Clash of the Civilizations: Islam and the West
Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations?:
Islam and the West
When taking another glance at Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations?”, the provocative nature of his arguments and the fervent scholarly debate that followed are hardly surprising. Although, for myself, I remain troubled by one important question. Is Huntington completely wrong, as many propose, about a rising conflict between the nations of Islam and those of the West in the post cold war era? Huntington contends that the future will boast conflicts between and within civilizations. More so, cultural issues will bring on these conflicts with a particularly divisive role being played by religion.
With that said, it is my contention that Huntington is not completely wrong about the evolution of conflict between these two. Though I feel his groupings of civilizations into eight defining entities to be arbitrary and over generalized. My research and focus will be strictly on the aforementioned conflict between Islam and the West, for which I feel are appropriately categorized, though further research should be done on the capacity of violence between sects within religions. Most importantly I will evaluate his claims of conflicts occurring across what he describes as “cultural fault lines” and to what extent do cultural phenomenon affect the current political climate between the two. Could there be other elements not being discussed that carry the potential for conflict?
In regards to conflict, Huntington describes conflict occurring on both the micro and macro levels. (Huntington, 1993:29) At the micro level, conflict occurs between “adjacent groups along the fault lines between civilizations…over the control of territory and each other.” (Huntington, 1993:29) On a larger scale, macro conflict will be that “states from different civilizations compete for relative military and economic power, struggle over the control of international institutions and third parties, and competitively
Islam and the West
When taking another glance at Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations?”, the provocative nature of his arguments and the fervent scholarly debate that followed are hardly surprising. Although, for myself, I remain troubled by one important question. Is Huntington completely wrong, as many propose, about a rising conflict between the nations of Islam and those of the West in the post cold war era? Huntington contends that the future will boast conflicts between and within civilizations. More so, cultural issues will bring on these conflicts with a particularly divisive role being played by religion.
With that said, it is my contention that Huntington is not completely wrong about the evolution of conflict between these two. Though I feel his groupings of civilizations into eight defining entities to be arbitrary and over generalized. My research and focus will be strictly on the aforementioned conflict between Islam and the West, for which I feel are appropriately categorized, though further research should be done on the capacity of violence between sects within religions. Most importantly I will evaluate his claims of conflicts occurring across what he describes as “cultural fault lines” and to what extent do cultural phenomenon affect the current political climate between the two. Could there be other elements not being discussed that carry the potential for conflict?
In regards to conflict, Huntington describes conflict occurring on both the micro and macro levels. (Huntington, 1993:29) At the micro level, conflict occurs between “adjacent groups along the fault lines between civilizations…over the control of territory and each other.” (Huntington, 1993:29) On a larger scale, macro conflict will be that “states from different civilizations compete for relative military and economic power, struggle over the control of international institutions and third parties, and competitively
Bibliography: Fox, J. (2002). Ethnic Minorities and the Clash of Civilizations: A Quantitative Analysis of Huntington 's Thesis Fox, J. (2001). Two Civilizations and Ethnic Conflict: Islam and the West. Journal for Peace Research, 38(4), 459-472. doi:10.1177/0022343301038004004, From,http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/38/4/459 Huntington, S. P. (1993). The Clash of Civilizations?. Foreign Affairs, 72(3), 22-49.