When Faith Isn't the Compass of Power: Deconstructing the Structural Flaws of "The Clash of Civilizations"
Huntington was certainly right that "cultural identity" would re-emerge as a potent force after the Cold War. His crucial mistake was reducing identity entirely to religion. In the world of political science and international relations (IR), few works have triggered a paradigm shift quite like Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996). Born out of the ideological vacuum that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, Huntington first floated his thesis during a Bradley Lecture in October 1992. It was later published as an essay in Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993), unleashing a wave of debate that remains unmatched in the journal's history since its founding in the 1940s. After expanding his ideas into a full-length book in 1996, Huntington's framework became a ubiquitous reference point across the discipline. Yet three decades on—as global geopolitics enters an entirely new era—his theory reveals glaring struct...