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Civilizations, their nature
and clash possibilities
Rashad Mehbaliyev
MA in Economics, 2nd
year
Political Economy of Nationalism and Globalism
Types and history of conflicts
• Types:
- ideological;
- ethnic;
- economical and etc.
• History:
- wars between kings, emperors, monarchs;
- World War I;
- Cold War and etc.
• Next?
- Cultural conflict!!! [ © Huntington S. P.]
What is civilization?
• cultural entity;
• some main characteristics at different levels of
cultural heterogeneity;
- but person who belongs to one cultural entity can
depend to other cultural entity as well. For example, a
person who lives in Baku can define himself as
Azerbaijani, Caucasian, Muslim (Christian),
Azerbaijani turk (Russian), Asian or Eastern.
• also can include some different nations (e. g.
Western, Arab, Turkish civilizations)
Why clash of civilizations is unavoidable?
• Differences based on history, language, region, religion, tradition,
culture as they are more fundamental and stable than other differences
between people;
• World becomes “smaller”, interactions and awareness of differences
between cultures increases;
• Separation from local identities because of economic and social
changes;
• West is at the peak of its power; non-West wants to shape the world in
non-Western ways rather than Western ways (dual role of West);
• Cultural characteristics are the least compromised by the people;
• Economics regionalism increases day by day (e. g. North American Free
Trade Area, Association of South East Asian Nations, Economic
Cooperation Organization).
© Huntington (1993)
Levels of clash of civilizations
• Macro-level
- competition for power (economic, military and
etc.), struggle for taking control over international
processes by states;
• Micro-level
- struggle for different kind of power (economic,
military, territorial integrity or self-determination)
of groups with neighborhood from different
civilization.
Different fault lines between
civilizations during history (1)
• Cultural divisions of Europe after Cold War:
- Western Christianity;
- Orthodox Christianity and Islam.
• The same for Yugoslavia:
- Croatia and Slovenia;
- The rest of former Yugoslavia.
Different fault lines between
civilizations during history (2)
Different fault lines between
civilizations during history (3)
• Interesting fault line between China and
America which is called “new cold war” by
Deng Xaioping.
• The same for the USA and Japan (which
succeeds to develop by technology using non-
Western ways)
- Interesting point: EU countries also develop, but
these countries have the same basic values,
attitudes with USA, while Japan has different
values and culture.
Demography vs. cultural conflict
• Population growth:
- High in non-Western countries (especially in North Africa);
- Small and even negative in Western countries.
• Increasing migration from non-Western countries to Western
countries makes necessary to create administrative rules in
order decrease immigration, because fertility rate is:
- 1.38 on average for European Union countries;
- more than 2 (sometimes even more than 8) in Islam
nations. If EU does not create administrative rules against
immigration, the majority population in European Union
will be Muslims after just a few decades.
© http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU
Supporting participants of conflict
Groups or states belonging to one civilization
that involved in conflict with people from
different civilizations often support participants
of conflict from their civilization:
- Gulf War;
- Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-
Karabakh and support from Turkey and Russia to
these countries;
- conflict in former Yugoslavia.
Conflicts and violence within the
same civilizations?
Huntington (1993): Yes!
- Russia and Ukraine over Crimea;
- Caucasus;
- Balkan.
References (1)
• Huntington P. Samuel, 1993, “The Clash of Civilizations”,
Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3 (summer), pp. 22-49,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20045621, accessed: 24/10/2010,
09:51
• Senghaas D, 1998, “Review Essay: A Clash of Civilizations, An
Idée Fixe?”, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Jan., 1998),
pp. 127-132, http://www.jstor.org/stable/425236, accessed:
24/10/2010, 10:07
• Fernandez-Armesto F, 1997, “Reviewed work: The clash of
civilizations. By Samuel P. Huntington”, International Affairs
(Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 73, No. 3,
Globalization and International Relations (Jul.), pp. 547-548,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2624272, accessed: 24/10/2010,
10:17
References (2)
• Rosecrance R, 1998, “Reviewed work: The clash of civilizations.
By Samuel P. Huntington”, The American Political Science Review,
Vol. 92, No. 4 (Dec.), pp. 978-980,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2586367, accessed: 24/10/2010,
10:19
• Jervis R, 1997, “Reviewed work: The clash of civilizations. By
Samuel P. Huntington”, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 112, No. 2
(summer), pp. 307-308, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2657943,
accessed: 24/10/2010, 10:16
• Marks R, 2000, “Reviewed work: The clash of civilizations. By
Samuel P. Huntington”, Journal of World History, Vol. 11, No. 1
(Spring), pp. 101-104, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20078821,
accessed: 24/10/2010, 10:16
• Muslim Immigration, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-
3X5hIFXYU