ABSTRACT
Cultural conflicts have become of special interest to the public and to science after Samuel Huntington's idea of the ‘clash of civilizations’ was first published in 1993 (Huntington 1993). Huntington was convinced that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, culture would become the driving force behind future international tensions. He was particularly concerned about the conflict lines running between the Western and Islamic worlds. Several prominent wars have been interpreted in line with his argument, including the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the Israel/Palestine conflict. This chapter aims to analyse the empirical evidence of cultural conflicts, e.g. how often they occur, where they occur and how they are interrelated with other conflict items.
