ABSTRACT
Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order has been enduringly influential in the practice of politics, but has not been enduringly influential in the study of politics. Clash became famous for influencing the neoconservative administration of President George W. Bush in the aftermath of 9/11, although the relationship between neoconservative policy and Huntington’s book remained troubled. Open discussion of the Clash thesis has largely been relegated to right-wing extremist groups such as the English Defence League and Greece’s Golden Dawn party. The most interesting academic developments directly related to the central argument in Clash emerged not in support of Huntington’s argument, but in relation to the response to it in postcolonialist literature. Huntington’s Clash was one of attempts by different thinkers to create the new “grand theory” of International politics after the Cold War.
