INTRODUCTION

This essay will analyse the validity of the rival understandings of conflict provided by
Samuel Huntington the clash between civilisations and Dieter Senghaas the clash
within civilisations, through the interpretation of real world examples. It will argue that
Senghaas account of modernisation as being the primary dynamic for conflict within
civilisations provides a more plausible explanation of real world phenomena in comparison
with Huntingtons argument for inter-civilizational conflict. In order to do this, this essay
will: (1) explore Francis Fukuyamas account of an end of history in order to set the
historical context in which the debate between Huntington and Senghaas takes place; (2)
afterwards, it will examine Huntingtons thesis of inter-civilizational conflict, as well as
Senghaas argument for a conflict within civilisations, which serves as the primary counterargument to Huntingtons claims; (3) and finally, it will make an evaluative comparison
between the two accounts of conflict, before drawing the conclusion. The case of the
dismemberment of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav wars will be employed in this paper in order
to assess each accounts validity.

FUKUYAMAS END OF HISTORY

In order to understand the nature of the debate between Huntington and Senghaas in terms of
its historical context, as well as the various issues in regards to change and conflict which
emerged from that, we must first look at Francis Fukuyamas argument for an end of
history. In the article with the same name written at the end of the Cold War, Fukuyama
argued that what we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of
a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of
mankind's ideological evolution and the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the

final form of human government (Fukuyama, 1989). That is to say, this unabashed victory
of economic and political liberalism does not entail the end of events in human history, but
refers to the prevailment of Western liberal democracy over all other forms of government,
such as absolutism, fascism, and lastly, communism. Fukuyama points out that this victory of
liberalism was yet to be manifested in the material world, and had been explicit only in the
realm of ideas or human consciousness however this idea would ultimately be dominant in
the material world as well (Fukuyama, 1989).

Furthermore, Fukuyama seeks to show that the motor behind history history understood as
a single, coherent, evolutionary process, when taking into account the experience of all
peoples in all times is constituted by the struggle for recognition (Fukuyama, 1992, pp.
xii-xvi). Employing Hegels concept, Fukuyama goes on to explain that this struggle for
recognition the desire of each individual to be recognised by her/his peers as being a human
being with dignity and self-worth explains why people seek to propound democracy, that is,
for rulers invested with political power by popular vote and basic rights for all guaranteed by
the law. According to Hegel, this struggle for recognition drove human beings into conflicts
at the beginning of history. Thus, the society formed out of masters and slaves was born: the
ones who were willing to fight until death became the masters, and the ones who succumbed
to their instinct of self-preservation became the slaves. Although this relationship continued
in one way or another throughout history, it did not succeed in satisfying the desire for
recognition of either categories of people: the masters were not recognised by other masters,
and the slaves were not recognised at all (Fukuyama, 1992, pp. xvi-xvii).

This battle for prestige between individuals also led, on a bigger scale, to conflicts between
nations, where each sought recognition and waged war for supremacy over the others.
According to Fukuyama, if war is fuelled by the desire for recognition and prestige, then it
can be argued that liberal democracy which replaces the irrational desire to be recognised
as greater than others with a rational desire to be recognised as equal should theoretically
bring about the end of war among nations, provided that all of these nations have adopted this
form of government, and thus have arrived at the end of history (Fukuyama, 1992, p. xx).
However, Fukuyama points out that the end of history does not entail the end of conflict, due
primarily to the fact that not all nations have arrived at the aforementioned point. Fukuyama
thus makes a distinction between nations that are historical, that is, they have not adopted
liberal democracy as their form of government and primary ideology, and those which are
post-historical: conflict between them is not excluded. Although Fukuyama claims that minor
conflicts, such as ethnic violence, terrorism and battles for national liberation can still occur,
he insists that major conflicts in the post-Cold War world can only happen between states
with differing ideologies, between those still caught in the grip of history and those who
have reached its end (Fukuyama, 1989).

HUNTINGTONS ACCOUNT OF CONFLICT

In his 1993 essay, The Clash of Civilisations?, Samuel Huntington argued against
Fukuyamas thesis of a return of conflicts between states because of ideological or economic
reasons, claiming that the main source of conflict after the Cold War will be due to cultural
differences. While nation states will continue to be the main actors in the international arena,
he argues, conflict will stem primarily between groups and nationalities belonging to different
civilisations what Huntington calls the clash of civilisations (1993a, p. 22). This clash can

manifest itself, at the local/micro-level as fault-line conflicts, and, at the global/macro-level,

as core state conflicts. Fault line conflicts occur between neighbouring states from different
civilisations, between groups from different civilisation within a state, and between groups
which, as in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, are attempting to create new states out
of the wreckage of the old (Huntington, 2002, p. 208). The fault lines Huntington refers to
here are cultural fault lines, which separate civilisations from one another (1993a, p. 25).
Core state conflicts happen between the major states belonging to different civilisations due
to one, or more, of the following issues: relative influence in the global arena; economic
power manifested in disputes over trade, investment etc.; efforts by a state from one
civilisation to either protect their kinsmen which are located in another civilisation or to
discriminate and even exclude the people from another civilisation which are located in their
own territory; and many other. While throughout history these issues have been common
sources of conflict, in the case of core states belonging to different civilisations the conflict is
sharpened because of the cultural differences. In these types of conflict, core states attempt
to rally their civilizational cohorts, to get support from states of third civilisations, to promote
division within and defections from opposing civilisations, and to use the appropriate mix of
diplomatic, political, economic and covert actions and propaganda inducements and
coercions to achieve their objectives (Huntington, 2002, p. 208).

According to Huntington, civilisation represents a cultural entity: distinct cultures appertain

to various ethnic or religious groups, nationalities, villages and regions at different levels of
cultural heterogeneity. For example, the culture of the people in a village in eastern Hungary
will have a distinct culture from a village in western Hungary, yet both villages share a
broader Hungarian culture which, when compared to a Bulgarian culture, will be seen as
distinct. Furthermore, all European communities share a certain thread of common cultural
4

features which is distinct from Chinese or Arab communities. On the other hand, Huntington
argues, the aforementioned community groups cannot be united in an even broader cultural
entity, and thus constitute civilisations. He explains that a civilisation is thus the highest
cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of
that which distinguishes humans from other species. (Huntington, 1993a, p. 24). Common
objective elements such as language, religion, customs, history, institutions and subjective
self-identification are the primary characteristics of a civilisation. In terms of identity, an
individual may define himself on different levels: he may see himself as a Parisian, a French
citizen, a Catholic, a Christian, a European citizen, a Westerner. The broadest level of
identification, in this case the identity of a Westerner, constitutes the civilisation to which the
individual belongs (Huntington, 1993a, p. 24).

Huntington identifies eight major civilisations in the contemporary world: Western, SlavicOrthodox, Islamic, African, Latin American, Confucian, Hindu, and Japanese. He argues that
civilisation identity will become increasingly important in the future, and thus the interaction
among these major civilisations will have a massive impact in terms of influencing and
shaping the international arena. Huntington emphasises that, in the future, the most important
conflicts will occur between these civilisations along the cultural fault lines. He gives several
reasons for this: (1) differences among civilisations are real and basic; they include language,
history, tradition, religion, and many others. Individuals belonging to different civilisations
have different views on how the relationship between the individual and the group, the citizen
and the state, children and parent, and so on, should be. These views have developed
throughout time and are thus deeply rooted in the individuals consciousness. Huntington
points out here that differences do not necessarily mean that conflict has to occur, and that
conflict, in turn, does not necessarily entail the use of violence. However, history has shown
5

that differences between civilisations cannot, in practice, be easily reconciled, them being the
source of some of the most horrific and violent conflicts such as, for example, the
deportation and mass murder of Armenians, Greeks and other populations in the Ottoman
Empire in 1915 (Huntington, 1993a p. 25; Schaller and Zimmerer, 2008, p. 11).

(2) Furthermore, civilisation consciousness, entailing both the awareness of differences

between civilisations and of the commonalities within civilisations, is intensified by the
increasing number of interactions between people belonging to different civilisations. For
example, as David Horowitz put it, an Ibo may be an Owerri Ibo or an Onitsha Ibo in what
was the Eastern region of Nigeria. In Lagos, he is simply an Ibo. In London, he is a Nigerian.
In New York, he is an African (1990, p. 121). This intensified civilisation consciousness
brings forth, in turn, certain animosities which are thought to be historical. (3) Individuals are
being uprooted from their local, and in some cases, national identities, as a consequence of
economic modernisation and social change. Religion, and especially fundamentalist
movements which can be found in almost all major religions, have sought to fill in this gap.
Young, college-educated, middle-class technicians, professionals and business persons
constitute the majority of people who participates in these movements actively (Huntington,
1993a, p. 26). By participating in these movements, individuals gain a sense of identity and
commitment that transcends national boundaries and unites civilisations (Huntington, 1993a,
p. 26).

(4) The Wests influence and impact on the world also constitutes a factor that increases
civilisation consciousness: while the West is witnessing the peak of its power in the world,
the non-Western civilisations are shifting towards their own cultures for alternatives to the

Western culture, perhaps as a consequence of the former. Huntington here invokes the
Asianisation in Japan, the Hinduisation of India, and the re-Islamisation of the Middle
East as relevant examples of this phenomenon. While, in the past, the elites of non-Western
societies had adopted Western values as a consequence of being educated (and perhaps being
co-opted) there, today they are becoming more and more de-Westernised and involved with
their indigenous cultures. Quite ironically, the reverse can be observed when it comes to the
populations of those respective countries: in the past they were much more rooted in their
indigenous cultures, while presently they are adopting the values and cultures of the West.
Thus Huntington makes the observation that a West at the peak of its power confronts nonWests that increasingly have the desire, the will and the resources to shape the world in nonWestern ways (Huntington, 1993a, p. 26).

(5) In addition, cultural characteristics do not have the same flexibility as economic and
political ones. By this, Huntington means that individuals can change their economic and
political positions much more easily such as, for example, poor becoming rich and
communists becoming democrats but, for example, an Abkhaz cannot become an Ossetian,
or an Armenian cannot become a Turk. That is to say, being an Abkhaz or an Ossetian or an
Armenian or a Turk is something that cannot be changed, and this is important because the
Who are you? question is the one that informs civilizational conflicts. However, one can be
mix of different ethnicities, for example half-Indian and half-Romanian, but it is difficult to
see how he can be half-Hindu and half-Christian Orthodox. Thus, beyond ethnicity, religion
can be even a greater factor of discrimination among people (Huntington, 1993a, p. 27). (6)
Another reason for why civilisations clash, according to Huntington, is that economic
regionalism, manifested by the increase of intraregional trade and development of regional

economic blocs, is advancing. The European Union and the wider European Economic Area
are examples of advanced regional economic co-operation, being based on a largely common
European culture. Economic regionalism entails two aspects: on the one hand, when
successful, it enhances civilisation-consciousness; on the other hand, its success depends on it
being based on a common civilisation (Huntington, 1993a, p. 27).

One of the real world cases Huntington employs in order to illustrate his account of intercivilizational conflict is that of the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s.
During the conflict, as Huntington shows, Westerners were supportive of the Bosnian
Muslims at least when the Serbs committed atrocious acts against them, yet reactions of this
type were almost non-existent to the part played by Croatia in the dismemberment of BosniaHerzegovina, when the same Bosniaks were subjected to Croatian aggression. Furthermore,
the United States, Germany and the other members of the European Community at that time
joined the Vatican in recognising Croatia and Slovenia as independent states, due to the
majority of their populations being Catholic: the leading actors in Western civilisation rallied
behind their coreligionists (Huntington, 1993a, p. 37). On the other hand, when the Russian
government at the time sought to pursue a middle path between showing support towards the
Orthodox Serbs and maintaining relationships with the West, it came under severe criticism,
as domestic nationalist groups and conservatives felt that the Serbs cause must be supported
in a more upfront way. Soon after that, reports had started flowing in of several hundred
Russian volunteers and mercenaries fighting along the Serbian forces, as well as Russian
arms being supplied there (Rowland, 1999).

Not surprisingly, the third civilisation to take part in this conflict was the Islamic one, seeking
to support the Bosnian Muslims. Iran quickly became the leader of this support movement: it
supplied them with weapons and manpower even if that meant ignoring the UN arms
embargo. Guerrillas were sent by Iranian-supported Lebanese groups to provide training to
the Bosniak forces, and, furthermore, the Iranian leaders publicly encouraged all Muslims to
support the Bosniaks by whatever means possible. Fundamentalist groups had started putting
pressure on the governments of Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries, and, as a result,
Saudi Arabia began to direct funds towards supporting the Bosniak forces. According to
Huntington, about 4000 Muslims, coming from over two dozen Islamic countries, were
reported to have fought in Bosnia alongside the Bosnian Muslims in 1993. This example is a
clear case of how cultural differences have replaced political ideology and economic power
as the primary motive for conflict. In the case of the Yugoslav wars, the groups or states
belonging to one civilisation that become involved in war with people from a different
civilisation naturally tried to rally support from other members of their own civilisation the
so-called kin-country syndrome (Huntington, 1993a, pp. 35-38).

SENGHAAS ACCOUNT OF CONFLICT

In his book, The Clash Within Civilisations: Coming to Terms with Cultural Conflicts,
Dieter Senghaas seeks to show that Huntingtons view of a clash between civilisations is but
a geocultural fiction, and that conflicts actually occur within civilisations (2002, p. xi). He
argues that, throughout history, both Western and non-Western civilisations have been
characterised by internal political and ideological discrepancies, which had constituted an
essential factor in the dynamics of their respective processes of development (2002, p. xi).
For example, in Europe the propagation of Enlightenment ideas had been met with massive

resistance. According to Senghaas, during any historical process of modernisation, two sides
confront each other the traditionalists and the modernisers, with the specific social forces
supporting them and these confrontations often escalate into violent conflicts (2002, p. xi).
Thus, in contrast to Huntington, Senghaas argues that modernisation, and not cultural
differences, constitutes the primary dynamic for conflict (2002, pp. 80-100). The main fault
lines within and between cultures are not geo-cultural, but rather socio-economic: they cut
across societies from all civilisations (2002, p. xi). For Senghaas, culture is emphatically
political and politicised cultural conflicts which he calls cultural struggles are to be
understood as embittered political clashes over the organisation of public order (2002, pp.
80-100).

Senghaas argues that three preconditions have to be met in order for cultural struggles to
happen: (1) the development of hierarchical relations between the centre and the periphery,
entailing an advancing power imbalance especially at the economic and technological
levels; (2) a process of competition between the two sides, which brings about the
victimisation of the periphery, especially in cultural and economic matters; and (3) imminent
structural peripheralisation, as a result of the previous two processes; this would bring the
victim from a position of structural dependency into a colonial, or informal dependence, or
other similar positions, causing important economic, social and psychological impact
(Senghaas, 2002, p. 83). In this situation, the victimised country will have a defensive
reaction, which entails the emergence of counter-projects. Social mobilisation, the transition
to an economy based on the division of labour, and/or massive educational programmes to
combat illiteracy all constitute the modern foundations for an equally widespread growth in
political awareness, which manifests as the aforementioned resistance to the colonial or

10

quasi-colonial rule (Senghaas, 2002, p. 84). Put together, this increased political awareness
and the circumstances which lead to it can be described as developmental nationalism
(Senghaas, 2002, p. 84).

Developmental nationalism is of two types: primary and secondary. (1) Primary

developmental nationalism is related to the emergence of the states that are today part of the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), being the basis for the
development of both nation-states e.g. Germany and state-nations e.g. France. A
relatively even balance was struck within these countries between anti-attitudes and
independent national projects. When speaking about anti-attitudes in these countries,
Senghaas mentions that these were foremost directed towards the United Kingdom, being the
first country to historically take-off (Senghaas, 2002, p. 84). In Rostows theory of the five
historical stages of economic development, take-off refers to the third stage, where the old
blocks and resistances to steady growth are finally overcome, being characterised by
industrialisation, growing investment, regional growth and political change; Britain achieved
this in the two decades after 1783 (Rostow, 1960, pp. 7-9). A very important role in the
progress of all of these societies was played by their separate territories, having boundaries
defined by the state and through culture (Senghaas, 2002, p. 84). (2) The secondary type of
developmental nationalism refers to the attempt of the victimised country to overcome
structural peripheralisation. Senghaas includes most of the southern and eastern part of
Europe, Ireland, and all Third World countries in this category of post-colonial development
projects, as well as the Transcaucasian and Asian states which were part of the USSR.

11

Perhaps the most illustrative example of primary developmental nationalism is also provided
by Senghaas: the conflict between the British Empire and its American colonies in the
eighteenth century. According to him, Britain and the rest of Europe at that time were
perceived by the future Americans as being immoral, despotic, characterised by feudalism
and class society, in which those who ruled indulged themselves in various excesses while
exploiting the vast, impoverished population. In contrast, the new world order, the counterproject built by the Americans was characterised by individual freedom and rights which
were guaranteed by the state, as well as a civil society based on numerous voluntary
associations. The recipe for its success entailed a balance struck between the values of
solidarity and individualism, underpinned by political self-determination on the one hand
i.e. legitimate public powers and economic self-determination on the other at least within
state boundaries. Thus stood the New World and the Old World in opposition indicates
Senghaas, who further explains that the project succeeded also due to the ideas of its
protagonists being spread among the population through printed media, thus increasing
political awareness and support among both elites and masses. The New World Order was
a blue print for the future, comprised out of clear points for the development of society,
from vision and political order to educational and infrastructural programmes. The project
was devised autonomously, but also stemmed from the anti-attitude towards Britain and
Europe. (Senghaas, 2002, pp. 79-80).

THE MORE PLAUSIBLE ACCOUNT OF CONFLICT

After exploring Huntingtons and Senghaas rival accounts of conflict, and the specific
evidence which the two thinkers have employed in order to support their theories, in this last
part of the paper a comparative evaluation of the two approaches shall be made in order to

12

assess their validity. In his argument for inter-civilizational clash, Huntington explains that
the effects of cultural problems can be observed both at the macro-level, in policy issues
between cultural core states, and at the micro-level, that is, at regional and sub-regional
levels, and even in internal conflicts. While Senghaas recognises that cultural and religious
dimensions are involved when ethno-political and ethno-nationalistic conflicts escalate, he
argues that these factors are not, in most cases, present at the very beginning of a conflict
escalation, but rather that these conflicts are ignited by severe socio-economic issues with no
chances of being resolved in the near future (1998, pp. 129-130). He shows that in most such
cases, long-standing and frustrating social and economic discrimination is involved a
discrimination that repeats itself at the political and cultural level (1998, p. 130).

In many parts of the world, minorities are being discriminated against, being pushed and
marginalised into precarious social and economic positions; that is to say, they are refused the
option of upward mobility. However, in Senghaas view, this option cannot be refused for
long under contemporary conditions, where educational opportunities can lead to this upward
mobility. But that can only be the case where frustration emerges because of the discrepancy
between blocked socio-economic mobility opportunities and education, and where this
problem is perceived as being collective, and not individual; only then will policy be
culturalised or culture politicised (Senghaas, 1998, p. 130). This process cannot be avoided
where the discrimination against the minority becomes explicit and furthermore, in the course
of modernisation, these types of policies will result in ethno-political conflicts. As Senghaas
shows, this context precisely defines their modernity, and the conflicts that emerge
develop into a dynamic of hate as discrimination grows (1998, p. 130). While culture is an
important feature here, and Huntingtons cultural fault lines remain relevant, socio-economic

13

factors are the ones that bring forth these conflicts; as a consequence of escalation, cultural
differences become independent factors with genuine impetus (1998, p. 130). This is
evidenced by the fact that comparable socio-economic contexts bring about strikingly similar
conflict dynamics, despite having the two sides belong to different cultures. That is, in
conflicts which are influenced not determined by cultural differences, cultures seem to be
interchangeable: we can see this in the conflicts in Northern Island, for example, between
Catholicism and Protestantism, or in Sri Lanka, between Confucianism and Hinduism
(Senghaas, 1998, p. 130).

Keeping this in mind, and returning to the example of former Yugoslavia, some have argued
that, in fact, political, economic and nationalist factors, rather than the civilizational, stood as
primary causes of the conflicts occurring there. According to Mark McQuay, conflict such as
that in Yugoslavia during the 1990s arises as a result of a combination of structural
conditions, including among others cultural, ethnic or religious differences among peoples,
combined with proximate (or enabling factors) those social, political and communications
processes and institutions which enable them to affect peoples lives (for example,
government policies or a dysfunctional political system) (2014, p. 28). The primary proxy
factor which fuelled Yugoslavias ethnic violence was the foreign debt crisis of the 1980s,
which severely affected the countrys economy. Yugoslavia, having to rely heavily on foreign
imports, turned to the International Monetary Fund, which established a three-year
macroeconomic stabilisation programme in order to restore liquidity and bring about
economic growth. The devaluation of the Dinar, the end of foreign exchange retention quotas
and limits on wage increases were all reforms imposed by the IMF, which impacted the
country severely (McQuay, 2014, p. 30). In 1985, over one million people were unemployed,

14

and that, in turn, brought about austerity measures from the government (Woodward, 1995, p.
4). This federal government was increasingly unable to provide social welfare, which affected
its legitimacy and popular support. Other reforms imposed by the IMF included the
redistribution of control over monetary policy, foreign exchange to the Belgrade National
Bank from the republics, as well as severe regulatory measures over the republican banks
(Woodward, 2000, p. 135).

Many Yugoslav citizens saw the removal of the republics independent jurisdiction of their
resources, and the lack of ability of the federal government to fulfil its responsibilities
towards them as a sign of its decreasing legitimacy. In Slovenia, for example, one of the most
affluent Yugoslav republics, the economic policy developed protectionist tendencies in
regards to the other republics, and refused to comply with the demands of federal
government. By 1981, the trade which crossed republican and regional borders only
amounted to about 4% (Crawford, 1998, p. 229). Not surprisingly, support from the people
was directed towards Slovenias government, and not towards Yugoslavia, due to their
perception that the South of the federation was an albatross keeping it from development
(Woodward, 2009, p. 146). What began as economic nationalism developed into political
nationalism, reinforced by the ethnic and linguistic differences between Slovenes and their
southern neighbours; Croatia, might be added, went through a very similar process
(McQuay, 2014, p. 31).

Furthermore, ethnofederalism the political system described as a highly decentralised

federal system based around the principle of ethnicity proved to be yet another proximate
factor that allowed for nationalist feelings to arise among the population and eventually led to
15

the ethnic violent conflicts in Yugoslavia (Crawford, 1998, p. 205). Yugoslavia was
comprised of six federal units, each with a specific nationality; its federal government had
limited control, as most decisions required the participation and approval of each of these
units. By 1980, the republics developed a high degree of self-governance, as Yugoslavia had
established a more decentralised system of industrial, political, and territorial decisionmaking than any other existing federation (Crawford, 1998, p. 228). Following this
decentralisation process, the peoples of each unit became increasingly loyal, both politically
and economically, to their own republics, rather than to the federation. According to
Crawford, ethnofederalism translated economic crisis and mixed ethnic groups into political
crisis and violent conflict, whereas in neighbouring Bulgaria, similarly ethnically (and,
according to Huntingtons analysis, civilizationally) mixed and also heavily indebted and
struggling with IMF conditionality, ethnic violence did not break out, even after a
government collapse in 1989 (McQuay, 2014, p. 31; Crawford, 1998, p. 203).

CONCLUSION
In this essay, we have seen that Huntington views civilisations as being the highest possible
level of identity, and that, in his view, cultural differences in contrast with ideological or
economic ones constitute the main source of conflict after the Cold War. The clash of
civilisations refers to conflicts between groups and nationalities belonging to the eight major
civilisations which Huntington recalled. These conflicts occur at the micro-level along
cultural fault lines, or at the macro-level as conflicts between the major states belonging to
different civilisations.

16

While Huntington is right in showing that fault lines occur at the micro-level, Senghaas
explains that the main fault lines within and between cultures are not geo-cultural, but rather
socio-economic: they cut across societies from all civilisations. They originate in socioeconomic issues which involve systematic discrimination. The cultural features of these
conflicts exist and are meaningful, yet they develop at a later stage, in the escalation process
of these conflicts, and do not constitute primary factors. The core of these conflicts is
constituted by distribution issues: education, socio-economic mobility and political
participation are much more important here, than, for example, religious differences. Once
collective frustration reaches a boiling point, cultural differences turn socio-economic
conflicts into identity conflicts, yet they essentially remain conflicts of distribution.

Furthermore, the example of the dismemberment of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav wars has
provided evidence that, contrary to Huntingtons assessment, civilizational differences do not
constitute the main source of conflict in the post-Cold War era. While cultural, ethnical or
religious heterogeneity did indeed form a part of the structural background for the conflicts in
Yugoslavia, their enabling factors were political, economic and nationalist such as the
countrys economic decline in the 1980s or its ethnofederal system. Thus, by drawing
together the different threads of this argument, it can be concluded that Senghaas account of
modernisation as being the primary dynamic for conflict within civilisations provides a more
plausible explanation of real world phenomena in comparison with Huntingtons argument
for inter-civilizational conflict.

17

REFERENCES

Crawford, B. (1998) Explaining Cultural Conflict in ex-Yugoslavia: Institutional

Weakness, Economic Crisis, and Identity Politics, in: B. Crawford and R. Lipschutz
(eds.), The Myth of Ethnic Conflict, 1st Edition, Berkeley: University of California at

Berkeley.
Fukuyama, F. (1989) The End of History?, The National Interest (online),

http://www.wesjones.com/eoh.htm (Accessed 5 January 2016).

Fukuyama, F. (1992) The End of History and the Last Man, New York: The Free

Press.
Horowitz, D.L. (1990) Ethnic Conflict Management for Policy-Makers, in J.V.
Montville and H. Binnendijk (eds.), Conflict and Peacemaking in Multiethnic

Societies, Lexington: Lexington Books.

Huntington, S.P. (1993a) The Clash of Civilisations?, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No.

3: 22-49.
Huntington, S.P. (2002) The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order,

London: Free Press.

McQuay, M. (2014) Inevitable War? Examining Yugoslavia as a Fault Line Conflict,

Securitologia, Vol. 20, No. 2, 1 December: 25-36.

Rostow, W.W. (1960) The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

18

Rowland, J. (1999) World: Europe fighting for a foreign land, BBC, 20 May
(online), http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/348340.stm (Accessed 8 January

2016).
Schaller, D.J. and Zimmerer, J. (2008) Late Ottoman genocides: the dissolution of the
Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies

introduction, Journal of Genocide Research, Vol. 10, No. 1, March: 7-14.

Senghaas, D. (1998) A Clash of Civilisations. An Ide Fixe?, Journal of Peace

Research, Vol. 35, No. 1, January: 127-132.

Senghaas, D. (2002) The Clash within Civilisations: Coming to Terms with Cultural

Conflicts, London: Routledge.

Woodward, S.L. (1995) Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of

Yugoslavia, 1945-1990, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Woodward, S.L. (2000) Costly Disinterest: Missed Opportunities for Preventive
Diplomacy in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1985-1991, in: B. Jentleson
(ed.), Opportunities Missed, Opportunities Seized: Preventive Diplomacy in the Post-

Cold War World, 1st Edition, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Woodward, S.L. (2009) The Political Economy of Ethno-Nationalism in Yugoslavia,
Socialist Register, Vol. 39: 73-92.

19