It’s Ideology, Stupid
Why Huntington's clash of civilizations thesis is even more wrong today than it was 1993.
The end of the Cold War came as a shock to many in the liberal democratic world. While U.S. intelligence agencies recognized that the Soviet system was in a state of decline in the 1980s, it would have been impossible to predict the speed and scale of the USSR’s collapse. Many American policymakers and analysts regarded the bipolar confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union as a permanent feature of the geopolitical landscape. And when that confrontation came to an end, it was difficult to predict the shape of the world to come.
But there were those who boldly attempted to do so. The Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington argued in 1993 that “fault lines between civilizations are replacing the political and ideological boundaries of the Cold War as the flash points for crisis and bloodshed.” This was Huntington’s famous “clash of civilizations” thesis, which predicted that global anarchy would emerge as a result of tension between eight different civilizations: “Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly African.” He argued that insuperable cultural, religious, and political differences between these civilizations would inevitably lead to conflict.
Several assumptions underpinned Huntington’s argument, one of which was the idea that certain “civilizations” are fundamentally less capable of adopting liberal democratic principles and institutions than others. Huntington was partly responding to Francis Fukuyama’s thesis that the world was witnessing the “universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government” after the Cold War. Fukuyama acknowledged that the process of democratization was by no means smooth or inevitable—there are, of course, cultural and institutional impediments to liberal democracy in many countries. But he did not share Huntington’s view that these impediments are insurmountable, nor did he believe the world is destined to descend into a state of perpetual civilizational conflict.
This disagreement resonates today more than ever. To what do people hold more allegiance: civilization or ideology? There’s a lot riding on the answer to this question. The rise of China and its confrontation with the United States, the return of Russian imperialism, and many other global developments—not least the war in Iran—seem to support the idea of permanent civilizational conflict.
But if we take a deeper look at the past few decades, a different picture emerges. The major conflict today isn’t between rival “ethnic identities and animosities”—it’s between liberal democracy and its enemies, two camps that do not map neatly onto culturally-defined “civilizations.”
Take Taiwan. Huntington argued that “with the Cold War over, cultural commonalities increasingly overcome ideological differences, and mainland China and Taiwan [are moving] closer together.” He thought a similar convergence would happen with Hong Kong. But Taiwan has jealously guarded its autonomy since the 1990s and aligned with the democratic West instead of Beijing. Hong Kong remains a special administrative region of China after gaining its independence from Great Britain in 1997, and Beijing has been forced to use increasingly draconian tactics to enforce its “one country, two systems” policy and limit the city’s de jure autonomy. If Huntington were right, Sino solidarity would trump the democratic ambitions of Taiwan and Hong Kong. But that has not happened.
The same is true in Europe. Huntington argued that the “Velvet Curtain of culture” had “replaced the Iron Curtain of ideology as the most significant dividing line.” This line separated the Orthodox world from Western Christianity, which meant Ukraine would side with Russia against liberal democratic Europe. “In 1991 and 1992,” Huntington wrote, “many people were alarmed by the possibility of violent conflict between Russia and Ukraine … If civilization is what counts, however, the likelihood of violence between Ukrainians and Russians should be low.”
It would be difficult to imagine a more direct refutation of a thesis than Huntington’s mistaken assumption that Ukraine and Russia wouldn’t go to war because they share cultural, religious, and historical ties. In 2014, Ukrainians revolted against their pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, who abandoned an association agreement with the EU in favor of closer ties with Moscow. Yanukovych was removed from office after Ukrainian security forces fired on protesters, and Russia annexed Crimea shortly thereafter. Ukraine’s rejection of Russia also precipitated the proxy war in Donbas—a prelude to the full invasion in February 2022.
Part of the reason Huntington considered war between Ukraine and Russia unlikely is that he believed “Western ideas” such as “individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets, [and] the separation of church and state” have “little resonance in Islamic, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist or Orthodox cultures.” But Ukrainians have an Orthodox culture, and they’re fighting the largest conflict on European soil since World War II to assert their right to liberty and democracy. Japanese culture hasn’t proved to be an impediment to democratization, the rule of law, free markets, or any of the “Western ideas” Huntington listed, either. And earlier this year, millions of Iranians took to the streets to demand their rights and a return to a Western facing form of government.
Huntington was wrong: the world didn’t enter a post-ideological age after the Cold War. Instead, the “political and ideological boundaries” shifted. The central conflict today is between liberal democracy and authoritarianism, both abroad and, crucially, within the borders of democratic countries.
The forces of authoritarianism are strong. China has proven that a partially market-based authoritarian system is capable of securing dramatic economic growth. American voters, meanwhile, elected Trump twice, and his primary political project is the destruction of democratic norms and institutions that served as checks on his power. All those liberal democratic qualities that Huntington said have “little resonance” in other civilizations—individual rights, the rule of law, liberalism, and so forth—turned out to have little resonance for millions of Americans when they reelected Trump.
The American administration is also working tirelessly to destroy the liberal democratic global order that was established after World War II. Trump recently declared that ongoing American military support to Taiwan is a bargaining chip in future negotiations with Beijing and said he was “not looking to have somebody go independent” with the assumption of American protection. Nor is Trump interested in challenging Putin’s bid for hegemony in Eastern Europe. After cutting off the vast majority of U.S. military support to Ukraine, Trump has repeatedly tried to force Kyiv to accept settlements that are extremely favorable to Moscow.
Ideology, it seems, matters more than “civilization.” We must challenge Huntington’s thesis and accept that the great clash of today is between liberal democracy and the forces working tirelessly to destroy it—wherever they are found.
Matt Johnson is an essayist and the author of How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment.
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