Civilisational conflict? Looking for cultural enemies.

This article discusses some of the key points of the essay "The Clash of Civilizations?," by Samuel Huntington and some of the responses it has provoked. It uses this discussion as a vehicle to reflect on the role of civilizations in international relations. It suggests that civilizational identity is a powerful force in world politics. However, to view inter-civilizational relations as primarily relations of conflict, and to accept unquestioningly the rhetoric of inter-civilizational conflict can be misleading and unnecessarily narrows the understanding of the significance of inter-civilizational relations for international affairs. The adoption of a broader perspective in the study of inter-civilizational relations is surely called for. This would treat civilizations as complex, fluid and dynamic entities which evolve both in response to internal dynamics, and to interaction with other cultures.