilization being dominated by a ‘unidirectional impact of the
Western civilization.’ The 20th
century, however has seen the rise of other civilizations leading to intense
sustained and multidirectional interactions among all civilizations.’
The next chapter discusses the notion of
a universal civilization which occurred as a direct result of dominance of the
western civilization. Huntington discards the notion of a universal civilization
by looking at the rise of indigenous languages and religion especially Islam.
Thirdly, where it is mostly assumed that modernization of societies shows their
westernization and thus move towards a universal civilization, Huntington
differentiates between westernization and modernization. He argues that ‘the
west was the west long before it was modern’
and goes on to look at the characteristics of the civilization which made it
western. He then moves on to look at
the different responses societies have had to the west and modernization such as
Rejectionsim, Kemalism and Reformism and argues that societies are becoming more
modern and less western.
Following from this, the next chapter
looks at the decline of the west and the rise of other societies. It should be
clarified at this point that when Huntington talks of the decline of the western
civilization, he talks of a gradual and slow decline. He argues that the west is
likely to remain a dominant power for a long time to continue but there is a
‘slow, gradual and inexorable’ fall
marked, for instance, by the decline in its population, economic products and
military capabilities in comparison to other societies especially East Asia.
Furthermore, he analyses a rise in non-western cultures seen by the indigenizing
stance taken by post-colonial leaders. In East Asia’s case, he shows how East
Asia attributes its economic success and growth to adherence to their own
culture rather than following the western model. The next chapter expounds on
this idea further. Huntington also explains a resurgence of religion which has
occurred ‘as result of long standing sources of identity and systems of
authority being disrupted’
through processes of modernity. People, hence, turn to religion for a sense of
belonging.
Building on the previous chapter,
chapter 5 moves on to explain the roots behind the challenge East Asia and Islam
are presenting to the West and how these challenges are different from each
other. The economic success of East Asia which it attributes to its culture has
led to a renewed self confidence in the East Asian culture. This in turn has led
to a promotion of Asian values as universal values and also made East Asian
countries assert themselves when dealing with the west. The Asians are, thus,
using their economic success to assert themselves, where as in the Muslim world,
Muslims are increasingly turning towards Islam as a source of identity.
Huntington goes on to argue that population growth in the Islamic world leading
to a population consisting largely of youth, the failure of the state to deliver
economically and the dictatorial nature of the state which suppresses political
activity, has led to a rise in fundamentalism and Islamic Resurgence in the
world.
Chapter 6 describes the current trends
in the world today of cultural alignment. Whereas in the cold era, a country
could define itself as being non aligned or aligned on the basis of its security
interests, there has been a crisis of identity post cold war.
Countries thus have shifted to relying on ties of blood, language, religion and
values to reaffirm their identities. This has not only led to the formation of
organizations such as NATO and EU which have realigned countries of roughly the
same civilization together but Huntington also goes on to argue that only those
international organizations can be effective whose members are from a similar
civilization. Huntington moves on to discuss the structure of civilizations
based on core countries, lone countries, member states, cleft countries and torn
countries.
The next chapter builds on the structure
of civilization by showing that ‘civilizational grouping are emerging involving
core states, member states, culturally similar minority populations in adjoining
states. States in these civilizational blocs often tend to be distributed in
concentric circles around the core state or states, reflecting their degree of
integration with the bloc.’ It
goes on to discuss the changes occurring in the Western, Sinic and Orthodox
civilizations due to this grouping. Huntington goes on to discuss in
considerable detail the lack of a definite core state in the Islamic
civilization and its reason. He goes on to discuss that in the Islamic world,
identities and loyalties are shaped as an inverse U; where loyalty is extended
to the family, tribe or clan at a micro level and the whole culture or religion
at the broader level with very little significance given to the nation state.
This in itself is problematic as a string core state is needed to bring the
civilization or Ummah together yet the Ummah holds the concept of a nation state
illegitimate. Huntington goes on to argue that it’s the absence of the nation
state that has led to so many external and internal conflicts in the Islamic
world. He also looks at possible core states that could have emerged and the
reasons they have not emerged so far.
The following chapter discusses the
different clashes that can occur between civilizations at a micro and macro
level. Huntington argues that at the micro level, most clashes are and will
continue to be between Islam and its Orthodox, Hindu, African and Western
Christian neighbours, and the macro clashes will be between the west on one hand
and the Islamic and Sinic civilizations on the other. The rest of the
civilizations are what he calls ‘swing civilizations’ meaning they will shift
allegiance one way or the other depending on different interests. In this
regard, he shows how a Confucius-Islamic connection has emerged over the recent
years. He then goes on to look at the declining ability of the west to promote a
single culture and dominate global politics due to the difficulties it is facing
in maintaining its military superiority and counter proliferation, promoting
western values and institutions by forcing other societies to respect human
rights and adopt democracy and protecting its ethnic and social integrity by
restricting the number of migrants and refugees from non-western societies
entering western societies.
Chapter 9 moves on to discuss inter
civilizational politics at the micro and macro levels. Huntington predicts that
micro level conflicts will occur between neighbouring states from different
civilizations and groups from different civilizations within a state. Macro
level conflicts will emerge between core states of different civilizations.
Huntington focuses his argument on the possible shift of power from Unites
States to China as a source for inter civilizational conflict and the dynamism
of Islam as a source of relatively small ongoing fault line wars.
He moves on to discuss the historical antagonism between the western and Islamic
world and moves on to look at the five modern sources of conflict: population
growth in the Muslim world generating a large number of disaffected unemployed
youth who can be recruited by fundamentalist organizations, the rise of Islamic
Resurgence, West’s simultaneous efforts to universalize its values and
institutions, maintain its military superiority and intervene in conflicts in
the Muslim world, the collapse of communism which was the common enemy of both
civilizations and an increased contact between both civilizations which has
stimulated a new sense of identity.
Huntington looks at the rise of China as
an economic and military power and the shift that may occur in the power balance
due to it. In regard to this, he discusses the increased antagonism between
Asian societies and the west leading to a band-wagoning of states around China.
He goes on to discuss a possible deepening of relations between Islamic and
Sinic world and the alignments that are likely to occur between the swing and
other civilizations.
Chapter 10 elucidates how the
Soviet-Afghan and Gulf war were ‘transition wars to an era dominated by ethnic
conflict and fault line wars between countries from different civilizations’.
Huntington shows how both wars were straight forward wars where one country
attacked the other but came to be seen as civilizational wars. He moves on to
discuss the incidence of communal and fault line wars in the Islamic world. He
explains why ‘Islam has bloody borders’
by looking at empirical data which shows that the maximum incidence of wars in
the recent decades has been between Muslims and Muslims or between Muslims and
non-Muslims. The most common reasons given for this situation are the
demographic pressures of the Muslim world, the fact that Islam has traditionally
been a religion of the sword, the way the religion spread from Arabia to Asia
via North Africa has brought Muslims into direct contact with other cultures and
the indigestibility of Islam as a religion. However, Huntington argues that
perhaps the most significant reason for this is the absence of a core state in
the Islamic world, an issue discussed in detail in the next chapter.
Chapter 11 explains how fault line wars
tend to exaggerate differences between civilizations and causes the war to
further intensify. ‘In the course of a war, multiple identities fade, and the
identity most meaningful in relation to the conflict comes to dominate. That
identity almost always is defined by religion.’
A fault line was between two countries or groups starts to involve the rest of
the countries directly or indirectly in the war. Huntington goes on to look at
the important role core states have to play in resolving the war. He builds this
claim by highlighting the need for a disinterested third party to resolve
conflicts and that in the case of fault line wars, core states have the
capability to negotiate agreements from their counter parts and to induce their
kin to accept these agreements.
In this light, the Islamic world lacking a core state has been unable to come up
with a mediating force that has the ability to make its counterparts negotiate
terms and then press the concerned country to accept these terms.
The last chapter titled the ‘future of
civilizations’ looks at the future of the western civilization in particular. He
looks at the tendency of every dominant civilization to think of itself as
universal and immortal yet every civilization that thought so has fallen. He
admits that the western civilization is unique as it brought modernization in
the world but that it must use this uniqueness to renew itself and overcome its
decline. He also goes on to discuss the need for core states not to intervene in
the other’s sphere of influence in order to maintain peace.
Analysis and Critique
The question that now needs to be looked
at is that how plausible is the framework that Huntington provides. One
distinctive factor of Huntington’s work is that he tries to bring culture back
into the study of international relations and state behavior. As Shulman states,
‘Huntington redresses one of the main glaring weaknesses of liberalism and
realism alike: neglect of cultural sources of cooperation and conflict.’
However, at the same time, most scholars are also quick to point out flaws in
Huntington’s methodology and framework. Rosecrance and Jervis,
for instance, highlight the downplay of inter-civilizational conflicts in
Huntington’s analysis of global conflicts including conflicts between religious
sects. Rosecrance further argues that ‘if civilization is the one true
independent variable, why did it give away to power relations during the Cold
War’ and goes on to show that the
inter-civilization alignments in the cold war and the ones Huntington addresses
(between Japan and China and India, Russia and the West) show the interests of
powerful states and not overarching cultures. This argument highlights a related
weakness in Huntington’s analysis of excluding the influence of the world
economy in political decision making.
Evans goes on to argue this issue
further in his review of the book and points out that Huntington’s analysis of
the ‘tensions between the United States and China are remarkable to the extent
that they unfold without reliance on explanations involving Confucianism or
Chinese culture.’ He goes on to
point out that the cause of tensions seems to be overwhelmingly based on
economic interests, an issue that Huntington fails to look at. Evans concludes
that bringing civilizations into the framework for analyzing geo-political
trends confuses the real issue of economic gains and the conflicting interests
of the elite and the middle class within a culture. Shulman also points out
weaknesses in Huntington’s predictions of the future world order stating that
the he never gives a time frame for the emerging world order and never explains
‘what proportion of alliances and successful integration schemes must be there
within civilizations and what proportion of conflicts must be there between
civilizations to support the civilizational perspective.’
Where does this critique leave
Huntington’s thesis? Though his inclusion of culture as an influencing factor in
global conflicts seems to be valid, he seems to fall into the same trap of
determinism he wanted to take political theory out of. Instead of taking
economics as a dogma, he takes culture. His reliance solely on culture may have
been more valid if he looked at the behaviour and sentiments of people within a
state (differentiating it from state behaviour) and the direction of
translational links between them; he, in other words, fails to completely prove
how state behaviour may be completely based on cultural affiliations. Culture
and civilization may play a part in influencing state decisions, but it cannot
be thought to be the dominating factor.