The Clash of Civilization

The document summarizes Samuel Huntington's theory of the clash of civilizations and provides context on Huntington and criticisms of his theory. It divides the world into seven or eight major civilizations based on religion, geography, and language. Huntington argued that future conflicts will be between civilizations rather than countries or ideologies. His theory was criticized for oversimplifying cultural divisions and for potentially legitimizing Western aggression against other civilizations. Alternative frameworks proposed included "dialogue among civilizations" and an "alliance of civilizations" to promote understanding.

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The Clash of Civilization

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Adam King

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MAZLINA BINTI JAAMAT (0917956) ANIZA HAZA BINTI MOHD TAHAR (0919110)

BIOGRAPHY THE

THEORY OF THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS HUNTINGTONS CRITICS REACTIONS TO HUNTINGTONS THEORY

Samuel Phillips Huntington. Born April 18,1927, in New York City earned his Master's degree from the University of Chicago, and completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University American Political Scientist & Professor at Harvard University. Huntington died on December 24, 2008 at age 81

The world will experience and witness cultural conflicts along cultural and religious lines.
Conflicts between civilization rather than nations or ideologies. Faith and family, blood and belief, are what people identify with and what they will fight and die for.

Divides the world into seven/ eight major civilizations( based on religion, geographical proximity and language):
Western Latin America Orthodox Islamic Civilization Hindu Civilization Sinic Civilization Japanese Civilization Sub-Saharan Africa

Sinic and Islamic civilizations- future threats to the West.

x W ith the challenger civilizations, Islam and China, the West is likely to have consistently strained and often highly antagonistic relations (p. 184)

An Islamic-Confucian connection is emerging against the West.

Western civilization may lose its predominance if fail to recognize cultural conflicts.
Early actions need to be taken to prevent conflicts from spreading into world wars.

The challenge for Western policy-makers is to make sure that the West gets stronger.

Continued insistence towards democratizations and interventionism will only further antagonize other civilizations. The Orthodox, Hindu and Japanese civilizations are swing civilizations, with the potential to move in different directions. Torn countries-countries that are seeking to affiliate with another civilization. Eg: Turkey.

What is a Civilization?

Three attributes:

1) Objective -language, history, religion, customs, institutions

2) Subjective - variable levels of selfidentification

3) Dynamic - they rise and fall, divide and merge

The Two Levels of the Clash

2) macro level states from different civilizations compete for political and economic power

1 ) micro level groups clash along the fault lines of adjacent civilizations

Huntingtons Critics
His theory serves as the theoretical basis to legitimize USled W est aggression against others.

His advocacy to take early actions to prevent world wars explains US policy of attacking countries that are not currently a threat but could potentially be one in the future.

Absurd because it is often easier for the people of different cultures to get along because they suspend their standard judgements.

E.g. conflicts within the same culture: -the Hutus and Tutsis -North and South Korea -China and Taiwan -the Falkland Island Crisis His identified civilizations present little unity e.g. -Vietnam (Sinic Civ) stills keeps a massive army, mostly to guard against China -The Muslim world divided along ethnic and religious lines - Cultural differences between Korean and China are not less important than between Japan and China

1) Dialogue Among Civilizations - A theory in international relations - Introduced by Muhammad Khatami, former President of Iran - As a response to Huntingtons theory - Became famous after the United Nation (UN) adopted a resolution to name the year 2001 as the YEAR OF DIALGUE AMONG CIVILIZATIONS - There are currently several international organizations that are directly or indirectly pursuing the idea

2) Allience of Civilization
-

A proposed conference to overcome cultural and social barriers between mainly the Christian and Muslim world Proposed by Spanish PrimeMinister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in the 59th General Assembly of the UN Supported by Turkish Prime Minister A committee, the High-Level Group (HLG) for the Alliance of Civilization (AoC) consists of eminent policy-makers, academicians, leaders of societies and media 1st meeting (Nov 2005), 2nd meeting (Feb 2006)

3) Chinas Peaceful Rise - Or Chinas Peaceful Development

First used by Zheng Bijian, a leader of CCP in 2003 To reassure the nations of East Asia and United States that the PRC in military and economic prominence will not be a threat to peace and stability, and that other nations will benefit from the rise of PRC Emphasizes multilateral cooperation through institutions like Six Power Talks, and calls for peaceful diplomacy over border disputes Seeks to avoid confrontation with the US