If not a clash, then what? Huntington, Nishida Kitarô and the politics of civilizations

ISSN： 1470-4838

Source： International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Vol.2, Iss.2, 2002-08, pp. : 223-243

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Abstract

The debate surrounding Samuel Huntington's influential Clash of Civilizations thesis has been focused too narrowly on the accuracy of his categorization of civilizations. This focus has left the problem of the alleged inter-civilizational order incompletely theorized. In particular, two theoretical issues have been overlooked: first, can we really assume that civilizations are capable of and prone to clashing as if they were states and, second, surely a theory of global civilizations must be subject to itself, as a product of one such civilization. This paper explores the model of the inter-civilizational order theorized outside the ‘West’, by Nishida Kitarô in interwar Japan. A comparison with Huntington's vision demonstrates some radical differences in these models and their consequences for the role of Japan in the so-called ‘new world order’ of the 21st century. The conclusion suggests a need to theorize inter-civilizational relations as seriously as inter-national relations, but on different philosophical foundations, since the two describe qualitatively different aspects of coincident world orders. In particular, this paper calls attention to the special practical importance of non-Western traditions of political thought in an inter-civilizational world.