Huntington's Clash of Civilization Thesis

Between 1890 and 1990, geopolitical theorists largely focused on conflict between countries, but the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to a reorganization of geopolitical theories. Shortly after the Soviet Union dissolved, political scientist Francis Fukuyama published The End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama viewed the Soviet Union collapse as a sign of future progress in political systems. Like Karl Marx, he argued that history is a process where societies evolve from one political system to another more advanced type of system. Unlike Marx, he argued that the final step in this evolutionary process was liberal democracy. To Fukuyama, the fall of the Soviet Union marked the end of war between states and resulted in the supremacy of western liberal democracies.

His analysis of international geopolitics was praised by the popular press but several outspoken critics argued that Fukuyama’s thesis failed to consider the power of ethnic loyalties and religious fundamentalism as a counter-force to the spread of liberal democracy. One of his leading critics was Samuel P. Huntington, Professor of Political Science at Harvard and deputy director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies. In response to Fukuyama’s book, Huntington published an article in Foreign Affairs magazine titled “Clash of Civilizations?”

In his article, Huntington agreed with Fukuyama that war would no longer be fought between nation-states, but he argued that a new type of struggle would develop. The fall of the Soviet Union left a power vacuum in Asia, resulting in the rise of extremist groups based on ethnic and religious authority. Huntington argued that this would ultimately lead to a clash of civilizations between the west and east.

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