My presentation for the course Political Economy of Nationalism and Globalism at Central European University: "Civilizations, their nature and clash possibilities

1. Civilizations, their nature
and clash possibilities
Rashad Mehbaliyev
MA in Economics, 2nd
year
Political Economy of Nationalism and Globalism

2. 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.]

3. 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)

4. 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)

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. Different fault lines between
civilizations during history (2)

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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.

11. Conflicts and violence within the
same civilizations?
Huntington (1993): Yes!
- Russia and Ukraine over Crimea;
- Caucasus;
- Balkan.

12. 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

13. 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