Constructivism sees the world as socially constructed, [26] with agency and structure mutually constituting each other. Accordingly, the political scientist Benedict Anderson defined nations as collective bodies that emerge when people imagine them.
During the Cold War, the predominant view held by the actors was that the world was divided ideologically between Capitalism and Socialism, and that all other major conflicts stemmed from that.
Thus, conflicts between the West and the Middle East were perceived as embedded into that ideological structure. S foreign policy. The aforementioned definition of paradigm by Thomas Kuhn ties nicely into this constructivist view.
He stated that paradigms do not need to be scientifically accurate, but believable. Hence, it did not matter for Huntington that his theory would not hold up to scientific scrutiny.
What mattered was that it was actionable. And actionable it was, as the aftermath of September 11 would come to prove. Albeit most often implicitly, the concept of a civilizational clash has since then been prominent in public discourses by politicians and the media [38] not only in the United States but all over the world.
The National Rally party in France, the Alternative for Germany party in Germany, the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident movement [39] and even al Qaeda are good examples of international actors that base their ideology around Huntingtonian values. Both worldviews — Orientalism and Occidentalism — have existed long before Huntington or even Lewis published their assessments of an impending civilizational clash.
With that aim, I will perform a case study on the public discourses of the United States and the Islamic State. The U. Bush, nor his successor, Barack Obama, publicly identified the conflicts as a civilizational clash. Underlying all those values there was a firm belief in the superiority of the West and its irrefutable clash with an inferior — and dangerous — civilization. This danger stemmed from a lack of shared values, which were clearly hierarchised in favour of the West, and from an inexplicable hatred arising from the so-called enemy.
Hence, his election highlights the pervasiveness of this sort of belief among the American population and is also a clear example of how shared beliefs guide policies and actions that, once implemented, bring about an actual clash. By entering the civilizational repertoire and labelling the West as an unworthy enemy, the group both reifies and homogenises its identity and constructs a dichotomous moral worldview, where the in-group is good and right, and the out-group is bad and wrong.
Baele et al. Their main finding was that the West is unambiguously identified as a major civilizational enemy, characterised fundamentally by being sinful, uncivilized and taken by material and animalistic values. Regarding Western aggression, the media repeatedly mentions the torture and killing of Muslims, and the invasion of Arab lands, calling every Muslim to take revenge as a matter of personal obligation. For the faithful Muslim, there are only two solutions: either join the IS in its territory or attack the West from within.
This discourse is used mainly to further political aims, radicalise its audiences and, additionally, encourage violence against the imagined enemy. The examples of the United States and the Islamic State discussed above are only some of the most prominent ones, but this belief in an inevitable clash of civilisations is all-pervasive in contemporary extremist politics and is evident in a multitude of other institutions, such as the National Rally party in France, the Alternative for Germany party and the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident movement, for example.
Analytical exercises such as the ones undertaken in this article are important because they demonstrate how the idea of a civilizational clash is used to divert attention from real issues, such as the true causes of terrorism, for example; to manipulate the population in order to obtain a specific political outcome; and to counter-productively exacerbate polarization and conflicts [86].
Anderson, Benedict. Verso, Baele, Stephane J. Boyd, and Travis G. Buruma, Ian, and Avishai Margalit. Penguin, CNN, Andrew Kaczynski. Accessed April 28, Emmons, Alex, and Lee Fang. FOX 10 Phoenix. Haynes, Jeffrey. Huntington, Samuel P. Simon and Schuster, McCarthy, Tom. US news. Osborn, Major Alex. Ranjan, Priyansh. Sultan, Ahmad, and Fahmy. Theys, Sarina. Thomas, Kelly Devine. TPM TV. Trump, Donald. Wendt, A. Said, Orientalism Penguin Books India, , 2.
This chapter takes a different approach and starts from a different methodological presupposition inspired by the British philosopher and historian of political thought Michael Oakeshott. While trying to present to readers the political and moral thought of Thomas Hobbes, Oakeshott claimed that in order to understand a text in political philosophy one should place it in the context of the history of that discipline , — In so doing, it would be possible to highlight those elements that escape from the contingencies and the darkness of the time in which philosophers were writing.
Of course, in the case of a thinker so embedded in his time such as Huntington, it may appear as a bold claim to affirm the presence of theoretical elements of his thought detached from its time and place.
At first glance, it seems that Huntington was more interested in offering advice to the American political elite, than to contribute to the theoretical understanding of international affairs. The questions that a book such as The Clash of Civilizations asks are indeed of a practical sort. These, I contend, are the elements that still appeal to readers from both the academic world and the general public. I claim that his thought can be seen in continuity with the realist tradition in International Relations and as one of the most prominent and strong critical critiques of utopianism in international political thought.
Realism is indeed one of the most recognizable voices in international political thought and is still holding center stage in the study of contemporary international affairs see the contributions in Orsi, Avgustin, Nurnus Historians of international political thought agree in identifying two sorts of realisms: classical and structural. The former starts with Thucydides and continues with thinkers such as Machiavelli, Hobbes, E.
To this end it is worth highlighting some of the main ideas that define the identity of classical realism in the philosophical reflection on international affairs. According to this view, all humans are embedded in changing contexts with no certain guide.
This conception is linked to a profound critique of all forms of universalism, according to which it is possible, by the use of reason, to reach universal moral truths. The tragedy of the human condition also lies in its inescapability.
Neither human reason nor universal moral law can come to the rescue of human beings. At the same time, human nature is conceived of as self-interested. Human nature shapes the character of any human activity and, most of all, of politics. However, this condition is even worse in international politics. It is indeed in the international realm that the real nature of politics appears in all its force. For example, this fundamental idea is at the center of the political theory of one of the most important realist thinkers of the twentieth century: Hans Morgenthau.
To this end, he applied to the study of politics the ideas of his teacher, the German legal philosopher Carl Schmitt. That this is the character of politics is well represented in the description of the state of nature by Hobbes. For Schmitt, there is no distinction between politics and war and indeed politics is the continuation of war by other means Foucault Conflict is a constant feature of human history, and of international history in particular.
As a consequence, as shown by Machiavelli but also by other realist thinkers, the only morality in politics is that identified with expediency and prudence and with the interest of the political community. Good politicians are those who protect their state and increase its power.
One of the characters defining this tendency is the aversion against the hope for universal moral truths such as that about the existence of universal rights to be a guide for political action. Moreover, anti-pelagianism fights against the belief that human history displays progress. Of course anti-pelagianism is not exclusively a character of realist international thought and many liberal theorists, starting with Judith Shklar, share distrust in utopian thinking Rengger , Chapter six.
However, it is fair to say that the polemical targets of many classical realist thinkers were the utopian projects of their own times. If we look again, as an example, at Hans Morgenthau, we see that he criticized international liberalism in world politics. Its fault is not to acknowledge the centrality of power in politics and the ubiquity of evil in the world To recapitulate, classical realist thinkers ground their argument on a tragic conception of human nature, and on the idea that international politics is essentially characterized by anarchy and war.
Their positions often present a critique of utopianism and of the idea that international politics may be constrained by law or ethical principles, and is animated by a progress towards the best. The historical events following the unexpected dissolution of the Soviet Union were redesigning world history and putting to the test established theories of international relations. A first aspect to clarify is that this does not equate to saying that before the end of the USSR and during the Cold War culture and ideas were irrelevant or did not enter the equation explaining international conflicts.
It rather means that the origin and reasons of war would not be the underlining competition between superpowers — a competition that during the Cold War was not just material, but also ideological — but rather the conflict between incommensurable ways of seeing the world and ways of life, those shaped by civilizations.
This character of history was, however, hidden under the more apparent and manifest conflict between the two superpowers and their allies.
My contention in this chapter is that this vision of world politics can be better understood when seen in the context of the realist and anti-pelagian tradition in international political thought. In the civilizational paradigm, states are still important, and power politics is still shaping their actions. However, these should be conceived within certain frames of reference: civilizations. In the post-Cold War era, civilizations, and in particular their religious aspects, are the source of identity and meaning for a growing numbers of individuals and groups.
Therefore, they shape the decisions of states and the study of international affairs should take this into account. In a sense, power and interest still guide international agents, but these are defined by cultural framework. There is a priority of culture over interest and power.
The fact that agents define their interests through the vocabulary and ideas offered by their civilization is not the only aspect of structural realism that is criticized by Huntington. These, as well as alliances between states, are more and more shaped by civilizations. The civilizational paradigm is not recognized in the founding documents of the European Union and, in particular, in the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe European Union ratified in Writers of that legal text chose not to cite European religious identity and rather mention other principles such as the rule of law.
However, much of the discussion in the years of the drafting process of the Constitution for Europe revolved around the place of Christianity in the European identity see Eriksen, Fossum and Menendez , and this is how the civilizational perspective was present in that political debate.
In sum, Huntington criticized the structural realist paradigm by affirming the priority of culture over interest and power as the core of international politics, and by arguing that, in the new era, states were losing their centrality in favor of alliances and organizations based on shared civilizational values. In this view, the world would have been united under one sole way of life and system of values: those inspired by liberal-democracy and by Western ideas.
This conception is one of the many universalist political theories inspired by the idea of progress. Given the failure of all systems of ideas alternative to liberalism, history had reached its end Fukuyama Another version of this view is represented by cosmopolitan theories of international politics according to which boundaries and particularist allegiances are morally irrelevant.
From the increasing economic cooperation among states, communities and individuals follows the existence of a universal society in which burdens and benefits should be distributed and in which there are indeed universal human rights that are valid, beyond, and in spite of, all government bodies and legal recognitions of them Pogge , 2.
The paradigm advanced by Huntington is opposed to this optimist vision of world politics and advances objection to the view that conflict can be overcome. In general, the very idea of a world in which there is a plurality of civilizations is opposed to the notion that there is one and only one human civilization.
Not only is a universal civilization based on Western values impossible, but the instauration of a global democracy is also doomed to failure Huntington , Liberal universalist projects are, after all, imperialist and overlook cultural differences in the world.
There is an irreducible cultural pluralism in the world, an irresolvable disagreement on fundamental values. There is no lingua franca among civilizations, and democracy and human rights are meaningful to the West but not to the rest.
What is important is that these differences are also the source of conflict and the reason world unity remains impossible. Instead of seeing history as a history of progress, with a bright future in which culture merges and peace advances, Huntington sees world politics as determined by the omnipresence of conflict. As in other realist writers, at the ground of this understanding there is a negative vision of human nature. As Huntington writes,.
It is human to hate. For self-definition and motivation people need enemies: competitors in business, rivals in achievement, opponents in politics.
They naturally distrust and see as threats those who are different and have the capability to harm them. The resolution of one conflict and the disappearance of one enemy generate personal, social, and political forces that give rise to new ones.
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