ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with an overview of Samuel Huntington's argument, primarily as elaborated in the original article, though with references to the book where appropriate. Possibly the most widely debated article in Western political science in the first half of the 1990s was Samuel Huntington's 'The Clash of Civilizations?' Huntington's primary objective is to make sense of international relations in the post-Cold War era by identifying what he considers the single most important source of tension. He believes that the most significant in Europe may well be that identified by William Wallace, which focuses on the Eastern boundary of Western Christianity in 1500 AD. Europe's boundaries, both of states and of supranational organisations, are very fluid. The clashes of civilisations will occur at two levels—the 'micro' and the 'macro'. He suggests that both democracy and human rights are essentially Western concepts that are unwelcome in most non-Western civilisations.
