Samuel Huntington and the Geopolitics of American Identity: The Function of Foreign Policy in America's Domestic Clash of Civilizations

Abstract

The clash of civilizations thesis's true origins lie partly in problems Samuel Huntington sees brewing in his own country. His thesis is to a considerable extent an externalization of these troubles––an attempt to solve them through international means, while serving U.S. national interests in tandem. As a scholar of American exceptionalism Huntington is––explicitly and openly––concerned about the political unity and cultural homogeneity of his country in the absence of the existential threat of world Communism. He sees “multiculturalism” and excessive immigration threatening America's dominant Anglo‐Saxon, Protestant, English culture and its libertarian political values. Right‐wing “anti‐federalism” is threatening the authority and very existence of the federal government, while “commercialism,” the elevation of commercial interests above all else among economic and political elites, intensifies the class conflict roots of much anti‐federalism. The solution to these myriad problems is a foreign threat, whether real or perceived; hence, the clash of civilizations.

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“…Questions arising in relation to Samuel Huntington's clash of civilizations thesis amount to a reissued call for careful consideration of reasons for conducting crosscultural research on a particular topic and for thinking through the implications of potential biases, ambiguities, and blank spaces (Aysha 2003; Dallmayr 2001; de Soysa and Nordås 2007; Huntington 1993, 1996; Said 2002; and Sen 2008). 22 Many are emphatic that we need to move beyond pointed polemics and debunking messages to develop “alternative ways of thinking about crosscultural exchange” (Chow 2002, 109–10; de Soysa and Nordås 2007; Panikkar 1981, 44–45).…”

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