My clash with "clash o' civ"

["Suzanne Yountchi" <syountchi@hotmail.com>]

Well, while I am doing my MA in Middle East Studies, my background is more 
political science-ish, so I guess my "gut" reaction to Huntington has always 
been as such.  I say always, becuase I have taken numerous courses which 
require us to read his article.  Interestingly, I think I react to it 
differently each time.  This time, I was struck more by his rebuttle than 
that the inititial article.  However, I agree with your reaction regarding 
society in the Middle East.  In fact, in Turkey the government is afraid to 
let any sort of Islamic party be represented in an election, because they 
actually might get elected.. (well they did in the 90's but that's another 
story)  The Constition forbids any sort of religious party from being 
represented, in order to protect there democratic society.. of course this 
is totally hypocritical.. so before I really go off on a tangent, I think we 
are going to have some interesting discussions on "civil society" in the 
Middle East.

But back to my problem with Huntington. I guess what bothers me about 
Huntington, is he is just giving another name to something that is already 
under discussion.  I¡¯m referring to his reference to needing a new 
¡°paradigm¡± pp.66-67.  Yes, he does have a point, that in the post Cold War 
world we need a new paradigm, or a lens to look through in order to 
understand the dynamics of globalization etc.  However, when he says 
¡°civilization paradigm¡± (66) isn¡¯t he talking about culture and identity, 
in other words Constructivism?  Yes, I am a firm advocate of the school of 
thought which deems realism and liberalism as inadequate in terms of useful 
paradigms.  But just using culture and identity (or civilization) as 
paradigms will also ¡°black box the state¡± so to speak.  I guess this is 
another way of pointing out how Huntington has oversimplified the situation. 
  He is right is pointing out how we need a better explanation of what is 
going on, but I think that we should use take from all three paradigms 
(Realism, Liberalism, and Constructivism) in order to put together the 
appropriate toolbox.  If I am not mistaken, I think Stephen Walt wrote an 
article about such a subject- needing a new paradigm which he called ¡°X¡±.  
I hope we get a chance to discuss this in class.  Otherwise, you will see me 
on this soapbox again!

cheers!
suzanne



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