The death of Huntington unfortunately does not mean an end to his legacy. Over the Christmas holidays one of the leading theorists of international relations, Samuel P. Huntington, died at age 81. Huntington is perhaps most well known for his work “The Clash of Civilizations”, both as an article (“The Clash of Civilizations?”) published in Foreign Affairs magazine in 1993 and as an expanded version of this hypothesis in his book “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order” a few years later. Although the author of these works may have died, the thoughts behind them looks set to carry for some time to come – much to the detriment of most people on the planet.

In effect, the main shortcoming of Huntington is his failure to appreciate the significance behind globalization, noting that “the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic.” This is where Huntington makes his biggest mistake: the source of present conflicts is the influence of globalization, a process which is primarily both economic and ideological; culture, on the other hand, is one of the prime instruments by which this new form of imperialism is exported to the rest of the world.

 

In essence, what Huntington advocated in his analysis of the post Cold War world is nothing more than a modern version of apartheid, one that spans countries and continents and is bound together by the perception of a common “civilization”. This modern version of apartheid was perhaps driven by what ultimately happened to apartheid in South Africa.

The death of Huntington unfortunately does not mean an end to his legacy. Over the Christmas holidays one of the leading theorists of international relations, Samuel P. Huntington, died at age 81. Huntington is perhaps most well known for his work “The Clash of Civilizations”, both as an article (“The Clash of Civilizations?”) published in Foreign Affairs magazine in 1993 and as an expanded version of this hypothesis in his book “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order” a few years later. Although the author of these works may have died, the thoughts behind them looks set to carry for some time to come – much to the detriment of most people on the planet.

In effect, the main shortcoming of Huntington is his failure to appreciate the significance behind globalization, noting that “the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic.” This is where Huntington makes his biggest mistake: the source of present conflicts is the influence of globalization, a process which is primarily both economic and ideological; culture, on the other hand, is one of the prime instruments by which this new form of imperialism is exported to the rest of the world.

 

In essence, what Huntington advocated in his analysis of the post Cold War world is nothing more than a modern version of apartheid, one that spans countries and continents and is bound together by the perception of a common “civilization”. This modern version of apartheid was perhaps driven by what ultimately happened to apartheid in South Africa.