ABSTRACT
In the post-Cold War era the concept of 'culture' as an explanatory device has been very much back on the theoretical agenda. Two recent examples of this trend have been Huntington's The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order (1996) and Fukuyama's Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (1995). Huntington's thesis is an especially good example of this trend since he sees the post-Cold War era as one in which, after the bipolarity of the post45 period, older deeper antagonisms between cultures will once again reassert themselves. This new stress on cultural identity, he argues, may be seen in part at least as a reaction against the increasing globalisation of the international economic order.
