The
'Clash of Civilizations' is an controversial article by
Samuel P. Huntington in the journal
Foreign Affairs in 1993 in which he argued that the primarily political actors in the 21st century will be civilizations and that the primary conflicts will be conflict between civilizations rather than between nation-states. The article was written in response to the idea by
Francis Fukuyama that the world was approaching the
end of history in which western liberal democracy would prove triumphant.
Huntington later expanded this thesis in his 1996 book The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order[?].
- The Clash of Civilizations (http://www.alamut.com/subj/economics/misc/clash.html), text of the original essay
- The True Clash of Civilizations (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/story.php?storyID=13562#bio0), by Ronald Inglehart[?] and Pippa Norris[?], Foreign Policy 2003. This article discusses recent surveys of opinions in predominantly Islamic nations and claims that the real rift between civilizations does not concern the question of democracy (which is generally approved) but rather the attitudes towards sexuality and gender equality. Those societies that do not tolerate self-expression, it argues, are unlikely to become stable democracies.