Huntington’s disease and the clash of civilisation-states

SAMUEL HUNTINGTON was almost right. The late American professor pricked a bubble of Western triumphalism with a gloomy prediction of strife in “The Clash of Civilisations?” in 1993. Where he erred was the medium through which this friction would take place. Rather than civilisations rubbing against one another as groups of nation-states, as Mr Huntington forecast, the 21st century is witnessing the rise of the “civilisation-state”.

The term is in vogue. Chinese academics herald China as the world’s sole civilisation-state, rather than an old-hat, 19th-century nation-state. Vladimir Putin, however, has hopped on the bandwagon, declaring that Russia’s status as a civilisation-state prevented the country “from dissolving in this diverse world”. Indian commentators have long wrestled with whether their country is one, too. Other potential candidates for civilisation-state status include the United States and even Turkey. Another name is rarely mentioned, but should be added to this growing list: the EU.