MIS 505 GLOBAL SECURITY THREATS AND MANAGEMENT

A CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF SAMUEL P HUNTINGTON’S ‘CLASH OF

CIVILIZATIONS THEORY
-Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World
Order. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1996.
-Mian Muhammad Tahir Ashraf, “The clash of civilizations? A Critique”, Pakistan
Journal of Social Sciences, Vol 32, No 2 (2012)
-Edward Said, (1994), “The clash of Ignorance”, Karen A Mingst and Jack L
Snyder (Eds), Essential Readings in World Politics, New York: W.W Nation &
Company.
-Francis Fukuyama, (1989), “The End of History?”, The National Interest,
Summer: 3-18.
-Ali A Mazrui, (1994), “Has a clash of civilizations begun?: From the Cold War of
Ideology to a Hot War of Religion”, IPRI Journal, Vol 1 (2)
-Jiao Yuxi, (1995), “The concept of the clash of civilization is wrong”, Strategic
Studies, XVIII (1).

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Introduction
Following the end of the Cold War, US foreign policy makers and academics
grappled with the question on what the new world political stage would look like,
after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dawn of a unipolar world. Many
theories emerged, including Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History”; the
“Democratic Peace Theory” and the “Commercial Peace Theory”.

Fukuyama focused on political ideologies as the main unit of analysis. The end of
the Cold War did not signal some Armageddon. Instead, for Fukuyama, after the
end of the Cold War, Western liberal democracy emerged as the final form of
government. It marked the “end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the
universalization of western liberal democracy would be the final form of human
government”. Democracy has supposedly triumphed over Communism and would
thus become the only form of government throughout the world.

The Democratic Peace Theory: Belief that democracies never go to war with one
another. Democratic countries, according to the theory, should democratize the
world. As each country democratize, the world becomes more secure. To enlarge
the number of democracies is to enlarge the zone of peace.

The Commercial Peace Theory: Views a relationship between economic

independence, as opposed to democracy, and the spread of peace. As such, the
more interconnected the world becomes through globalization’s expanded trade
and markets, the more peaceful the entire world becomes.

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The Clash of Civilizations Theory: Samuel Huntington also participated in the
aforementioned debate, and his theory should be understood in that context. He
sought to give an alternative interpretation about the future shape of world politics
in the post-Cold War era. Huntington took difference in civilization as one of the
important sources of conflicts in the world.

His 1993 article in Foreign Affairs and the 1996 book (The Clash of Civilizations
and the Remaking of World Order) were a response to liberals among US policy
circles who viewed liberal democracy as the final form of government. Huntington
took civilization as a unit of analysis and attempted to explain the emerging
structure of international politics and American role in it. However, Huntington
was futuristic in his approach. He argued that future sources of conflicts would be
cultural, not ideological, political or economic.

Huntington’s theory was thought provoking, and attracted substantial academic

attention and criticisms. His intermixing of political science with culture created a
lively intellectual debate and hundreds of articles and books have been written in
response to the theory. The theory received mixed reactions, with most responses
being overwhelmingly critical of the Clash of Civilizations Theory, but offering no
alternative to replace it.

Overall, peers have found fault with the theory’s logic, consistency and strong
tendency to simplify complex phenomena, perfunctory treatment of empirical case
studies, lack of backing by empirical statistical evidence, confounding political and
social conflict with religious and civilizational confrontation and insufficient
attention to the heterogeneity of political culture within each major civilization.
Many scholars have been disturbed by the blurring between purportedly

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dispassionate scholarly prediction and the conjuring up of civilizational animosities
and discord. Of course, after the 9/11 attacks, Huntington received some positive
feedback.

Huntington argues that in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall, international
relations would no longer be dominated by an ideological conflict as was
witnessed during the Cold War years, between capitalism and communism. Nor
would the next pattern of conflict be dominated by state-to-state tensions. Instead,
as Huntington argues, the world would witness a clash of civilizations between a
Western civilization and other major civilizations, in particular, an Islamic
civilization and a Confusion civilization.

Huntington makes valid arguments in terms of what international relations

would not be dominated by, however; the argument that a clash of civilizations
based on cultural differences between the West and other civilizations is a
simplistic hypothesis born out of a realist Cold War paradigm.

Categorizing Critiques to Huntington’s thesis

1. Epistemological Critique –Problematizes the very source of Huntington’s
theory in 3 ways, namely:-

- First, the clash of civilization thesis does not come up with a new paradigm
since it neatly fits into political realism. Huntington’s emphasis on the ever-
present probability of war between civilizations represents a fear that is
rooted in political realism.

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- Second, the epistemological critique argues that the Clash of Civilizations
thesis is Orientalist. It claims that the language of ‘us’ and ‘them’ is
embedded in Huntington’s thesis. Edward Said, says the epistemological
othering underlie Huntington’s theory is problematic as labels,
generalizations and cultural assertions are finally inadequate. The oriental
scholarship perceives Islam as a threat to the West. The act of perceiving the
‘other’ as a ‘threat’ rather than a ‘challenge’ leads to a siege mentality
generated by Western hubris. Huntington’s thesis has been accused of
reification distortion and dehumanization of Muslims.

- Third, the epistemological critique finds fault with the elitist orientation of
the Clash of Civilizations thesis. Huntington’s theory is seen as an “official
mythology” generated by US elites to “scare the hell out of the American
people”. The agenda of the US elite differs from that of the American
masses. However, many al-Qaeda militants viewed the US-led conflicts in
the ME as proof of clash between Islam and the West. Ayman al-Zawahiri’s
book, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner is also viewed as ‘jihadist
reading of the clash of civilizations.

2. Methodological Critique- it condemns Huntington’s thesis on three grounds,

notably:-
- It objects to the monolithic conception of civilizations which neglects the
polycentric structure of both worlds. Fred Halliday (1996) argues that
Huntington ignores the internal dynamics, plurality and myriad complexities
of Islam and the Muslim world. There is no single Islamic culture, but

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 multiple centres of Islam and various types of political Islam and Islamism
in the Muslim world. Scholars call for the deconstruction of the monolithic
perceptions of Islam and the West. The existence of numerous conflicts
within civilizations and cooperation between civilizations refutes the
monolithic orientation of Huntington’s thesis.

- The methodological critique pinpoints the inconsistencies in Huntington’s

thesis. It disagrees with selective perception and overgeneralization involved
in Huntington’s reading of history. For instance, the Gulf War was arguably
a clash of state interest, rather than a clash of civilizations. Also criticized is
Huntington’s portrayal of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict as a civilizational
clash since Muslim Iran had more friendly relations with Christian Armenia,
than with Muslim Azerbaijan. Huntington has also been criticized for
mostly using secondary sources in his book and showing a weak scholarship
of Islam, China and Japan. Huntington’s theory uses the terms religion,
culture, and
- Third, the methodological critique attacks the reductionist/essentialist tone
of Huntington’s thesis on the following grounds:-

a. It reduces the multiple causes of inter- and intra-national conflict, thereby

essentialising the civilizational factor as the prime cause.

b. It reduces the multiple dimensions of individual identity, thereby

essentialising the civilizational factor as the chief aspect. Noam Chomsky,
Fouad Ajami, Shireen Hunter and James Kurth have refuted the

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 essentialisation of a civilizational cause. Chomsky accepts that there is a
clash between the West and the rest, but opines that the West is in clash with
those who are adopting the preferential option for the poor no matter who
they are. They can be Catholics (in Latin America) or Communists (in
Afghanistan). F. Ajami complains that Huntington overestimated the cultural
differences between civilizations and underestimated the influence of the
West in hostile relations with the Muslim world.

According to Hunter and Muhammad Asadi, the conflictive relations

between the West and the Muslim world hardly stems from civilizational
differences but from structural-political and economic inequalities between
the worlds of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. Achin Vnaik (The Furies of Indian
Communalism, 1997) provides a sophisticated understanding of civilization,
culture and identity, as opposed to Huntington’s oversimplification of same.
1. A trans-historical and essentialist reading of the enduring impact of some
initial civilizational entity or root. 2. A historically well rounded study
where civilization is seen as a network of specific historical, geographical,
economic, political, cultural and social complexes, and not primarily as
trans-historical cultural complexes. Such civilizations follow the pattern of
emergence, rise, decline and fall.

3. Ethical Critique- condemns the immoral implications of Huntington’s thesis.

It argues that the clash of civilizations is a purposeful thesis that serves particular
interests. Edward Said notes that Huntington formulated his theory while keeping
an eye on rivals in the policy making ranks, such as Fukuyama and his “End of

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History” theory, as well as the legions who celebrated the onset of globalism and
the dissipation of the states.

Naz Wasim ( 2001) - Huntington’s thesis was a strategy to influence US policy

Huntington was an advisor at the Pentagon in 1994. His personal ambitions were in
tandem with the expansionary goals of US policy makers. His declaration of a
possibility of a World War 3 fit with the needs of the US military industrial
complex.

The Cold War, which had previously been used to justify defence spending, had
ended. A new enemy was needed- Islam. Huntington constructed the Islamic
threat. This justified expansion of the defence-industrial base. The ethical critique
accuses the theory of being a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Some Key Observations

- Although Huntington makes a strong and valid argument that culture is a
main source of conflict, the claim that the broader civilization that one
identifies with ‘intensely’ appears to be over generalized as Huntington’s
civilization groupings are fraught with their own internal cultural divisions
and conflict. If current conflicts within these civilizations are examined, it is
quite evident that Huntington’s elusion to unity among civilizations is
invalid.

- Furthermore, Huntington’s claim that loyalties to civilizations as a source of

conflict versus national or ethnic identities is flawed. As Russet, Oneal, and

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 Cox (2000) argue, this claim is doubtful, particularly in the Islamic
civilization where interests within particular states have outweighed those of
all-encompassing Islamic or pan-Arab convictions. Therefore, this would
seem to invalidate Huntington’s claim that one identifies with him or herself
as a member of their Western, Islamic, or Confusion civilization first and
foremost.

- The world’s most important conflicts, as Huntington argues, will occur

along the fault lines that demarcate a civilization’s boundary with another’s.
This has provoked some statistical analyses to be conducted to determine the
validity of Huntington’s claim that this has been the case. Russet et al.
(2000) conducted one such analysis and reported that “there is little evidence
that [civilizations] define the fault lines along which international conflict is
apt to occur”.

- Furthermore, Errol Henderson (1998) did a study reporting that although

differences in religion increase the incidence of war, ethnic and linguistic
similarity also increase the likelihood of conflict. This study also found that
geographical proximity between states is also a stronger factor than culture.
These reports are of interest as they demonstrate that cultural differences are
not the prime source of conflict. In fact, it appears that in some cases,
similarity between differing groups within the same civilization creates a
more likely foundation for conflict. This brings into question Huntington’s
claim that conflicts between civilizations will be concentrated on the cultural
fault lines dividing civilizations. It is also reasonable to argue that many of

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 the conflicts Huntington identifies on these fault lines simply have a greater
likelihood to conflict as they are neighboring states.

- As Kunihiko Imai (2006) explains, these statistical results disprove one of

Huntington’s major hypotheses. However, since the research was based on
data from past militarized disputes, the test may not have been appropriate
for Huntington’s thesis in a post-Cold War era. Therefore, whether conflict
is found along the fault lines of civilizational boundaries or not does not
necessarily disprove Huntington’s thesis. However, this weakens the
argument made that as civilizations grow increasingly grounded in their own
cultures, values, and religions, conflict will occur along the fault lines where
civilizations are demarcated. Therefore, cultures may be attempting to
further establish their own unique identities in defense from globalization;
however, clashes will not necessarily occur along cultural or civilizational
boundaries.

- Giacomo Chiozza (Is there a Clash of Civilizations? Evidence from Patterns

of International Conflict Involvement, 1946-97, Journal of Peace Research,
39(6), 2002) empirically tested conflicts within the post-Cold War period
(1989-1997) to see if civilizations were the primary cause of international
conflict. His conclusion failed to support Huntington’s thesis, which
appeared not to have garnered sufficient empirical support. Errol Henderson
and Richard Tucker’s findings also drew the same conclusion. They
concluded that “civilizational difference is not significantly associated with
an increased likelihood of interstate war”.

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- Bruce Russet, John Oneal and Michaelene Cox (2002) investigated inter-
state disputes between 1885 and 1994 and concluded that it is not the
civilizations, but the traditional realist and liberal variables- geography,
power alliances, democracy, economic dependence and international
organisation- that define the fault lines along which international conflict is
apt to occur.

- However, Jonathan Fox (Two Civilizations and Ethnic Conflict: Islam and
the West Source, Journal of Peace Research 38(4), 2001) opined that events
of 9/11 changed the dynamics of world politics and conflict causing the
prediction of the “Clash of Civilizations theory” come to fruition. Fox;s
2001 study tested three perspectives of conflicts, namely; global, Western
and Islamic. His results “lend support to Huntington’s thesis that Islam is
one of the greatest participants in civilizational conflicts”.

- John Coughlan (Clash of Civilizations or Crisis of Integration?America,

194(13), 2006) proposed that grievances, not cultures, is alienating
minorities, immigrants and refugees in Europe. He contends that Europe is
not suffering from the “clash of civilizations”, but rather a “crisis of
integration”.

- Academic Weak Points- Ashraf (2012) contends that “The Clash of

Civilizations” has its weakness in three dimensions, namely; Discipline,
Approach and Correlative Propositions.

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 On Discipline, the Clash of Civilizations delineates a “confusional mode of
analysis”. A reader remains in a permanent state of confusion because of two
reasons; First, Huntington refrains from clearly drawing his choice of
discipline in the article. Second, he borrows concepts from different
disciplines and fits his conclusion. The concept of civilization is borrowed
from Anthropology, identity from Social Psychology, and conflict from
Political Science.

On Approach, the article has 2 weaknesses. The first is confusion in dealing

with realist theory of international relations. Huntington’s aim is to produce
a piece of international politics but he is inconsistent with the realist
approach when he deals with world power politics. Yet, he does not stay in
this line of though when he identifies civilizational affinity as the base for
alliances rather than national interest. Second, Huntington’s article is weak
with respect to unmanageability to its unit of analysis. As a unit of analysis,
civilization is a big entity. There are two conceptual difficulties in
Hantington’s work- He is unsuccessful in defining civilization with
universal application. The second conceptual deficiency in the definition can
be identified with the locational element of civilization. Geographical
boundaries are significant in Huntington’s definition of civilization that it
may not be applicable to the Islamic civilization because it is not boundary
limited due to the nature of Islam as a universal religion. Muslim
communities in Western countries are growing. Do they belong to the
Western civilization or the Islamic one?

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 Correlative Propositions- the key point in Huntington’s analysis is that
future conflicts are closely correlated with civilizational differences.
Correlation is drawn from the case studies- Bosinia, the Persian Gulf and
Nagorno-Karabakh. These cases are different in their locality, nature, the
number of players and the background of the conflicts. In each one of them,
natural national interest can be identified as the cause of the conflict.

Another weak point in Huntington’s article is what Edward Said calls

affirmation of the personification of enormous entities called ‘the West and
Islam’. Huntington did not explain internal dynamics and plurality of every
civilization because the major contest in most modern cultures concerns the
definition or interpretation of each culture.

Methods and Evidence: Huntington argued a Western world perspective:

“People on each side allege racism on the other, but at least on the American
side the antipathies are not racial but cultural” (Huntington, 93, p.34). At
times, he oversimplified reality in a Manichaean way. In his view, only
Western players and values represented the good side. He made a total of
eight footnotes and referred several times to other scholars to support his
forty-nine page thesis. Most of his citations mentioned predominantly
Western scholars. This would seem somewhat limited in terms of quality
and quantity for a thesis which portrayed a new world order based on
culture.

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 A number of statements such as, among many,: “Over the centuries,
however, differences among civilizations have generated the most prolonged
and the most violent conflicts.” (Huntington, 93, p. 25), “…, economic
regionalism may succeed only when it is rooted in a common civilization”.
(Huntington, 93, p. 27) or “…, and political reactions and violence against
Arab and Turkish migrant have become more intense and more widespread
since 1990.” (Huntington, 93, p. 32), lack empirical evidence. The proffered
definitions of key terms like Civilizations, Western, Islam and Identity
remained rather vague. Many scholars have emphasized the diversity of
Islam and Christianity facets which made impossible any generalized
statements concerning those entities. Sometimes, Huntington associated
terms which had different classifications. “Western civilization has two
major variants, European and North American, and Islam has its Arab,
Turkic and Malay subdivisions.” (Huntington, 93, p. 24).

To compare geographical regions (West, Europe, North America) with religions

(Islam) and ethnicities (Arab, Turkic, Malay) does not seem coherent. One could
also wonder why he did not mention the Persian traits or why Japan was
considered a culture in its own right. Huntington tended to present the West as a
unified homogenous block and occasionally appeared to use the term “West” as
meaning “the USA”.

The backbones of his argumentation rested on History and its interpretation. He

gives the impression of brushing aside many intra-civilization wars such as the

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conflict in Northern Ireland, the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) and the Serbo-Croatian
war (1991-1995).

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), most

conflicts in 2000 were driven by a struggle for power and territory. Identity,
ethnicity and religion were the tools used by leaders to motivate and define groups
but not the real reasons behind the conflicts. When evoking ongoing or cultural
clashes, Huntington referred to the Arab- Israeli conflict (Huntington, 1993, p. 35).

For Harvey et al., the Islamists have often branded it as ideological or religious,
whereas its crux was a struggle for land (Harvey et al., 2005, p. 85). Several of
Huntington’s arguments reflect, it seems, his personal and political views, based on
questionable beliefs. The methodological flaws might explain the abundance of
controversial literature that has emerged.

The Clash of Civilizations and Contemporary Political System

Huntington’s article has been criticized for not being in coherence with the realities
of contemporary politics. He wrote, “What ultimately counts for people is not
political ideology or economic interest”. Yet, we know that one of the most
striking phenomena in the post-Cold War politics is the economy, which has
become the dominant factor in shaping international relations. States consider their
economies the basic factor in international political system. They try to grow their
economies to play a key role in global politics.

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Huntington’s thesis does not accord with the reality of the present world. Regional
organisations (the EU, ASEAN, AU, etc) are playing an important role in world
politics.

There are various factors that may give rise to conflicts- territorial disputes, ethnic
clashes, racial and religious contradictions, differences between civilizations,
hegemony and values. No single factor appears to be dominant.

Some scholars speculate that the Clash of Civilizations was written for the US
lobbies who wanted to sale American made weapons (supporting the military
industrial complex)- the idea was to threaten the world in general, and the West in
particular, against Islamic-Confucian civilizational cooperation.

Huntington struggled to establish a connection between Islam and Confucianism as

two civilizations. Is that so?

Huntington was also wrong about his view concerning the “Islamic Civilization.
The East Asian Islamic countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei; Iran and
Arab Countries; Muslims of Central Asian region; and Muslims of the sub-
continent have grown in their own historical and cultural beds. They have different
views on global issues.

The theory ignores the persistent role of nationalism in world politics.

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Is Africa a civilization or not? Huntington glosses over this.

Buddhism is defined as a civilization on the map, but nowhere else in his articles
or book does he state a clear, consistent answer.

Does Israel or Judaism fall in the Western civilization (due to its religion or
democratic institution) or the Islamic civilization (due to its geography)? This
highlights another confusion- some of the civilizations are places (Japan, Latin
America, Africa), while others are religions (Hindu, Islamic, Buddhism).

Huntington presented a one sided emphasis on conflicts and contradictions among

different civilizations, with total disregard of their co-existence and blend.
Disparate civilizations not only have their own contradictions, but also have their
co-existence and blend. In fact, many conflicts in the Middle East are tensions
within a civilization- Syria, Yemen

Is the tension between Russia and the West a clash of civilizations? What about
Crimea and Eastern Ukraine? The area is located precisely on the civilizational
fault line which Huntington predicted would be “flash points for crisis and
bloodshed”. Yet, Russia has always been concerned about NATO expansion and
presence in former Soviet Republics plus EU expansion, on the grounds of power
politics (and need to create a buffer zone or bulwark), rather than civilization.
Russian intervention in Ukraine and Crimea seen as fear of Ukrainian
‘Europeanization’ through closer ties with the EU. Alleged fear of spread of neo-

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liberal democracy that would unseat Russian rulers ( Russian response to anti-
government protests in 2011.

Some Conclusions
Huntington’s article was a response to Fukuyama’s theory of “the end of History”,
and gave an alternative interpretation in American policy making ranks for
possible future shape of world politics in the post-Cold War Era. He was futuristic
in his approach. There are some useful points and analyses in Huntington’s theory.
For example, he rightly pointed out that in the politics of civilizations, the people
and governments of non-Western civilizations would no longer remain the objects
of history as targets of Western colonialism, but join the West as movers and
shapers of history.

Huntington was prognostic, and essentially tried to explain and predict patterns of
military tension and warfare.

In addition, after the 9/11 attacks, the international community has witnessed
increasing debate about Huntington’s theory regarding the possible clash between
Islam and the West. See Ali Mazrui (Has a Clash of Civilizations Begun? : From
the Cold War of Ideology to a Hot War of Religion, 2006). Plus the rise of ISIS
appeared to prove Huntington’s theory.

However, Huntington’s theory is on the whole, difficult to operationalize. Testing

created deadlocks between theorists and researchers unable to be proven definitely
correct or incorrect. The theory is often too vague to address many specific

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situations. The concept of civilizations is oversimplified, unclear and not
sufficiently systematic. The theory has some oversights and inconsistencies.

Most US administrations (until Trump) rejected Huntington’s theory. Both the

Bush and Obama administrations rejected it, highlighting that America was
fighting violent extremism, not Islam itself. George W Bush, strongly influenced
by neoconservative ideals, and Obama, who leaned more towards liberal
internationalism, rejected the theory strongly. However, Michael Flynn, a retired
General, former head of the Defence Intelligence Agency, and later Trump’s
National Security Adviser, co-authored a book with Michael Ledeen (The Field of
Fight: How we can win the global war against radical Islam and its allies, 2016) –
argued that “we are in a world war against a messianic mass movement of evil
people, most of them inspired by a totalitarian ideology: Radical Islam”. The two
authors painted a remarkably Huntingtonian picture- an anti-Western alliance of
Islamic extrimists (both Sunni and Shia), tied to China, North Korea, Iran and
Venezualea by arms sales, proliferation and hatred of the US. Flynn, like
Huntington, believes that “Islam’s borders are bloody, and so are its innards”. He
suggests that Islamism- by which he means Islamic political thought of any
variant- is a violent and totalitarian ideology.

Yet, if Huntington was off the mark, what is the new or alternative paradigm?
Huntington’s theory, its weaknesses notwithstanding, remains a useful paradigm.

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