Transforming World Politics: From Empire to Multiple Worlds by Anna M. Agathangelou & L. H. M. Ling

Author:Anna M. Agathangelou & L. H. M. Ling [Agathangelou, Anna M. & Ling, L. H. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General, International Relations
ISBN: 9781135979942
Google: lnOTAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2009-06-02T02:32:21+00:00

From “clash of civilizations” to “dialectics of world order”

“The most important conflicts of the future,” Huntington (1993: 25) declared, “will occur along … cultural fault lines.” These divide into eight major “civilizations”: Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, SlavicOrthodox, Latin American and “possibly” African. Indeed, increasing intraregional trade only serves to cement a “common culture” for some (e.g., European Union [EU], North American Free Trade Agreement [NA FTA], Greater China) at the expense of those that emerge from different or “unique” civilizations like Japan. Politics and economics, Huntington warned, cannot erase civilizational, especially religious, legacies. “A person can be half-French and half-Arab and simultaneously even a citizen of two countries. It is more difficult to be half-Catholic and half-Muslim” (Huntington 1993: 27). Huntington advised the West against two civilizations, in particular: Confucian and Islamic. They defy Western norms, goals, and aspirations; accordingly, the West must ally with more “compatible” civilizational partners to fend off the cultural assaults from Confucianism and Islam.

Huntington’s real “clash of civilizations,” however, cuts closer to home. Less concerned with fancy civilizations “out there,” his argument centers more on whites vs non-whites “in here.” Huntington asserted, for example, that Americans “react far more negatively to Japanese investment than to larger investments from Canada and European countries” (Huntington 1993: 26). Huntington developed this theme more apocryphally in a subsequent book on America’s “national identity” (Huntington 2004). In it, he elaborated upon a “worst-case” scenario, first outlined in Clash of Civilizations: i.e., Hispanics would overtake the White House because “large segments of the American public blame the severe weakening of the United States on the narrow Western orientation of WASP elites” (Huntington 1996: 316). China, Japan, and “most of Islam,” now combat an “Aryan alliance” of the US, Europe, Russia, and India in a third world war. Benefiting from this holocaust would be “those Latin American countries which sat out the war” and Africa “which has little to offer the rebuilding of Europe [other than to] disgorge hordes of socially mobilized people to prey on the remains” (Huntington 1996: 315–316). The Latino population in the US has yet to acquire the kind of political power Huntington sweats over but, one wonders, how he feels about Barack Obama becoming the first African-American President of the United States?

Regardless of Huntington’s personal politics, some state leaders have seized upon his “clash of civilizations” to justify their own policies. In particular, many have used this argument to target populations they have deemed “unruly”: e.g., “ethnic cleansing” against Serbs or Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina, “jihad” against the “infidel” by radical Islamic communities, and “regime change” in Iraq and Afghanistan. As mentioned earlier, the Bush Administration extended Huntington’s “clash” to the very preservation of civilization itself in the “global war on terror.” Unlike Nishida, Huntington intended his ideas for imperialist policymakers and state elites (see Huntington 2004).

Contradictions, however, riddle this argument. Huntington never defined “civilization” or how he came to eight, exclusive ones in the world. Doing so would require him to acknowledge that civilizations, especially world

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