![]() The war in Bosnia is put into this category of civilizational conflicts by the author 4. These conflicts are characterized by longer duration and more violence than interstate warfare. Although such wars can be carried out between countries, Huntington underlines the fact that such conflicts are more likely to occur inside states which bridge different civilizations (cleft states). These wars involve nations, people or other groups of different civilizational provenance. He nevertheless also devotes attention to the aforementioned fault line wars. 6 Quoted from Zimmermann (Warren), « Last Chance for Bosnia ? », The New York Review of Books, 18 (2 (.)ĥIn the forefront of the analysis offered in Clash of Civilizations stand conflicts between the leading countries, so-called core countries, of each civilization.Instead nation, as well as civilization, might serve as a mobilizing ideology for conflict.ĤFinally one will have to highlight how dangerously close Huntington comes to being an apologist for ethnic cleansing, and how he presents a grossly distorted picture of Islam, especially in the case of Bosnia. Furthermore, just like civilizations, nationalism as a reason for conflict is neither monolithic nor could it be described as a simple cause and effect relationship. In particular it will point out how the author neglects nationalism as a driving force for conflict. This papers aims at highlighting the fundamental flaws in Huntington’s theory in regards to Bosnia and former Yugoslavia. ![]() Furthermore, the Bosnian war superficially seems to fit nicely into concepts developed by the political scientist at Harvard. This is partly because he himself offers Bosnia as an example of one of his key concepts, “fault line” wars. The war in Bosnia and elsewhere in former Yugoslavia nevertheless can be seen as a good tool for the testing the validity of the theory and detecting mistakes. At the center of Huntington’s concept of civilizations stands religion :« To a very large degree, the major civilizations in human history have been closely identified with the world’s great religions and people who share ethnicity and language but differ in religion may slaughter each other, as happened in Lebanon, the former Yugoslavia, and the Subcontinent » 3.ģIt lies beyond the scope of this paper to present a general analysis or critique of Huntington’s clash of civilizations. Huntington thus places civilization above narrower terms such as nation or language. Civilization describes the way of life of a group. He describes conflicts between civilizations as the prime source of conflict after the end of the Cold War. 3 Huntington (Samuel P.), The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York : Simo (.)ĢAt the center of Huntington’s theory stands the concept of civilization.Huntington’s theory is also the academic articulation of a number of more crude journalistic explanations for conflicts between the West and mainly the Islamic world, as well as in former Yugoslavia 2. As far as it also touches upon inner-state conflicts, its implications reach beyond international relations. The appeal of Huntington’s theory is the attempt to develop an all-encompassing theoretical construct, which aims at explaining not only the conflicts of the present and future, but also at describing the key features of the international political system. While his book as been meet mostly with criticism in the academic world, it managed to successfully enter mainstream political discourse like few other “scientific” theories. ![]() Three years later the book with the same title, bar the question mark, appeared, followed by a renewal of the controversial debates. The man in the Bagdad café », (.)ġSamuel Huntington’s article « The Clash of Civilizations ? », published in Foreign Affairs in Summer 1993, resulted in heated debates to an extent rarely seen in response to an article in academia 1.
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