Politics Unit 4 Notes Global Politics E.Highmore
Chapter 1: Global Governance/Theories of Global Politics:
A clash of civilisations: in 1993 Samuel P. Huntington wrote an essay that appeared in Foreign
Affairs magazine, ‘The Clash of Civilisations’, Huntington argued that the source of conflict in the
21st century wouldn’t be economic or political, but instead cultural, conflict would be fought
between civilisations, he later expanded these theories in a book COC and the Remaking of WO.
Huntington argues that states’ desires for territorial or economic gain had been the motivation for
conflicts, nation states had been created from conflicts, becoming the principal actors in world
politics, Western powers had driven most of these conflicts. Colonial wars of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, reflecting states desires to acquire new territory and expand their economic
sphere of influence, with these gains now settled, Huntington argued that space was created for a
clash between the West and non-Western civilisations, and among non-Western civilisations.
Huntington made several other important arguments in his article:
• post-cold war global politics would be multipolar and consist of multiple civilisations
• a revival of religion particularly in the Islamic World would come to represent a challenge to the
West in terms of a rejection of Western values and institutions
• The age of conflict over political or economic ideology had ended, key political ideas such as
free trade wouldn’t be widely challenged, in contrast to Fukuyama’s theories, cultural
differences would now replace would remain and be more deeply embedded than differences of
political ideology
• with globalisation and increased human interactions, people will become more aware of their
civilisation roots and of their differences with others, and will try to defend these differences
• there are some civilisations that are ‘swing civilisations’ (Russia and Turkey) which appear to be
adapting to Western civilisation and developing their Orthodox or Islamic identities
• forces of globalisation have eroded national identity, religion the only remaining cultural identity
To prevent a clash of civilisations, Huntington argued for the west to do the following:
• pursue greater political, economic and military integration, so that other civilisations cannot
exploit differences among the west
• expand NATO and the EU to include states that might otherwise fall into the Russian civilisations
sphere of influence, followed in the Baltic States, who joined NATO apart from Ukraine
• restrain the military advance of the Islamic nations, this could be said to have been headed in
the USA’s desire to prevent Iran from developing Nuclear weapons and encouraging Saudi
Arabia to develop its own nuclear weapons in response
• understand that intervention in the affairs of other civilisations would be dangerous for global
stability, the West did not heed this advice through its many interventions in IS world
• Edward Said published an article criticising Huntington for attempting to make civilisations, in
other words he opposed that civilisations are define and delineated by Huntington can indeed
be clearly define as delineated
• many have criticised the idea that civilisations and cultural structures rather than individual
states can have a significant impact and indeed be a coordinated and impactful source of
conflict, many realists argue a key feature of modern global politics is states remain actors
Was Huntington right? Is there a clash of civilisations?:
Yes No
there is evidence of a clash between the West and there is evidence of a clash between violent Islam
Islam, the 9/11 attacks, and 1941 Pearl Harbor was and the West, not accurate to say that all of Islam is
a demonstration of violent Islamic extremism in conflict with the west
although internally divided, the Islamic World little evidence of unity in many of the civilisations
represents an increasing threat to the West from that Huntington identified, the Islamic world is
multiple sources divided in terms of policy responses to the world
global terrorism has since increased, new extremist the Islamic civilisation is divided internally between
groups (Boko Haram, Al Qaeda) instead, challenge the Sunni and Shia sects, this has been reflected in
western values such as education the Syrian civil war, also been seen in deeply
Sectarian conflict in both Iraq and Syria
