Interpreting Historical Sequences Using Economic Models by Paul Hallwood

Author:Paul Hallwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030538545
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

3.2 Clash of Civilizations

The main similarity between Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ and Huntington’s (1993) ‘clash of civilizations’ is that the significant variable in both models is economic rent as measured by willingness to pay for some cultural or political values. But, it might be noted, in neither approach are other significant variables relevant to historical sequences included—specifically dispute and persuasion costs, time preferences and how many years forward looking are the potential combatants.

The main difference between these two models is that in the ‘end of history’ view countries around the world come to value the same thing—the mutual regard promoted by liberal democracy; while in the ‘clash of civilizations’ cultural differences persist and these might prevent the spread of liberal democracy around the globe. According to Huntington (1993), ‘a civilization is the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity’ (p. 24). He identified nine main civilizations that span the globe—Western, Orthodox Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, African, Latin American, Sinic, and Japanese. It is these cultural differences that were seen by Huntington as promoting international rivalries.

Take the case of Chinese hegemony in East Asia which Huntington foresaw in the early-1990s as a likely historical development: countries such as South Korea and Japan would come to accept this so giving up their support for US leadership in the region. In terms of Fig. 1 assume that China is country X and South Korea is country B. As of 2020 they reside in the southwest box of Fig. 1 with X not threatening B’s independence while B (South Korea) wishes to remain independent of X. However, with the rise of China’s political, economic and military powers, X (China) comes to want to incorporate B (South Korea) into its sphere of influence (the sign of E(NER)X turning from negative to positive), and B, seeing the rise of X comes to choose not to resist incorporation into X’s sphere of influence. The latter would be especially so if the USA gave up its already weakening hegemony in East Asia. Thus, for country B, E(NER)B turns from positive to negative implying that it will not resist X’s hegemony and the system in East Asia moves from the southwest to the northeast box.

Huntington (1993) also identified ‘cleft’ countries that were and are home for peoples of different cultures. Many of these are found in sub-Saharan Africa that combine Islamic and non-Islamic cultures. It is, of course, in countries such as these where civil war can and does breakout between the peoples of the different cultures, an analysis of which was offered in Chapter 3.

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