Huntington's Theory Of Cultural Identity

Huntington’s theory was the first to point that international relations from the twentieth century onwards will be based on the world’s identities and cultures, and the differences between them. Huntington focused on interacting societies, wishing to define themselvesthem in a globalizing world. He understood that “cultural identity is what [is] most meaningful to most people” (Huntington S. P., 2011, p. 20). People and nations try to answer on the question “who are we?”. This answer is most likely to go back to the traditional way by which humans answer, human way answering, by referring to what is most important: ancestry, religion, language, history, values, customs and institutes) Ibid). “They identify with cultural groups: tribes, ethnic

He presents main types of differences: the way people view relations between god and man (religious differences), between the individual and the group (societal differences), between the citizen and the state (political differences), and between the husband and the wife (cultural differences). Therefore, differences exist alter in cultural terms and concepts between from civilization to civilizationcivilizations, concepts such as responsibility and rights, freedom and authority, and equality and hierarchy. Moreover, “tThese differences are products of centuries and far more fundamental than differences among political ideologies and regimes” (Huntington S. P., The clash of civilizations?, 1993). In fact, these underlying unique cultural characteristics design the political culture of states and

In a changing world, people use new, yet old and traditional cultural identities, and often define themselves in contrast to other people, civilizations and cultures. (should include all of these or only people?_ the other. This distinction requires an opposing subject, an ‘other’, which is easily found in the differences among civilizations. “Culture and cultural identities, which in the broadest level are civilizational identities, that shape the patters of cohesion, disintegration and conflict in the post-Cold war world” (Huntington S. P., 2011, p.