Contemporary Theoretical Debates

and their Implications on World

Politics:

New World Order

End of History
The Clash of Civilization
New World Order
• The term "new world order" has been used to refer to any new
period of history evidencing a dramatic change in world political
thought and the balance of power. Despite various interpretations of
this term, it is primarily associated with the ideological notion of
global governance only in the sense of new collective efforts to
identify, understand, or address worldwide problems that go beyond
the capacity of individual nation-states to solve.
History- NWO
• The phrase "new world order" or similar language was used in the period
toward the end of the First World War in relation to Woodrow Wilson's vision
for international peace; Wilson called for a League of Nations to prevent
aggression and conflict. The League of Nations failed.
• The most widely discussed application of the phrase of recent times came at
the end of the Cold War. Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and George H. W.
Bush used the term to try to define the nature of the post-Cold War era and the
spirit of great power cooperation that they hoped might materialize.
• A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a
thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor. Today that new world
is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we've known.
NEW WORLD ORDER- PERSPECTIVE
• The most widely discussed application of the phrase of recent times came at the
end of the Cold War. US and Russian leaders used the term to try to define the
nature of the post-Cold War era and the spirit of great power cooperation that they
hoped might materialize.
• Gorbachev's initial formulation was wide-ranging and idealistic, but his ability to
press for it was severely limited by the internal crisis of the Soviet system. In
comparison, Bush's vision was not less circumscribed.
• However, given the new unipolar status of the United States, Bush's vision was
realistic in saying that "there is no substitute for American leadership".
• The Gulf War of 1991 was regarded as the first test of the new world order: "Now,
we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real
prospect of a new world order. ... The Gulf War put this new world to its first test".
De Facto World Order
• The aim of these assaults is to establish the role of the major
imperialist powers—above all, the United States—as the
unchallengeable arbiters of world affairs. The "New World Order" is
precisely this: an international regime of unrelenting pressure and
intimidation by the most powerful capitalist states against the
weakest.
The End of History By Francis Fukuyama*-
An Insight into Future World Prospects
• Francis Fukuyama controversially argued that that the end of the
Cold War (1989) signals the end of the progression of human history.
• • Fukuyama argues that
• ‘What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the
passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as
such:
• that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the
universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human
government.
*An American scientist
End of History or Events?
• Fukuyama does not claim that events will stop happening in the future.
• What Fukuyama is claiming is that in the future (even if totalitarianism
returns, or if fundamentalist Islam becomes a major political force)
democracy will become more and more prevalent in the long term.
• However, democracy may experience ‘temporary’ setbacks (which may,
of course, last for centuries).
• Fukuyama argues that ‘the victory of liberalism has occurred primarily in
the realm of ideas or consciousness, and is as yet incomplete in the real or
material world’.
Elements of Fukuyama Thesis
• Fukuyama's thesis consists of two main elements.
• First, Fukuyama points out that the number of democratic states has
expanded to the point where the majority of governments in the world
are ‘democratic’.
• He also argues that democracy's main intellectual alternatives, which
include Nazism, Fascism, Communism, nationalism and religion have
been discredited.
Understanding End of History Thesis
• It is claimed that Fukuyama believes that history ended in 1989 (with
the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War).
• In fact, Fukuyama believes that history ended in 1806, with the Battle
of Jena.
• Thesis is that since the French Revolution of 1789, democracy has
repeatedly proven to be a fundamentally better system (ethically,
politically, economically) than any of the alternative
About Islamic Fundamentalism and Liberal
Democracy
• It is claimed that Islamic fundamentalisms such as Wahaabism (as
represented by the Saudi Arabian government, the Taliban and late
Bin Laden) offer an intellectual alternative to liberal democracy.
• However, Fukuyama argues that Islam has little intellectual or
emotional appeal outside the Islamic ‘heartlands’.
• In order to provide genuine competition for liberalism, a competing
belief system must have global appeal.
• Moreover, when Islamic states have actually been created (for
example in Afghanistan), they were easily defeated militarily by the
powerful democracies.
Marxists Criticism
• Marxists have been amongst Fukuyama's fiercest critics.
• Marxists claim that capitalist democracies are still riven with poverty,
inequality and racial tension.
• Fukuyama concedes that there is poverty, racism and sexism in
present-day democracies.
• However, he argues that there is no sign of a major revolutionary
movement developing that would actually overthrow capitalism.
• Whether such a movement will develop in the future remains to be
seen.
Criticism of Thesis
• Numerous other intellectuals and thinkers have disagreed with the
End of History thesis.
• Samuel Huntington, in his essay and book, The Clash of Civilizations
argues that temporary conflict between ideologies is being replaced
by the ancient conflict between civilizations.
• The dominant civilization decides the form of human government,
and the dominant civilization will not remain the same over time.
Is US Democracy a Correct Model
•  It is argued that Fukuyama presents ‘American-style’ democracy as
the only ‘correct’ political system and that all countries must
inevitably follow this example.
• However, this is a misreading of his work.
• Fukuyama's argument is only that in the future there will be more
and more governments that use the framework of parliamentary
democracy and that contain markets of some sort.
• He believes that there will remain a substantial variety of different
political systems that remain broadly democratic and free market
oriented.
Liberal Democracy and Free Market
• Author believes that there is strength in the liberal democratic idea, and in the
free market. It is logical, too, that a world of liberal democratic states would
gradually produce an international order that reflected those liberal and
democratic qualities.
• This has been the enlightenment dream since the eighteenth century, when Kant
imagined a "perpetual peace" consisting of liberal republics and built upon the
natural desire of all peoples for peace and material comfort.
• Naturally, many are inclined to believe that the Cold War ended the way it did
simply because the better worldview triumphed, and that the international order
that exists today is but the next stage forward in humanity's march from strife
and aggression toward a peaceful and prosperous co-existence.
Analysis of Big Powers Rivalries
• “As for Russia and China, it will be tempting for them to enjoy the
spectacle of the United States bogged down in a fight with Al Qaeda
and other violent Islamist groups in the Middle East and South Asia,
just as it is tempting to let American power in that region be checked
by a nuclear-armed Iran. (Or Pakistan)
• The willingness of the autocrats in Moscow and Beijing to protect
their fellow autocrats in Pyongyang, Tehran, and Khartoum increases
the chances that the connection between terrorists and nuclear
weapons will eventually be made”.
Future World Order and Islamic Extremists
• The world is thus faced with the prospect of a protracted struggle in
which the goals of the extreme Islamists can never be satisfied because
neither the United States, nor Europe, nor Russia, nor China, nor the
peoples of the Middle East have the ability or the desire to give them
what they want.
• The modern great powers will never retreat as far as the Islamic
extremists require.
• Unfortunately, they may also not be capable of uniting effectively against
the threat. Although in the struggle between modernization and
tradition, the United States, Russia, China, Europe, and the other great
powers are roughly on the same side, the things that divide them from
one another--the competing national ambitions, the divisions between
democrats and autocrats, the transatlantic disagreement over the use of
military power--undermine their will to cooperate.
Clash of Civilizations- 1993- Theory by
Samuel P Huntington
•The Clash of Civilizations is a thesis that people's cultural and religious identities will
be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. The American political
scientist Samuel P. Huntington argued that future wars would be fought not between
countries, but between cultures.
•"Clash of Civilizations", is a post–Cold War new world order. He argued that future
wars would be fought not between countries, but between cultures, and that Islamic
extremism would become the biggest threat to Western domination of the world.
•Huntington is credited with helping to shape U.S. views on civilian–military relations,
political development, and comparative government.  Huntington is the second most
frequently cited author on college syllabi for political science courses.
Social Disorder
• Huntington argues that as societies modernize, they become more complex and
disordered. If the process of social modernization that produces this disorder is
not matched by a process of political and institutional modernization—a process
which produces political institutions capable of managing the stress of
modernization—the result may be violence.---A logical reasoning.
• Culture clash is a situation in which the diverging attitudes, morals, opinions, or
customs of two dissimilar cultures or subcultures are revealed. 

• To understand current and future conflict, cultural rifts must be understood,

and culture—rather than the State—must be accepted as the reason for
war. 
9 civilizations Who Could Clash
Muslim World
Post Cold War World- A Western View
• Author argued that, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Islam would
become the biggest obstacle to Western domination of the world. The
West's next big war therefore, he said, would inevitably be with
Islam. Its description of post-Cold War geopolitics and the
"inevitability of instability" contrasted with the influential "End of
History" thesis advocated by Francis Fukuyama

• Wars such as those following the break up of Yugoslavia,

in Chechnya, and between India and Pakistan were cited as
evidence of inter-civilizational conflict. 
Reasons of Clash with Islamic Civilization
• Huntington argues that the Islamic civilization has experienced a massive population
explosion which is fueling instability both on the borders of Islam and in its interior,
where fundamentalist movements are becoming increasingly popular. Manifestations of
what he terms the "Islamic Resurgence" include the 1979 Iranian revolution and the
first Gulf War.
• Huntington believes this to be a real consequence of several factors, including the
previously mentioned Muslim youth bulge and population growth and Islamic proximity
to many civilizations including Sinic, Orthodox, Western, and African.
• Huntington sees Islamic civilization as a potential ally to China, both having more
revisionist goals and sharing common conflicts with other civilizations, especially the
West. Specifically, he identifies common Chinese and Islamic interests in the areas of
weapons proliferation, human rights, and democracy that conflict with those of the
West, and feels that these are areas in which the two civilizations will cooperate.
A Criticism of the Theory
• Critics call The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, the
theoretical legitimization of American-caused Western aggression against
China and the world's Islamic and Orthodox cultures.
• Other critics argue that Huntington's taxonomy is simplistic and arbitrary,
and does not take account of the internal dynamics and partisan tensions
within civilizations.
• Huntington neglects ideological mobilization by elites and unfulfilled
socioeconomic needs of the population as the real causal factors driving
conflict, that he ignores conflicts that do not fit well with the civilizational
borders identified by him, and they charge that his new paradigm is nothing
but realist thinking in which "states" became replaced by "civilizations"