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I don't teach "Clash of Civilizations" in my Quantitative Security course.
But if I did, it would go like this... [THREAD]
But if I did, it would go like this... [THREAD]
Huntington states his argument very clearly and it is an empirical claim about the causes of conflict 
After Huntington, others sought to test the claim. They include Bruce Russett & John Oneal & Michaelene Cox in @JPR_journal...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
These studies all found the "Clash of Civilization" claim unsupported.
Admittedly, if we are strict about Huntington's claim, not all of the evidence brought forward by these studies is relevant. Specifically, Huntington was clear that he is only talking about the post-Cold War
Admittedly, if we are strict about Huntington's claim, not all of the evidence brought forward by these studies is relevant. Specifically, Huntington was clear that he is only talking about the post-Cold War
That's why it's worth focusing on the @YesEAHenderson study in International Politics.
Henderson points out that Huntington himself dismisses most of the above studies for not taking seriously his "Post-Cold War" claim
Henderson points out that Huntington himself dismisses most of the above studies for not taking seriously his "Post-Cold War" claim
So Henderson does take it seriously (though, of course, data were still limited as of 2005). Moreover, he takes seriously Huntington's request to look at intra-state conflicts
What does Henderson find? Well, not much evidence for a Clash of Civilizations in the context of intra-state wars
Of course, all of the above studies, including Henderson's, depend on identifying "wars" and identifying "civilizations".
Coding the former has been a long and painstaking process, as discussed here:
Coding the former has been a long and painstaking process, as discussed here:
But what about "civilizations"?
Huntington offers a definition by saying "civilization is a cultural entity". But his definition doesn't really become any more precise than that:
Huntington offers a definition by saying "civilization is a cultural entity". But his definition doesn't really become any more precise than that:
To his credit, Huntington does attempt to directly code civilizations.
It seems that he based his coding on Arnold Tonybee's "A Study of History"
books.google.com/books/about/A_…
It seems that he based his coding on Arnold Tonybee's "A Study of History"
books.google.com/books/about/A_…
Huntington starts by saying that that of the 21 civilizations identified by Tonybee, only 6 exist today. But then Huntington produces a map in his 1996 book with 9 civilizations, not 6. So maybe he didn't use Tonybee? 🤷♂️
@YesEAHenderson and Tucker used this map to make a concrete list suitable for analysis.
Conveniently, Chiozza made the interstate dyadic version of that list available on his webpage:
chiozza.org
Conveniently, Chiozza made the interstate dyadic version of that list available on his webpage:
chiozza.org
The data look like this (where the first observation is for the US and Canada, while the second observation is for the US and Cuba):
But these data largely use Huntington's data. As pointed out above, it's not really clear the basis of Huntington's coding of "Civilization".
I mean, Huntington's map of looks like a Cold War world map (a point raised by Katzenstein):
I mean, Huntington's map of looks like a Cold War world map (a point raised by Katzenstein):
Huntington's map also looks a lot like the "global races" map from Lothard Stoddard. And that's troubling since Stoddard was explicitly a White Supremacist
Or maybe Huntington mostly used religion? I mean, this map of major world religions from @pewresearch actually looks fairly similar to Huntington's map:
But religion alone seems incomplete.
Maybe Huntington is really interested in "Western" v "non-Western" civilization? But that requires defining "Western", which is not obvious (courtesy of @dhnexon, who brought up Lewis and Wigen, The Myth of Continents):
Maybe Huntington is really interested in "Western" v "non-Western" civilization? But that requires defining "Western", which is not obvious (courtesy of @dhnexon, who brought up Lewis and Wigen, The Myth of Continents):
@Noahpinion recently offered another succinct explanation for why "Western Civilization" is a woolly term.
And @sbmitche and Harrison point out that many of the seemingly "non-Western" civilizations actually adopted "Western" institutions in the post-Cold War world (or even before). So things become REALLY murky.
palgrave.com/us/book/978113…
palgrave.com/us/book/978113…
In the end, either Huntington's theory is sufficiently ill-defined that it can't be tested OR it is wrong according to his own data.
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P.S. thx to @Victor_Asal for pointing out and providing material to inspired me to write this thread!
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P.S. thx to @Victor_Asal for pointing out and providing material to inspired me to write this thread!
