The Clash of Civilizations and How Development Leads to Democracy - Assignment Example

Essay The Clash of Civilizations As the global politics has entered a new phase after the end of theCold War in the early 1990s, the primary source of conflict in the modern world will not be basically economic or ideological; instead, greater clashes among humankind and the major source of clashes will be cultural. Even though nation states will hold the status of powerful actors in global politics, the fundamental clashes on an international level will occur between states and groups of various civilizations (Huntington 22-23). In other words, the future global politics will be dominated by the clash of civilizations. Rather than ideology, politics, or economical fault lines, the conflicts between different civilizations will be the potential battle lines. This is the main thesis of Samuel Huntington’s most popular article, “The Clash of Civilization” (Huntington 22-49). According to the Huntington’s point of view, interstate relationships in the post-Cold War era will be mainly influenced by the factors of civilizations. As the nation remains the main actor on a global level, its interests, behavior, and integrity will be based on its civilizational background (Huntington 22-28). In other words, potential corporations and conflicts will exist within civilizations is the major speculation of Huntington about the future of global politics. Huntington claimed that in the new world, the most lethal, dangerous, and extensive conflicts won’t be between economic or social classes, but between people from different cultural backgrounds. According to the Huntington’s definition of civilization, it is the highest grouping and identity of people that distinguish individual from one another on the basis of cultural background. It is further characterized on the basis of cultural factors such as, religion, history, language, institutions, customs, and social background (Huntington 23-24). In a way, Huntington’s clash of civilizations theory is far different than the theories based on ethnic and nationalism arguments. Unlike such arguments, clash of civilization concept claims that the loyalties of people in today’s world are shifting from mere national, religious, or ethnic factors to the wider level of civilization backgrounds that transcend state boundaries. According to Huntington, today’s world is divided into eight major civilizations, namely, Western, Islamic, Latin America, Hindu, Confucian, Slavic-orthodox, Japanese, and African and ideological, political, and religious confrontations in the modern world will be actually based on the civilization factor at a micro level. Huntington has described this phenomenon as “the clash of civilizations” (Huntington 23-29). Samuel Huntington’s article, “The Clash of Civilizations” triggered widespread debate in the field of political and public affairs. Various scholars and academic researchers have widely criticized the Huntington’s perspective about the nature of conflicts in the modern world. According to critics, “The Clash of Civilization” consists of significant flaws in its methodological aspects, approach, discipline, and corresponding propositions. From the aspect of discipline, the article outlines a confusing type of analysis. A reader remains in constant confusion due to two primary reasons. First, the author avoided clearly representing own choice of discipline in the article and second, he borrowed concepts from various fields of disciple and tried to fit his conclusion. For instance, the concept of different civilizations is directly adopted from Anthropology, clashes between civilizations from Political Science, and concept of identity from Social Psychology (Ashraf 523-524). Further, approach-wise, Huntington is inconsistent in sticking with realist theory while dealing with the analysis of global power politics. According to the critics, Huntington oversimplified the concept of civilization by characterizing it with mere geographical boundaries. The concept of civilization is broader and greater entity and it is difficult to define it with mere the geographical element. For instance, Huntington’s geographical categorization of civilizations won’t be applicable to the Islamic civilization as it is not constrained with specific boundaries due to its universal nature. In today’s globalized world, many ethnic groups exist in different civilizations. The number of Muslim communities in the Western countries is rapidly growing day by day. Do they belong to the Islamic civilization or the Western civilization? The Huntington’s definition of different civilizations fails to answer the question (Ashraf 523-525). Another major criticism to the Huntington’s theory of clashes of civilization is its failure to recognize the nature of intra-state conflicts. In the article, Huntington has over emphasized civilizational differences. However, the conflicts such as, Karabakh-Nagorno, the Persian Gulf, and Bosnia are involved in same civilizations; but, they are different in nature, background, involved actors, and locality. In each of these conflicts, instead of civilizational clashes, national interests can be found as the root cause of the conflicts (Ashraf 523-525). Similar is the case of Ukraine-Russian conflict. In the article, Huntington claimed that the possibility of dispute between Ukraine and Russia to escalate into violent conflict were significantly low as both the groups were from same civilization with identical historical, cultural, political, and social background (Huntington 38). However, the Crimean crisis of 2015 has proved this claim completely wrong (Nelson). Further, the Huntington’s theory is widely criticized for its illustration of Islamic civilization as innately non-democratic and any attempts to promote democratic values in this civilization would anger the radical fundamentalists in the Islamic world. To support the claim, the author gave many examples of conflicts in Islamic would, especially the Iranian revolution of 1979. However, by turning cultures into space-less, timeless, and closed entities, the theory missed significant aspects of politics in those conflicts. For instance, the Iranian revolution was meant to establish democratic institution in the country and radical fundamental groups were in such a minority that it was highly unlikely that their candidate would secure even 6% of votes in the Presidential election. The fundamentalist became victories due to unfavorable global conditions (Delkhasteh). The prolonged Iran-Iraq war through the US President Reagan’s hidden relationship with the Iranian religious fundamentalist played a crucial role. Overall, Huntington failed to consider such factors. Overall, the majority of critics criticized Huntington mainly for molding the facts and presenting the data through partial analysis in order to strengthen the hypothesis (Delkhasteh). 2. How Development Leads to Democracy In the article, “How Development Leads to Democracy”, the authors, Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, have emphasized that democratic system tends to develop only when particular cultural and social changes occur. Modernization and economic growth are the underlying factors that trigger the required cultural and social changes in the right direction, making the emergence of democracy most likely. The authors further claim that the formation of democracy in the developing and third world countries is not based on one’s expressed desire to do so, but the democracy is born when these countries will manage to achieve the sustained economic growth and modernization, triggering the required conditions for development of democracy such as, mass political involvement, rise of self-expression values, secularization, and liberal changes in social and cultural environment (Inglehart and Welzel 33-41). Before presenting own perspective on the concept of modernization, the authors have analyzed fundamental flaws in traditional theories of modernization. During the 19th and 20th centuries, theory of modernization had two prominent versions based on the ideologies of communism and capitalism. According to the communist version of modernization theory, the dissolution of private wealth would abate inequality, exploitation and conflict, encouraging economic, social, and political development. On the contrary, the capitalist version of modernization theory claimed that economic growth would stimulate high living standards and the rise of democratic institutions. These two variants of modernization aggressively clashed with each other throughout the Cold War era. By the early 1980s, communism began to decline and neither modernization nor economic development was visible in developing states which adopted communist doctrine of modernization. Similarly, the failure of democratization attempts in Iraq and Afghanistan highlighted significant flaws in capitalist version of modernization. As the modernization theories based on communism and capitalism significantly failed, majority of critics declared the modernization theories dead (Inglehart and Welzel 33- 36). However, according to Inglehart and Welzel, since the early 1990s, the theory of modernization is revived and a new, revised form of modernization theory has evolved with clear indications for where economic growth and modernization are likely to lead (Inglehart and Welzel 34- 36). The authors claimed that even though the earlier versions of modernization theory possessed several flaws, their core hypothesis was correct, i.e., economic growth does influence mostly predictable but crucial changes in politics, culture, and society. But, the earlier theories failed to recognize that modernization is not straightforward; instead, the process consists of several inflection modes. While defining the modern concept of modernization, the authors have mentioned four important characteristics of it. First, different points of modernization bring different social changes. For instance, industrialization led to the rise of bureaucratization, secularization, and the switch from conventional to rational-secular values, while post-industrialization caused social changes which moved in different direction; instead of centralization and secularization, self-expression and individual autonomic values received more importance (Inglehart and Welzel 35). Second, even though economic development causes predictable changes in society’s ideologies and views, social-cultural transition is also dependent on historical background, society’s cultural heritage, and influence of religious ideologies on the society. Modernization doesn’t necessarily bring changes in ethnic and religious traditions. Cultural heritage is significantly enduring. Next, modernization doesn’t mean Westernization, unlike the typical stereotype in the earlier theories. Although the process of modernization began in the West, since the last few decades, the countries from the Eastern Asia, like Japan and South Korea, have shown the highest economic growth rate in the world. Also, the US can’t be considered an example of global cultural changes as it preserves most of its traditional values unlike newly modernized countries in the East Asia (Inglehart and Welzel 35-36). Fourth, democracy doesn’t emerge automatically from modernization. For instance, despite high GDP rate, democracy is absent in the UAE and Kuwait. Rather, modernization triggers cultural and social changes that encourage the development of democracy in the long run (Inglehart and Welzel 36-37). In the article, the authors emphasized the importance of modernization for development of democracy in any country. Remarkable differences are found in the worldviews of people from low-income societies and high-come societies. These differences distinguish between two primary aspects: conventional versus secular values, and survival versus individual autonomy and self-expression values (Inglehart and Welzel 35-39). The shift from traditional values to secular values is associated with the development from agricultural civilization to industrial civilization. With the progress in industrial era, traditional values, conservative mentality, and extreme religious norms become more rational and secular. Further, the progress into postindustrial era triggers the switch from survival values to self-expression values in the society. Self-expression and individual autonomy values give top preference to basic human rights, freedom of expression, increased involvement in politics and decision-making, gender quality, protection of environment, and growing tolerance towards LGBT community (Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgender), foreigners, and ethnic minorities (Inglehart and Welzel 37-39). The growing promotion of these values creates a liberal culture of tolerance and trust in which society gives high priority to self-expression and individual freedom and possesses active political orientation. According to the authors, these elements are essential to democracy. In a way, it explains how economic growth, which causes societal progress from agrarian era to industrial era and further form industrial era to post-industrial era, triggers democracy. The economic development brings socio-cultural changes in the society as economic security allows people to give importance to other values like, self-expression, civil rights, and political activeness rather than mere struggling for economic and physical security. In other words, modernization is favorable to democracy (Inglehart and Welzel 38). With modernization, education level in the society increases; also, it moves the work force from labor works to professions that demand independent thinking-ability, developing more intellectual and articulate society. In knowledge society, individuals become more habitual to use their own judgment and decision-making skills and encourage them to actively participate in politics and social movements for protecting own rights and freedom. Basically, the desire for autonomy and freedom is the universal basic human aspiration which is often suppressed under the needs of economic and physical security. When these needs are fulfilled with modernization, the basic aspiration for autonomy and freedom takes the topmost priority, causing the development of democratic institutions in the society (Inglehart and Welzel 37-40). In a way, the authors have explained the role of modernization in development of democracy. Works Cited Ashraf, Mian Muhammad Tahir. “The Clash of Civilizations? A Critique.” Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences (PJSS) 32.2 (2012): 521-527. Web. 3 Jul. 2015. Delkhasteh, Mahmood. “Clash of Civilizations Discredited.” The Huffington Post. 25 May 2011. Web. 3 Jul. 2015. Huntington, Samuel. “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 1993: 22-49. Web. 3 Jul. 2015. Inglehart, Ronald and Christian Welzel. “How Development Leads to Democracy: What We Know about Modernization Today.” Foreign Affairs 2009: 33-41. Web. 3 Jul. 2015. Nelson, Tim. “Ukraine and imperialism.” International Socialist (IS) Network. 19 Apr. 2014. Web. 3 Jul. 2015. Read More