Civilizational Dialogue And World Order

The book comes at a very critical moment in the debate on civilization and responds to the lack of scholarly attention by international relations and political theorists as to how the discourse of dialogue of cultures, religions, and civilizations can contribute to the future of world order.

This timely and original volume fills the gaps in the existing theoretical and philosophical literature on international relations by problematizing civilization as a new unit of research in global politics. It interrogates to what extent and in what ways civilization is becoming a strategic frame of reference in the current world order. The book complements and advances the existing field of study previously dominated by other approaches – economic, national, class-based, racial, and colonial – and tests its key philosophical suppositions against countries that exhibit civilizational ambitions. The authors are all leading international scholars in the fields of political theory, IR, cultural analysis, and area studies who deal with various aspects of the civilizational arena. Offering key chapters on ideology, multipolarity, modernity, liberal democracy, and capitalism, this book extends the existing methodological, theoretical, and empirical debates for IR and area studies scholars globally. It will be of great interest to politicians, public opinion makers, and all those concerned with the evolution of world affairs.

The necessity of a dialogue among the various rich and powerful civilizations that co-exist on our planet will be a looming international problem in the coming 21st century. A civilizational dialogue necessitates familiarity with major aspects of other civilizations such as religion, symbolism, myth in the spiritual domain, social structure and development, or political organization in the social and institutional spheres. Familiarity between civilizations would enable them, in the course of the dialogue, to identify shared beliefs and values which are the common aspects of humanity that unite us all. Dialogue of Civilization guides the reader through a deep analysis of different civilizational worlds. An indispensable book for students and professors of anthropology, political science, and foreign relations.

"The explosion of new themes and working areas in social sciences in the aftermath of the Cold-War stimulated the 'cultural turn' of the previous decades and strengthened the position of the notion of 'civilization' as a unit of analysis and locus of academic debate in the fields of history, philosophy, sociology, political science, and international relations. Given the fabricated and standardized nature of recent literature on political, economic and socio-cultural aspects of globalization, it is crystal clear that historically and philosophically enlightened works written from the perspective of civilizational transformation will provide the much needed sophistication to conventional social science analyses trying to elucidate the organizing principles of the global order. This novel collection represents a path-breaking work in the field of global/civilizational studies by constituting an interdisciplinary and theoretically-informed platform on which complex debates on the political, economic, socio-cultural, philosophical and ecological aspects of the global order could be conducted. The editors, Sadik Unay and Muzaffer Senel, managed to gather a truly original collection of articles from some of the leading authorities and promising academics on the theme of global orders with special reference to a civilization transformation covering a wide spectrum in time and space from Antique Greece to the Islamic World, from Europe to the US and from East Asian history to current globalizations."--Publisher's description.

This book evaluates the current state of world (dis)order at a time of growing populism, nationalism and pandemic panic. It distils the implications of the ‘civilisational state’ for world order. The retreat of US leadership is mirrored by the decline of both the material and normative liberal multilateral infrastructure it supported. Meanwhile, the rise of China as a challenger is accompanied in political, economic and cultural terms by other emerging powers no longer bound to the norms of 20th century world affairs, notably Turkey, India, China and Russia. By emphasising a cultural lens of analysis alongside robust political and economic analysis, the author offers a prescriptive agenda for the coming post-pandemic age that recognises the changing powers of civilisational, state and hybrid non-state actors. Without overestimating their probabilities, he outlines prospects and preconditions for effective inter-civilisational dialogue and proposes a series of minimal conditions for a multilateral ‘reset’. This book will appeal to public and private decision-makers, the media, the educated lay public and civil society actors interested in the rise of civilisational politics and its possible consequences for world affairs. It will be of particular interest to students and researchers in the fields of politics, international relations, international political economy, geopolitics, strategic studies, foreign policy and social psychology.

Many today warn that the Muslim world and the West are on a collision course. The depth and intensity of animosity expressed by Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda followers led some to ask, “Why do they hate us?” The temptation for some American government officials and political commentators was to condemn and dismiss, to explain away anti-Americanism as irrationality, ingratitude, jealousy of US success or hatred for the American way of life. This approach fails to get at real issues. As governments respond to the threat of global terrorism, must be balanced by evidence that establishes a direct connection of guilt and by strikes that are focused rather than wide-ranging and indiscriminate. A disproportionate response runs the risk of a backlash in the Middle East and the broader Muslim world – as well as among American and European Muslim citizens – that erodes the goodwill of many and reinforces an image of a superpower again placing itself above international law. The war against global terrorism should not justify a gradual erosion of important principles and values at home or become a green light to authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world to increase repression. There is also a need to adopt a more balanced policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If foreign policy issues are not addressed effectively, they will continue to provide a breeding ground for anti-Americanism, hatred and radicalism, the rise of extremist movements, and recruits for the Bin Ladens of this world. Short-term foreign policies that are necessitated by national interest must be balanced by long-term policies and incentives that pressure our allies to promote a gradual and progressive process of broader political participation and power sharing.

The idea of civilization recurs frequently in reflections on international politics. However, International Relations academic writings on civilization have failed to acknowledge the major 20th-century analysis that examined the processes through which Europeans came to regard themselves as uniquely civilized – Norbert Elias’s On the Process of Civilization. This book provides a comprehensive exploration of the significance of Elias’s reflections on civilization for International Relations. It explains the working principles of an Eliasian, or process-sociological, approach to civilization and the global order and demonstrates how the interdependencies between state-formation, colonialism and an emergent international society shaped the European 'civilizing process'.