CLASHING ON THE FAULT LINES
Dr Alex Braithwaite
BOOK REVIEW
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. By Samuel
P. Huntington. London: The Free Press, Simon & Schuster, 2002. Pp.
367. £9.99 (paper); ISBN-10: 074323149x.
IPPR Volume 5 Number 1 (October 2009)
pp. 71-74
© 2009
International Public Policy Review • The Department of Political Science
The Rubin Building 29/30 • Tavistock Square • London • WC1 9QU
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CLASHING ON THE FAULT LINES
BOOK REVIEW
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. By Samuel P. Huntington.
London: The Free Press, Simon & Schuster, 2002. Pp. 367. £9.99 (paper); ISBN-10:
074323149x.
It is closing in on two decades since Samuel P. Huntington first published his
civilization-based theory of post-Cold War conflict. He then expanded upon this in his
1996 book. So why is it that we are now reviewing this text a further 13 years on?
Huntington passed away on Christmas Eve of 2008. At that time, many suggested that
his Clash of Civilizations hypothesis might pass, too. Very recently, Nobel Laureate
Amartya Sen identified Huntington’s hypothesis as an example of the kind of inadequate
theories of violence that have gained widespread support and run the danger of having us
continually oversimplify our understanding of violence in society.1 He argued that we
should choose, instead, to engage in a global debate about the multitude of complex
causes of the various forms of violence that plague our societies. Yet, just two days after
Sen’s speech, President Barack Obama laid out an important aspect of his foreign policy
strategy in his Address to the Muslim World.2 This speech would appear, on the face of
it, to vindicate Huntington’s simple characterization of the post-Cold War world; in
essence, Obama was acknowledging that the West is in some kind of stand off with its
Muslim counterparts.
This review is designed, therefore, to offer a brief assessment of the potential
value of Huntington’s model of post-Cold War politics as a guide to the post-9/11
environment. At the heart of his thesis, Huntington noted that the vacuum of post-Cold
War politics would be short-lived; that the ideological battle that had defined divisions
between humankind in the years since the rise of communism and fascism in the wake of
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1
A. Sen, “Violence in Society”, (University College London. Lecture, 2009 Global Citizenship Lecture
Series. June 2, 2009).
2
B. Obama, “Address to the Muslim World”, (University of Cairo, Egypt. Lecture, June 4, 2009).
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the Great War were already being replaced by divisions along the lines that separate
civilizations. In detailing the implications of this bold assertion, Huntington stated very
clearly that the most significant fault line,
runs along what are now the boundaries between Finland and Russia and
between the Baltic states and Russia, cuts through Belarus and Ukraine…,
swings westward separating Transylvania from the rest of Romania, and
then goes through Yugoslavia almost exactly along the line now
separating Croatia and Slovenia from the rest of Yugoslavia…The peoples
to the north and west of this line are Protestant and Catholic…; they are
generally economically better off than the peoples to the east…The
peoples to the east and south of this line are Orthodox or Muslim…; they
are generally less advanced economically; they seem much less likely to
develop stable democratic political systems. 3
Writing in the early-to-mid 1990s, it was not exactly prescient to highlight the
potential for conflict in the Balkans. However, in the years since, tensions have been
heightened there and elsewhere along this and other fault lines between civilizations.
Hostilities over territorial control of Kashmir have been recurrent; Russia has engaged
militarily with Chechen and Georgian populations in the Trans-Caucus region and feuded
with Ukraine (and indirectly, much of the rest of Europe) over energy supplies. IsraeliPalestinian violence has, rather unsurprisingly, continued to erupt but also been
accompanied by increased Western involvement in the Middle East and Central Asia.
Notably, many of the transnational conflicts that appear to be defining our twentyfirst Century experience have occurred on or very close to the fault lines between
civilizations. Yet, surprisingly little empirical research has focused upon this inherent
geography underlying the Huntingtonian hypothesis.
Initial tests of the hypothesis,
focusing upon whether or not warring countries were both neighbouring and of different
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3
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S. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs Vol. 72, no. 3 (1993): 30-31.
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civilizations tended to return no statistically significant findings.4 Such studies were
typically undermined, however, by their minimal conceptualisation of geography. They
would simply tend to include an interaction term of two dummy variables—one
measuring similarity or difference in civilization, a second indicating whether or not the
two parties in conflict share a land border. At no point did these studies seek to identify
where conflict had broken out.
With the recent collection and publication of data on the precise locations of
conflicts5 as well as the distribution of populations of ethnic groups, 6 now may be the
ideal time to more robustly test the validity of Huntington’s inherently geographic fault
line hypothesis. Pending the publication of any such results, it may be difficult to offer
any credible, categorical assessment of Huntington’s claims. It does seem, however, as if
there is reason to suspect that those that were quick to dismiss Huntington may wish to
reconsider their judgement.
Alex Braithwaite‡
REFERENCES
Braithwaite, A. “Location, Location, Location…Identifying Conflict Hot Spots.”
International Interactions Vol. 31, no. 4 (2005): 251-272.
Buhaug, H., and Gates, S.. “The Geography of Civil War.” Journal of Peace Research
Vol. 39, no. 4 (2007): 417-433.
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4
See, e.g., B. Russett, J. Oneal, and M. Cox, “Clash of Civilizations or Realism and Liberalism Déjà vu?”
Journal of Peace Research Vol. 37, no. 5 (2000).
5
H. Buhaug and S. Gates, “Beyond Fractionalization: Mapping Ethnicity onto Nationalist Insurgencies,”
American Political Science Review Vol. 101, no. 1 (2007); A. Braithwaite, “Location, Location,
Location…Identifying Conflict Hot Spots,” International Interactions Vol. 31, no. 4 (2005).
6
L-E. Cederman and L. Giradin, “Beyond Fractionalization: Mapping Ethnicity onto Nationalist
Insurgencies,” American Political Science Review Vol. 101, no. 1 (2007).
‡
Lecturer in International Relations in the Department of Political Science at the School of Public Policy,
University College London.
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Cederman, L.-E., and Girardin, L.. “Beyond Fractionalization: Mapping Ethnicity onto
Nationalist Insurgencies.” American Political Science Review Vol. 101, no. 1
(2007): 173-185.
Henderson, E., and Tucker, R. “Clear and Present Strangers: The Clash of Civilizations
and International Conflict.” International Studies Quarterly Vol. 45, no. 2 (2001):
317-338.
Huntington, S. P. “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs Vol. 72, no. 3 (1993): 2249.
_______. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. London: The
Free Press, Simon & Schuster, 2002.
Obama, B. “Address to the Muslim World”, University of Cairo, Egypt. Lecture. June 4,
2009.
Russett, B., Oneal, J. & Cox, M. “Clash of Civilizations or Realism and Liberalism Deja
Vu?” Journal of Peace Research Vol. 37, no. 5 (2000): 583-608.
Sen, A. ““Violence in Society”, University College London. Lecture. 2009 Global
Citizenship Lecture Series. June 2, 2009.
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