Unesco - Eolss Sample Chapter: Civilizational Analysis: A Paradigm in The Making

WORLD CIVILIZATIONS – Civilizational Analysis: A Paradigm in the Making - Johann P.
Arnason
CIVILIZATIONAL ANALYSIS: A PARADIGM IN THE MAKING

Johann P. Arnason
La Trobe University, Australia
Keywords: Civilization, Civilizations, Axial Age, Cultural Problematics, Political

Cultures, Economic Institutions, Religions, Traditions, Identities
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Classical Sources
3. Eisenstadt and the Axial Age
4. Civilization and Civilizations
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5. Domains of Civilizational Analysis
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6. Towards Modernity
7. Objections and Qualifications
Glossary
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Bibliography
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Biographical Sketch
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To cite this chapter
Summary AP
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This chapter discusses the development of a theoretical framework for the comparative
analysis of civilizations. A brief overview of pioneering contributions by classical
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sociologists is followed by more detailed comments on the late twentieth-century

revival of civilizational theory, especially in the work of S. N. Eisenstadt. The project
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that emerges from classical and contemporary sources is best understood as a bridge
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between sociological theory and comparative history, and many aspects are still open to
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debate - hence the reference to a paradigm in the making. Eisenstadt’s approach, which
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has been central to all subsequent discussions, links a distinctive conceptual scheme –
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centered on world-views and their translation into institutional patterns - to the

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interpretation of a particular historical period (the “Axial Age”, usually identified with
the middle centuries of the last millennium BCE), as well as to a less developed
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conception of modernity as a new civilization. All these thematic foci call for closer
examination. Discussions since the late 1970s have highlighted the originality and
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diversity of early civilizations, and thus opened up new perspectives on the background
and context of transformations during the Axial Age. The traditional civilizations that
grew out of these transformations can be analyzed as constellations of cultural, political
and economic patterns; so far, the interconnections of the cultural and economic spheres
have proved relatively easy to trace, whereas the civilizational aspects and dynamics of
the economic sphere are more elusive. This tripartite model can also be used to clarify
the civilizational status of modernity, but more detailed comparative studies of paths
and patterns are needed to put this question into proper focus. The chapter concludes
with a brief discussion of objections to the civilizational approach; they are best met by
developing a more precise and historically sensitive conceptual framework.
©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

WORLD CIVILIZATIONS – Civilizational Analysis: A Paradigm in the Making - Johann P. Arnason
1. Introduction
The term “civilizational analysis”, used by Said Amir Arjomand and Edward Tiryakian
for a representative collection of papers and now widely accepted by scholars in the
field, is designed to stress the combination of theoretical and historical approaches to
the comparative study of civilizations. More specifically, the focus is on the constitutive
patterns and long-term dynamics of civilizations - understood as macro-cultural, macro-
social and macro-historical units – as well as on the question of their more or less active
involvement in modern transformations. For these purposes, the notion of civilization
must be defined in a way that lends itself to plural use; but when it comes to details, this
concept turns out to be as contested as others of similar importance to the human
sciences. A first signpost may, however, be suggested with reference to the historical
background. All attempts to define, demarcate and classify civilizations in the plural
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take off from the major socio-cultural complexes of the Eurasian macro-region: the
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Western European, Byzantine, Islamic, Indian and East Asian worlds are the prime
cases in point, even if civilizational analysts disagree on further distinctions and more
precise boundaries in time and space. To note the most familiar examples, the
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chronological and geographical boundaries of Western European - or Western Christian
- civilization are still a matter of dispute; it is no less debatable whether we should speak
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of one Indian civilization or a set of interrelated ones; and the question of civilizational
unity or division within the East Asian region has been answered in very different ways,
especially with regard to the relationship between China and Japan. In brief, the issues
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arising in these contexts reflect the history of European encounters with other parts of
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the Old World.

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Civilizational analysis, seen as a twentieth-century turn to systematic reflection on a

long record of historical experiences, is by the same token critical of Eurocentric
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approaches to world history. If civilizations are set apart by distinctive world-views and
institutional patterns, their ways of participating in and making sense of world history
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will also differ, and more comparative study of all these aspects is needed. A multi-
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civilizational conception of world history would be the most effective antidote to

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Eurocentrism, but its promise is also a reminder that the problem cannot be solved by
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quick fixes and prophetic gestures. The project of civilizational analysis, reactivated in
the late twentieth century and increasingly recognized as a specific mode of social and
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historical inquiry, is best understood as a paradigm in the making; and although the
main impulse came from sociologists critical of the restrictive assumptions that had
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blocked the development of their discipline, further progress is impossible without close
and extensive cooperation, with historians, area specialists and scholars in other related
fields. There is, in other words, an obvious need for a long-term interdisciplinary
research program. The more visible cultural pluralism and multi-polar geopolitics of the
post-Cold War era have no doubt helped to make out a good case for this project, but
this historical constellation has also prompted ideological responses of a simplifying
and alarmist kind, most evident in speculations about a “clash of civilizations” and a
properly research-oriented model of civilizational analysis must take issue with these
caricature versions. Samuel P. Huntington’s widely read book has been criticized for
unsound empirical claims and overhasty prognoses, but for the present purposes, it is no
less important to note that it does very little to clarify the conceptual foundations of

civilizational theory, and nothing to distinguish or contextualize the different scholarly

traditions on which it claims to draw.
2. Classical Sources
Among such traditions, the contribution of classical sociology - elaborated in the first
two decades of the twentieth century - stands out as particularly significant. If
scholarship since the 1970s has - as suggested above – reactivated an older trend, that
applies primarily to this classical legacy. It had taken shape in two wholly separate
contexts, French and German. On the French side, the Durkheimian school – more
specifically Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss - developed an explicit concept of
civilizations in the plural, with a correspondingly clear-cut analytical focus. On the
German side, Max Weber’s comparative analyses of major civilizational formations
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were less attentive to conceptual issues, but their substantive content is still significant
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enough to ensure their presence in contemporary debates. The absence of contact
between these two innovative developments fits into a more general pattern (the mutual
isolation of Durkheim and Weber is still a puzzle to historians of ideas), and it took
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much longer for the affinities to be noticed than on the level of more familiar
sociological themes. Benjamin Nelson seems to have been the first to make the
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connection and show that the formations studied by Weber were civilizations in the
Durkheimian sense.
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In a short text first published in 1913, Durkheim and Mauss proposed to distinguish
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civilizations from societies: the former were large-scale and long-term formations that
could encompass multiple societies, both contemporary and successive. This move
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coincided with Durkheim’s systematic turn towards the sociology of religion, and the
civilizational perspective reappears at the end of his most representative work on that
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subject. After a very detailed analysis of primitive religion, based on evidence from a
whole group of societies, Durkheim draws theoretical conclusions and refers – among
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other things - to a civilization as characterized by a system of basic concepts. In this

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way, a macro-cultural dimension is added to the macro-social one underlined in the

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earlier texts: patterns of meaning, articulated through or at least translatable into basic
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concepts, complement the large-scale and long-term social-historical frameworks, but

more specific interrelations between the two levels are left unexamined. Mauss returned
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to the problematic of civilizations in the 1920s and explored it in several directions, but
did not tackle it in a systematic fashion. As the influence of the Durkheimian school
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declined, its interest in civilizations was more thoroughly forgotten than the ideas that
had contributed to the formation of sociology as a discipline. But in light of the
rediscovery of civilizations, this part of the French sociological tradition (including
some attempts to apply the ideas adumbrated by Durkheim and Mauss to comparative
studies) appears as a pioneering approach to problems that are still under debate. One of
its distinctive features is a very broad definition of the civilizational perspective: it
encompasses prehistorical phases and stateless societies as well as the state- and city-
centered literate cultures more commonly associated with the concept of civilization.
There is no doubt that the latter usage, and the narrower definition more or less
explicitly linked to it, has had the upper hand in civilizational studies, but it cannot be
said that the issue has been settled.

By contrast, Max Weber’s comparative studies focused on major Eurasian civilizations

and their religious traditions. He did not use the concept of civilizations in the plural; his
favorite term for the units of comparison was Kulturwelten, “cultural worlds”, but
following Benjamin Nelson, this expression can to all intents and purposes be equated
with the Durkheimian notion of civilizations. The term Kulturwelt recalls Weber’s early
references to culture as a way of lending meaning and significance to the world (this is
by implication a variable pattern), but there was no systematic clarification of that
background. The comparative program did not grow directly out of Weber’s attempts to
define the general orientations of social and cultural inquiry. Rather, the interest in other
cultural worlds and their different historical trajectories was kindled by a very specific
issue in comparative history. Weber’s concern with the historical forces and cultural
sources that had enabled the Western breakthrough to modern capitalism led him to
explore contrasts and parallels with the non-Western civilizations that had not
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experienced a similar transformation from within (not that capitalism as such was
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absent, but its distinctively modern and unprecedentedly dynamic version had not
developed). The idea that Weber used for comparative analysis to isolate one decisive
factor, present in the West but absent elsewhere (supposedly the radical branch of the
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Protestant Reformation), has been laid to rest by more adequate interpretations of his
work The comparative turn broadened his perspectives on both sides. It became clear
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that modern Western capitalism was closely linked to a whole set of other
transformative processes, preceding as well as contemporaneous, which Weber
subsumed under the concept of rationalization. Interpreters of his work disagree on the
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contents and connotations of this term, and will probably continue to do so. It refers
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most obviously to the progress of formal organization and methodical procedures in all
fields of social life; in the modern context, it relates most directly to the interconnected
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apparatuses (Weber uses metaphors like “machine” and “mechanical cosmos”) of

capitalism, bureaucracy and organized science; but it should also be noted that
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according to Weber, the most momentous results of rationalization were inseparable

from the non-rational - or trans-rational - belief that all things can be mastered through
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calculation. As for non-Western civilizations, Weber’s analyses of China and India

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covered a broad spectrum of cultural, political and economic trends, and allowed for
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distinctive rationalizing processes, even if they did not take the same overall direction as
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in the West. A planned work on Islamic civilization was never written; a detailed study
of Ancient Judaism explored one major source of Western traditions, but Weber did not
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engage with the Greek source in the same way.

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The Weberian project, as transmitted to posterity, is unfinished and unequally

developed, but neither obsolete in all respects nor imprisoned within an ideological
universe of discourse. It reflects the severe early twentieth-century limitations of
European knowledge and understanding of non-European civilizations, but it certainly
does not - as its less informed critics have claimed – deny the rationality, cultural
originality or historicity of the other worlds in question. With regard to the debate on
Eurocentrism and the various (sometimes counter-productive) ways of criticizing it,
Weber’s position is ambiguous, and as such conducive to further debate. There is no
denying the presence and influence of a strong Eurocentric strain in his thought, but it is
no less true that some of his insights can now be seen as incipient correctives to the
Eurocentric bias. In short, Weber’s work represents an earlier phase of civilizational

analysis, but remains relevant to the questions and perspectives of the new phase that
began in the last quarter of the twentieth century.
3. Eisenstadt and the Axial Age
This new phase is linked to a more general revival of interest in unsettled questions and
unexhausted themes of classical sociology. In that connection, special mention has
already been made of Benjamin Nelson, who was the first to identify civilizational
approaches as a specific part of the classical legacy. Less important, but far from
negligible inputs came from the work of speculative historians who had developed the
idea of civilizational pluralism along their own lines. Oswald Spengler’s widely read
Decline of the West had done most to establish this offshoot of civilizational analysis,
but Arnold Toynbee’s Study of History gave a new twist to it and brought it into closer
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contact with comparative history. Last but not least, the new civilizational turn
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responded to problems of sociological theory as well as to difficulties encountered in
new fields of empirical inquiry. The diversity of civilizations, manifested in their world-
views and in corresponding ways of ordering social life, could be seen as the most
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massive evidence of the cultural creativity that found no place in functionalist
conceptions of societies as self-reproducing systems. The divergent historical paths of
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major civilizations, as well as the visions of history encoded in their traditions, cast
doubt on the unilinear models of evolutionary theories. Evolutionism could, moreover,
be shown to derive some of its assumptions from specific intellectual traditions of
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European civilization. On a more empirical level, the varying and largely unexpected
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outcomes of modernizing processes raised questions about civilizational backgrounds:

factors of this kind could help to explain the differences, conflicts and composite
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formations that shaped the course of global modernization. All these aspects of the
civilizational turn are particularly visible in the work of S. N. Eisenstadt, and it has been
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at the center of debates relating to the field. Eisenstadt has, from early on, been involved
in research and controversies on modernization; a growing awareness of accumulating
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problems in this area seems to have prompted him to theorize civilizations in a new key.
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But the first major move along that road may seem strangely out of step with the initial
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line of research: it consisted in an attempt to rethink an old but elusive theme from the
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history of ideas and religions, in a way that would make it more amenable to
sociological analysis. This reworking of pre-sociological intellectual traditions was also
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a return to tradition in the more substantive sense that it led to new understanding of
formative beginnings. In fact, the detour through a distant past turns out to be a road to
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new insights into modernity.
3.1. Axial Transformations
The past in question was a period of radical change to religious beliefs, modes of
thought and human self-images. These cultural mutations were to some extent reflected
in social transformations. The changes took place in several separate civilizational
centers; ancient Greece, ancient Israel, India and China are the prime cases, but other
less straightforward ones have been suggested. In chronological terms, they extend over
a few centuries around the middle of the last millennium BCE. The idea that they
represent a spiritual revolution of world-historical significance can be traced back to the
eighteenth century. But the first systematic interpretation of the period was proposed by

the German philosopher Karl Jaspers in the aftermath of World War II, and he was the
first to use the term “Axial Age”, which Eisenstadt adopted. However, in Eisenstadt’s
work, the same term covers a different problematic: ideas first formulated in the context
of a philosophy of history are translated into the language of historical sociology. The
re-interpretation of the Axial Age and the multi-faceted discussion which it has sparked
are perhaps the most striking proof that such translations are still possible and
productive.
For Eisenstadt, the core aspect and common denominator of axial innovations is a new
“cultural ontology”, a novel perspective on the world and on human ways of relating to
it: a bifurcation of reality, a distinction between higher and lower orders of being that
gives rise to new rules for human conduct and social life. The distinction can be
articulated in very different ways, and it need not result in a stark dichotomy of worldly
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and otherworldly concerns. The higher levels of being may be envisioned in terms of a
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creator and legislator god, models of an encompassing cosmic order, or more elusive
notions of an impersonal ultimate reality. Correspondingly, the ethical and social
implications of axial world-views vary across a wide spectrum: the main emphasis may
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be on a quest for salvation through access to or conformity with higher levels of being,
on the maintenance of a hierarchical order set in an ontological framework, or on
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fundamental principles of justice to be implemented in the social world. But from a
more general point of view, and irrespective of such divergences, the axial turn results
in a vastly enlarged scope for socio-cultural self-interpretation and self-questioning.
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With regard to the patterns of social power, the consequences are ambiguous. Axial
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world-views open up new possibilities for the justification and transfiguration of

established power structures as well as for criticism, protest and transformation. In that
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sense, Eisenstadt refers to the Axial Age as the beginning of ideological politics. New
dimensions of social conflicts go hand in hand with the formation of news social actors.
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Intellectual elites – such as the prophetic movement in ancient Israel, the philosophers
and sophists in ancient Greece, the Chinese literati, and the Buddhist monastic
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community - become the protagonists of traditions based on axial foundations. These

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groups enter into more or less organized coalitions with political elites and rulers, often
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with momentous long-term historical effects.

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In short, Eisenstadt’s interpretation of the Axial Age stresses the interconnections of

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cultural and social dynamics and allows for fundamental cross-cultural affinities as well
as for the diversity of context-dependent paths and formations. It has sparked more
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lively debates than earlier writings on the subject; the discussion is far from finished,
but a few dominant trends may be distinguished. Questions have been raised about the
background to axial transformations: Eisenstadt’s account tends to portray pre-axial
world-views as characterized by a basic continuity and homogeneity, excluding radical
breaks between transcendent and mundane, cultural and natural, or divine and human
orders. This undifferentiated picture does not do justice to the religious and intellectual
creativity of early civilizations. They transformed the beliefs and modes of thought of
Neolithic societies, and did so in different ways (for example, comparative studies of
Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations have highlighted major contrasts between
their respective cultural universes). At the very least, then, more detailed analyses of the
diverse pre-axial trajectories and legacies are needed. Another set of criticisms has
focused on the general model of an axial breakthrough. It can be argued that although

the historical cluster of major transformations provides a very convenient framework for
comparative studies (contingent historical parallels can serve to focus attention on
significant points), closer examination of contrasts and parallels is required before
proposing a comprehensive model.
Some participants in the discussion have suggested that a typological perspective would
prove more fruitful than the historical one: the focus would then shift from a particular
period to a pattern of transformation that may have taken place in an unusually striking
fashion during the Axial Age, but should not be defined in chronological terms. On this
view, the main innovations in question have to do with higher levels of reflexivity, and
more specifically with enhanced awareness of human capacities to understand, order,
and transform the world. It matters less whether these new perspectives are articulated
through constructions of transcendent powers or principles, and the axial model of
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cultural change can encompass later transformations which depended much less on
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ideas of that kind. In particular, a broad definition of axial breakthroughs or mutations
may be applicable to the innovations usually taken to mark the advent of modernity.
Eisenstadt has to some extent gone along with the typological turn, most notably by
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including the rise of Islam among the key cases to be compared. But he continues to
speak of axial civilizations, not merely of axial transformations; the former concept
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refers to large-scale and long-term historical formations, centered on cultural
orientations that crystallized during the Axial Age as well as in the course of
chronologically less circumscribed sequels to it. The most prominent axial civilizational
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complexes - the Western Christian or Western European, Byzantine, Islamic, Indian and
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Chinese ones – coincide with regional traditions singled out by global historians in
search of a multi-polar framework for their discipline. They also exemplify the macro-
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cultural and macro-social structures envisaged by Durkheim and Mauss (as noted
above). As Eisenstadt sees it, axial civilizations develop their specific institutional
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forms of integration, conflict and change; together with similarly distinctive patterns of
rationalization (in a broadly Weberian sense), and ways of reconstructing traditions,
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such defining features maintain civilizational identity throughout successive phases.

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3.2. A New Vision of Modernity

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This conception of axial civilizations is not obviously applicable to the cultural

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constitution of modern societies. It would seem more appropriate to begin with a

comparative analysis of axial and modern innovations, before trying to construct a
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model that would cover both cases. That project links up with the second main theme
mentioned above: the idea of modernity as a new civilization. Eisenstadt’s reflections
on this topic are less systematic than his work on axial civilizations, and they have been
much less extensively discussed, but some significant implications should be noted. The
civilizational perspective on modernity belongs in the context of debates that unfolded
from the late 1970s onwards, in connection with a critical reconsideration of the
problems first posed by modernization theory. The latter is best understood as a broad
and diversified current, dominant in Western sociology from around 1950s to the mid-
1960s but later subjected to criticism from many sides. Modernization theory was
primarily interested in the processes that made societies more modern: industrialization,
urbanization, bureaucratization and (more controversially) secularization were the most
salient trends of this kind. The search for a more general common denominator tended

to emphasize the progress of technically applicable knowledge. What it meant to be

modern was a much less debated question; but it came to the fore at a later stage and
became central to a broader shift of focus from modernization to modernity. Since the
meaning of modernity could not be discussed without reference to the meaningful
frameworks imposed and accepted by historical actors, this reorientation led to stronger
interest in the cultural sources and premises of modern transformations. Eisenstadt’s
conception of modernity as a civilization is part and parcel of the cultural turn, and
gives a distinctive twist to it. Three main points should be underlined.
First, the central component of the modern civilizational pattern is a new vision of
human autonomy, more radical and more complex than any notions of that kind
embedded in older cultural traditions. In other words, the cultural focus of the new
civilization is on human capacities to accumulate power and wealth as well as to claim
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self-determination, to master nature and to transform society, and to achieve valid
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knowledge of the world as well as to attribute meaning to it. Second, the complexity of
this network of meanings lays it open to conflicting interpretations. At their most
ambitious and polarized, such alternatives develop into what Eisenstadt calls
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“antinomies of modernity.” In the philosophical tradition, the concept of antinomy
refers to the clash between incompatible but equally defensible assumptions and
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principles; Eisenstadt uses it in a looser sense that refers to mutually exclusive
interpretations of shared cultural premises. That applies to conflicts between
individualistic and collectivistic conceptions of autonomy (and ways of balancing
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liberty and equality), as well as to rival models of rationality: some of the latter have
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aspired to global reach and definitive validity, while others allow for a plurality of
contextual and evolving patterns. These divergent elaborations of underlying cultural
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perspectives enter into the making of “alternative modernities”, institutional models that
compete for supremacy in the global arena; the international conflicts of the twentieth
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century were the most significant historical episodes of that kind. Finally, the idea of
modernity as a new civilization also serves to clarify one of the most vexed questions of
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modernization theory: the relationship between modernity and tradition. From the very
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beginning, critics of modernization theory complained about its tendency to rely on a

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leveling and impoverished concept of tradition, reduced to little more than an inverted
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mirror-image of the innovative dynamics attributed to modernity. As noted above, the

paradigm of civilizational analysis challenges such views on general grounds:
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civilizations understood as large-scale and long-term historical formations, crystallize

around diverse cultural traditions, characterized by specific modes of change, internal
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debate, reconstruction and adaptation to changing constellations. The civilizational

approach to modernity can then highlight the interaction of new orientations with older
legacies. Modern civilizational dynamics prevailed most decisively in Western Europe
and its overseas offshoots (the debate on comparable but more contained tends in other
civilizational contexts is still open); the results affected other parts of the world in
varying measure, and in societies belonging to the other major Eurasian civilizational
complexes, the modernizing transformations induced or at least accelerated by Western
influences were at the same time conditioned by socio-cultural backgrounds that left
enduring marks on the resultant patterns of modernity. In other words, the
technological, social and cultural dynamic of Western expansion undermined the core
structures and collective identities of the non-Western civilizations exposed to it, but did
not preclude continuing and mutually formative interaction between fragmented

traditions and changing clusters of transformative forces. To mention only the most
obvious cases, the Islamic, Indian, Chinese and Japanese versions of this recurrent
constellation differ in important ways. The civilizational approach thus links up with the
debate on “multiple modernities” that has been unfolding since the mid-1990s.
The above survey of Eisenstadt’s work would be incomplete without a mention of his
work on Japan - probably the most detailed and systematic case study of civilizational
dynamics so far available. But its relationship to other parts of Eisenstadt’s project is
paradoxical and raises questions about basic conceptual issues. For Eisenstadt, Japan is
a singular case: a non-axial civilization not only surviving alongside the axial ones but
capable of extensive borrowings from them and of adapting the inputs to its own
cultural frameworks. Even more strikingly, this exceptional case became the most
distinctive and durable example of non-Western forms of modernity developing in
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response to the challenge of Western expansion, and through adaptation of western
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models in ways comparable to earlier encounters with axial traditions. In his more
programmatic writings, Eisenstadt has continued to stress the exemplary significance of
Axial formations for the “civilizational dimension of sociological inquiry”; he has also
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emphasized the connection between axial and modern breakthroughs, both in the sense
of affinities and contrasts to be explored and with reference to traditions linking the
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former to corresponding variants of the latter. If Japan falls outside this frame of
reference and is nevertheless a privileged case in point, that suggests unresolved
problems at the most basic conceptual level. As for the specific features that figure most
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prominently in Eisenstadt’s analysis of Japan, they have to do with the absence of the
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very ruptures and divisions supposedly typical of the common axial pattern, and thus –
in other words - with the maintenance of basic continuities in the key dimensions of
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social life: between nature and culture, tradition and innovation, kinship and statehood,
but also between the institutional forms of economic, political and religious life,
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integrated through cultural constructions of an embedding community. The primacy of

continuity and integration is still evident in patterns of Japanese modernity, not least in
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its evolving and flexible combinations of economic and political power.

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4. Civilization and Civilizations

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The themes explored in Eisenstadt’s work and the questions raised by his approach to
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them are the most promising starting-points for further discussion of civilizational
analysis as a research program. But before moving in that direction, a brief detour
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through the history of social thought is in order. As is well known, the concept of
civilization may be used in the singular as well as in the plural; the former meaning is at
issue in debates on the beginning, the achievements and the ambiguities or paradoxes of
civilization, as well as in speculations about its collapse. The relationship between
plural and singular meanings was not a major concern of those who reactivated the
agenda of civilizational analysis in the late twentieth century; it may, however, require
closer attention if the project is to be pursued in a systematic way. Historians of ideas
have shown that both meanings can be traced back to the eighteenth century, but in the
context of the Enlightenment, civilization in the singular overshadowed the much less
developed plural; later developments obscured the links between them, and on both
sides, other concepts absorbed and deflected the analytical perspectives that can now -
with the wisdom of hindsight - be brought back into closer contact. Ideas of civilization

in the singular, understood as a universal-historical development of human abilities and

amenities, merged with theories of social and cultural evolution. The difference that can
be rediscovered through eighteenth-century sources has to do with questions of
analytical scope and level: the notion of civilization in the singular refers to –and
proposes to reconstruct – a historical process, but evolutionary theories subsume this
process under more general models of lawlike patterns (the most influential sociological
theories of evolution have, in one way or another, tried to link their explanatory claims
to basic assumptions about biological evolution). As for civilizations in the plural, the
field was for a long time left to the notoriously fluid and polysemic concept of culture.
Theories of culture have, of course, overlapped with theories of evolution, but those that
place the strongest emphasis on cultural diversity are by the same token incompatible
with evolutionary constructions of ultimate uniformity. The rediscovery of civilizations
in the plural concerns both sides of the question. Civilizational patterns exemplify
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diversity on a particularly large scale, with implications across the spectrum of social
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life, and unfolding through long-term historical processes. At the same time,
comparative approaches at this level can – as the discussion about the Axial Age shows
- revisit the issue of common features and trends. Some participants in the debate have
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argued that axial transformations can be understood from an evolutionary perspective.
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For the present purposes, it seems appropriate to set the question of evolution aside and
return to the task of clarifying and combining the two concepts of civilization.
Notwithstanding the marginalization of themes and problems related to civilization in
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the singular within the mainstream of the sociological tradition, classical sociology
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provides at least indications of a concept that can serve to guide further reflection. The
most emphatic statements in this vein are summed up in Durkheim’s view of
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civilization as an ongoing transformation of human nature. Marx had similar things in

mind when he equated the progress of civilization with the development of the
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productive forces and stressed the civilizing impact of capitalism. The core dynamic of
civilization is, on this view, a complex development of human capacities that manifests
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itself in ways of appropriating the world as well as in the growing scope and diversity of
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social interaction. Capitalism is – as Marx saw it - central to this process, but also the
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most revealing expression of its imbalances and contradictions, and therefore destined
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to be superseded by a more rational mode of development. An even more acute

sensitivity to the paradoxes of progress is reflected in Weber’s concept of
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rationalization, which has significant points of contact with ideas of civilization in the
singular, as formulated by other authors (Weber did not use the term). The sociological
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classics took different views of the divide between stateless and state-centered societies
(for Durkheim it was less fundamental than for Marx and Weber), but none of them
made much use of a stark division between primitive and civilized stages of history.
That dichotomy became more important for anthropologists and historians who
identified the origin of civilization with the transition to statehood, urban life and
literacy - a historical mutation that first occurred in the Near East some 5-6000 years
ago (although more precise dating will probably remain a matter of permanent debate).
The dynamics, implications and consequences of these fundamental changes to the
human condition are still unclear in many respects, and scholarly work has underlined
the magnitude of the problem. There are good reasons to regard the emergence of the
state as a revolutionary transformation of social life, affecting all its fields in far-
reaching ways; a better grasp of this basic point has at the same time discredited earlier

theories, and new approaches do not converge on a clear-cut alternative ( a very radical
anthropological perspective was outlined by Pierre Clastres, and then developed in more
sophisticated terms by Marcel Gauchet; a more nuanced historical-sociological account
of primary state formation was suggested by Michael Mann). Explanations in terms of
economic functions have proved untenable. In particular, the early states that grew into
major civilizational centers were not created in response to the organizational problems
of large-scale irrigation: early state formation preceded major irrigation works, and
there is no clear correlation between the latter and the progress of political
centralization. The archaic states that mark the beginning of a new world-historical
epoch represent radically new forms of political power, backed up by some kind of
sacred rulership (not necessarily of a despotic type), and a reorientation of social life,
too pronounced to be reducible to continuing trends or pre-existing functional
imperatives. On the other hand, late twentieth-century work by archaeologists and
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prehistorians has raised new questions about the background to early state and city
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formation. The “neolithic revolution”, i.e. the invention of agriculture and the
concomitant transition to sedentary life, is commonly seen as a key precondition for the
centralizing and urbanizing processes that subsequently unfolded in the same region.
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Neolithic beginnings in the Near East date back to the eighth or ninth millennium BCE.
Some scholars now argue that the whole cultural transformation involved in this shift to
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a new mode of life was initiated by major changes to religious beliefs and practices. The
issue remains controversial, but a strong case has been made for religious sources of
Neolithic innovations, and this view challenges earlier accounts of the relationship
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between two successive waves of macro-historical change: the invention of sedentary
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agriculture and the formation of state- and city-centered societies. In the present context,
this emerging problematic can only be noted in passing.
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4.1. Norbert Elias and State Formation

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The most fruitful attempt to reintroduce the concept of civilization in the singular into
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sociological discourse did not deal with archaic beginnings, but it maintained a strong
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connection between statehood and civilization. Norbert Elias’s work on the “civilizing
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process”, published shortly before World War II but not properly recognized until three
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or four decades later, was first and foremost a reconstructive history of state formation
in Western Europe during a period that Elias was probably the first to describe as “long
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Middle Ages”: from the collapse of the premature Carolingian Empire in the ninth
century to the onset of revolutionary changes at the end of the eighteenth century. As
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Elias saw it, this very long-term process involved a progressive - but far from
uninterrupted - concentration of power, most effectively through increasingly
monopolistic control over the means of coercion and the extraction of resources through
taxation. In this way, the well-known Weberian definition of state power as a monopoly
of legitimate force within territorial limits is translated into more concrete historical
terms. But for Elias, the main point of the broader historical perspective was that it
served to trace the impact of state formation on the whole social spectrum of
institutions, practices and mentalities. The monopolization of violence by the state leads
to a gradual pacification of social life, and thus to the creation of social spaces for more
differentiated individual and collective activities. Economic growth, resulting in
commercial expansion and ultimately in the take-off towards modern capitalism, is the
most momentous aspect of these developments. In more general terms, the progress of

state formation establishes basic preconditions for an increasingly complex division of

social labor. The civilizing process, as Elias understands it, links this dynamic of socio-
cultural differentiation to social-psychological transformations that make individual
behavior more and more subject to internal control. Social control takes the form of
self-control. Elias uses various terms to describe the psychological dimension of this
process; the most systematic arguments employ the category of “habitus”, later
popularized by Pierre Bourdieu and others. The disciplining and rationalizing
reorganization of the “the economy of affects”, as Elias sometimes calls it, also
enhances the human capacity to pursue objective knowledge.
To the extent that this conception of the civilizing process stresses the development and
diversification of human abilities, it links up with the above mentioned ideas of classical
sociology. Elias was, however, inclined to subsume his analyses of the civilizing
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process under a general model of social development, defined in terms of growing
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control over the natural and social environments as well as over human nature; this
evolutionary turn toned down the implications of an argument centered on civilization
in the singular. There is a similar but less visible tension between the focus on one
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supposedly self-contained process and the potential for comparative application to
civilizations in the plural. Elias’s new sociological key to the history of Western
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European societies did not depend on any systematic comparisons with developments in
other parts of the world, and the question of interaction with non-European civilizations
- through conquest, trade or cultural borrowing - was set aside. Later attempts to use
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Eliasian concepts and models outside their original setting have shown that the focus on
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links between the dynamics of state formation and a more complex set of socio-cultural
transformations remains fruitful. Elias’s particular understanding of the connections
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may often be debatable, but his project opened up a whole new field of social and
historical inquiry. More importantly for the present purposes, it can be argued that a
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broader perspective throws light on the Western European preconditions that Elias had
taken for granted. The state structures whose origins and trajectories he set out to
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analyze had emerged within a very specific context: the tripartite division into papacy,
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empire and kingdoms with more or less pronounced ethnic identities. This was a
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defining feature of Western Christendom, setting it apart from the two other
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civilizations that grew out of the transformation of the Roman world. It has often been
interpreted as a separation of sacred and secular authority, but this seems misleading:
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each of the three central institutions combined sacred and secular sources of power in
specific ways. The rivalry between empire and papacy was in the foreground during the
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most formative phase of the Middle Ages, but in the long run, monarchies built on a
more solid territorial basis took the lead and became the cornerstones of the modern
European state system. But the monarchies drew on visions and practices pioneered by
the more universalistic civilizational centers: kings in competitive and therefore
compulsive pursuit of more effective power could claim imperial authority within their
respective realms and learn from the experience of the papal monarchy. Moreover, the
plurality of power centers was – for a shorter but crucial span of time - conducive to
further proliferation, especially through the reappearance of city-states in some regions
of Western Christendom. They could not match the resources of territorial kingdoms,
but the legacy of innovative city-state cultures left its mark on later developments.
Elias’s narrative, centered on the progress of Western European monarchies from
symbolic to structured and effective centralism, presupposes this civilizational

background, and a more explicit reference to it suggests comparison with other

civilizations. The constellation described above is best understood as a complex of
relations between culture and power: the competing centers differ not only in regard to
organization and practical reach, but also on the level of cultural symbolism.
4.2. Early Civilizations
With the connection between state formation and civilizing processes in mind, and
allowing for variations due to different civilizational contexts, it may be useful to return
to archaic beginnings. Civilizational pluralism, as defined here, is the result of
variations integral to the transformative pattern that has been identified with the
emergence of civilization in the singular. Some form of sacred rulership seems to have
been a recurrent characteristic of the archaic state, but its more specific features and
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claims to authority vary widely. The image of a divine king differs from a deputy or a
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privileged servant of the gods. Such divergences reflect broader contrasts between
cosmological or religious conceptions, obviously not unrelated to different historical
and environmental settings, but (as comparisons of Egyptian and Mesopotamian
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traditions have convincingly shown) too far-reaching and comprehensive to be reducible
to external conditions. On the other hand, the geopolitical structures of power differ in
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ways that can affect the framework of the respective civilizations. The contrast between
an enduringly centralized polity, subject to relatively short breakdowns (as in Egypt)
and a multi-central constellation that allows only intermittent and partial imperial
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unifications (as in Mesopotamia) is the most obvious case in point; distinctive patterns
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and sequences developed in other archaic civilizations. Differentiating factors also come
into effect in the economic sphere. The general tendency of historical scholarship since
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the 1970s has been to stress the importance of trading networks – including
interregional ones - for neolithic societies as well as for early civilizations; this is a
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significant change to earlier views, but it has also become clear that archaic civilizations
vary in regard to the overall role of commerce and its relationship to core institutions.
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Although neither political nor economic processes can be understood as secondary

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effects of cultural determinants, it is equally true that their impact on the socio-cultural
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context cannot be analyzed without taking into account the cultural interpretations of
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wealth and power. This latter aspect is of particular interest to civilizational analysis.
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In short, the diversity of multi-dimensional civilizational patterns – made up of cultural,

political and economic components - is inseparable from the transformation that gave
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rise to statehood, urban life and literacy, and in that sense from civilization in the
singular. This approach to the plurality of civilizations can also help to clarify another
point of more general significance. If the civilizational patterns center on cultural (and
more specifically religious) meanings attributed to new forms of power, they are by the
same token superimposed on older layers of socio-cultural life, inherited from the
neolithic revolution. This substratum is affected by the new historical context, but not
everywhere to the same degree the same way, and it never undergoes a total
transformation. The interaction of civilizational formations and more local forms of
social life is a matter for comparative historical inquiry (an earlier anthropological
school of thought referred to the two sides as “great traditions” and “little traditions”,
but this suggests a one-sidedly culturalist view). At the same time, pre-existing
networks of trans-local and trans-regional exchanges were reinforced and expanded: the

formation of civilizational centers gave a new impetus to trade, conquest and cultural
borrowing. In more general terms, the emergence of civilizations leads to
intercivilizational encounters. But interactions on that level did not develop to the same
degree in all regional settings. Intercivilizational encounters were particularly intensive
in the ancient Near East and on its Mediterranean peripheries; they were less important
for early developments in the East Asian civilizational area, although it is now known to
have been less isolated than historians had tended to assume. As for indigenous
American civilizations, there seem to have been no significant encounters between the
Meso-American and the Andean centers.
These changing interrelations – civilizational formations linked to more local as well as

more global ones - indicate the domain but also the limits of civilizational analysis. Its
task is to explore and theorize a specific dimension of the social-historical world, not to
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construct a new all-embracing paradigm. It can therefore only pursue its aims in
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collaboration with other approaches, and the rules of demarcation must be redefined to
fit different historical contexts. Civilizational analysis is, in other words, one of the
interpretive frameworks available (and essential) to historical sociology, and its
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relevance depends on the aspects, issues or epochs under consideration. Local, regional
and global constellations are the most obvious cases of thematic foci beyond the
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civilizational frame of reference. But they also exemplify the variability and ambiguity
of such situations. The direct or indirect impact of civilizational factors on these other
levels of analysis may be more or less significant. Furthermore, dynamics of local,
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regional or global origin may take a civilizational turn. Durkheim and Mauss noted the
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possibility of societies “singularizing” themselves within the framework of civilizations,

even to the extent of claiming separate civilizational status; although they did not
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elaborate this idea, the context suggests that they were primarily thinking of national
differentiation in the Western world. The new civilization that took shape in the Near
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East in the wake of the early Islamic conquests ( Marshall Hodgson labeled it as
“Islamicate”) crystallized around a religious message and an imperial center, but on a
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regional scale and through new processes of regional integration. The Roman Empire
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grew into a power structure with a global reach by the standards of its times ( and was
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already seen as such by contemporary observers); its socio-cultural framework is

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perhaps best described as a composite civilization, and the Christianization of the

empire may be seen as an attempt to impose a more thoroughgoing civilizational unity.
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To return to the question of archaic civilizations and their diversity: a stronger emphasis
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on this background to later developments does not entail a complete disavowal of the
axial model, but it opens up new perspectives for the analysis of axial phenomena and
casts doubt on sweeping generalizations. If the divergent patterns and trajectories of
prior history are taken into account, the innovations of the Axial Age can no longer be
understood as breaks with a shared and undifferentiated past (Eisenstadt’s interpretation
has tended to portray pre-axial world-views as characterized by a general absence of
clearly drawn boundaries between different dimensions of reality). Rather, the
transformations that occurred during this strikingly creative period took place in cultural
environments shaped by particular traditions and through multiple interactions with
older legacies. Admittedly, the historical record of archaic civilizations is fragmentary,
the cultural distance more difficult to bridge than in the case of axial traditions, and the
state of scholarship in the respective disciplines uneven. For all these reasons,

comparative analysis of the relationship between these two phases of civilizational

dynamics still has a long way to go. Jan Assmann’s work on ancient Egypt stands out as
the most sustained and successful attempt to link the study of an archaic civilization to
more general theoretical issues. Research work on ancient Chinese history has also led
to better understanding of the background to the Chinese version of the axial turn,
although no outstanding synthetic project has emerged. In other cases (notably in India),
the prehistory of the Axial Age is elusive and controversial. In short, open questions
about sources and preconditions, as well as about contrasts and parallels between the
defining examples of axial transformations, add up to a strong case for reserving
judgment on the axial model. It has undeniably played a key role in reactivating the
project of civilizational analysis, but it remains to be seen how far – or in what form –
the idea of the Axial Age can be reconciled with more advanced comparative studies. In
view of the need for further historical research on the problems outlined above, the
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typological turn suggested by Eisenstadt and others seems premature.
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5. Domains of Civilizational Analysis
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If the axial model can now be distinguished from the more complex set of theoretical
and historical questions that emerged around it, further extensions of the agenda may be
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envisaged on the basis of the above remarks. The double focus on archaic backgrounds
and axial transformations can, in other words, serve to sketch out a provisional guide to
the civilizational dimension of social and historical inquiry. This approach links up with
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the original rationale for a reinterpretation of the Axial Age: the search for a historical
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anchorage that would enable civilizational analysis to take a more detached view of
modernity and its ambiguous achievements. Pioneering ventures into the field –
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especially Max Weber’s comparative studies – were directly inspired by perceptions of

an unequal development that had put the West ahead of the rest, yet not insensitive to
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the prospect of triumphant rationality taking a regressive and impoverishing turn.

Contemporary versions of civilizational analysis do not abandon the effort to make
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sense of modern paradoxes, but broader horizons – primarily due to Eisenstadt’s work –
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have helped to construct a more balanced picture, with proper allowance for the
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multiple paths to and patterns of modernity.

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5.1. Cultural Problematics

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As has been seen, the mutation described by historians as the “emergence of

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civilization” involves transformations of three kinds: in the cultural, the political and the
economic spheres. This tripartite division is therefore the most plausible starting-point
for a comparative analysis of different civilizational patterns or types. If the present
discussion begins with the cultural sphere, that is in line with a more general trend:
civilizational analysis has, on the whole, inclined to stress the centrality of culture while
avoiding the cultural determinism that found strong support within a broad school of
sociological theory (it was most frequently summed up in a metaphor: culture is to
society what the genetic code is to the organism). The civilizational approach highlights
the cultural presuppositions built into comprehensive forms of social life, but also the
cultural definitions and orientations that enter into the constitution of autonomous
political and economic orders, as well as the cultural preconditions for the unfolding of
political and economic dynamics, often with far-reaching transformative consequences

for the broader socio-cultural configurations in question. In short, the focus on culture
has to do with two analytical levels: an underlying shared framework of different
domains, and a more explicitly articulated specific domain that interacts with others.
In this context, the concept of a cultural program is inadequate: its connotations suggest
an unequivocal and unilateral determination that is incompatible with the civilizational
perspective (Eisenstadt has often used it, but it does not do justice to the substance of
his arguments). To borrow a term now widely used in debates on epistemology and the
history of science, it seems appropriate to speak of a cultural problematic: a
constellation of meanings that define specific visions of and attitudes to the world, as
well as images of the human condition in relation to the broader world-making horizons.
Cultural pointers to ways of constructing, representing and transforming social order are
of particular importance. Such constellations are likely to include different levels of
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determinacy, cultural themes that lend themselves to varying degrees of articulation,
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and more or less pronounced divergent orientations. For these reasons, their formative
role in social life brings rival interpretations into play; at their most acute, interpretive
conflicts lead to the polarization of orthodox and heterodox currents. The last-named
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kind of conflict is, at the same time, closely bound up with the dynamics and divisions
of social power and the social scope for the innovative potential of heterodoxies
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depends on a whole range of enabling and constraining factors, including economic
ones. The most widely debated case of transformative heterodoxy is the impact of
Protestantism on early modern developments in the West. Max Weber’s classic but
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eminently controversial work on Protestant sources of the spirit of modern capitalism
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brought this issue into prominence, but later writers have cast doubt on the direct link to
economic action while shifting the emphasis towards a more general capacity to
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innovate in all domains, not least the political one.

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The interrelations of orthodoxy and heterodoxy have figured prominently in analyses of

the Axial Age and its legacies. At this point, it may therefore be useful to revisit that
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field, in light of the brief comments on cultural problematics and against the background
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of archaic civilizations. The overall picture of axial transformations now seems more
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complex than it did to earlier interpreters. Apparent innovations were in part due to
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rearticulations of much older cultural themes. This is perhaps most evident in the
Chinese context, where archaic notions of socio-cosmic order, centered on sacred
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rulership, were reformulated at higher levels of reflexivity; but it has also been shown
that Greek philosophy drew on distinctive themes of its mythological heritage. On the
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other hand, there is no denying the exceptional cultural creativity of the Axial Age, and
some of its inventions did result in epoch-making changes to cultural orientations. The
monotheistic turn in ancient Israel, more precisely the attribution of exclusive
sovereignty to a lawgiver god, was a cultural innovation of the most momentous kind.
As for the Greek Axial Age, the idea of an abrupt and radical change from mythos to
logos has been abandoned, but the emergence of the philosophical tradition can still be
understood as a crystallization of new modes of thought. But when it comes to long-
term trajectories of civilizations drawing on axial sources, the logic of cultural patterns
and the selective uses of their potential are interconnected with the dynamics of power
structures, most visibly with those of successive states and imperial centers. The roads
taken by the Chinese tradition - in preference to other possibilities adumbrated during
the Axial Age – were obviously not unrelated to the strategic imperatives and

ideological choices of a reunified empire. Changing fortunes and refashionments of the

Greek legacy can only be understood in connection with the ups and downs of
Hellenistic, Roman and post-Roman political history. The metamorphoses of
monotheism took place in conjunction with major transformations of imperial power.
5.2. Political Traditions and Transformations
In short, the cultural problematics of the Axial Age did not, on their own, predetermine
the course of history: they were appropriated and institutionalized in selective ways, and
this translation into social practices was invariably conditioned by the structural and
conjunctural dynamics of social power. But this does not mean that the latter factor is
external to the domain of civilizational analysis. Rather, the diverse cultural
interpretations of power should be seen as a crucial topic for further inquiry: they enter
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into the processes of state formation, not least at the imperial level, and connect the
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political sphere to the cultural one. A comparative civilizational approach to this field
can link up with the study of political cultures, where the “cultural plasticity of power”
(Lucian Pye) has emerged as a clue to more specific problems. But on the larger scale of
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comparative history, there has so far been no corresponding attempt to develop a
research program (the question of cultural imprints on power has, for example, not
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figured prominently in Eisenstadt’s analyses of axial civilizations). At this stage,
proposals to that effect must be limited to a few reference points. The following
discussion will take its bearings from some underdeveloped themes in Max Weber’s
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political sociology.
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One of Weber’s most interesting hints at unexplored problems is the suggestion that
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early conflicts and compromises between warriors and priests may have had significant
long-term effects: different turns taken by these archaic and often dimly remembered
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beginnings could translate into different core institutions of whole civilizational

complexes. But the varying ways of dividing power between these two kinds of elites
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are, by implication, grounded in conceptions of the relationship between power and the
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sacred. Sacral rulership is an integral part of early statehood, but its strength and
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character vary from case to case. Specific features of the sacral framework affect the
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ruler’s relationship to the priesthood as well as to those who wield military power, and
vice versa. The scope for differentiation in this regard becomes more visible when the
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dominant trends and counter-currents of major cultural traditions are taken into account.
To clarify this point, it may be useful to reconsider the more familiar Weberian
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typology of domination. Weber described the typical mode of domination in traditional

societies as patrimonial; this is, to put it very briefly, a political regime that tends - with
more or less important qualifications, depending on the dimensions and structures of the
formations in question - to treat society as the household of the ruler writ large.
Although Weber was not very explicit on this point, the patrimonial scheme is thus an
image of power, derived from an elementary unit of social life and grafted onto the
political sphere. From this point of view, the logical next step would be to compare the
various cultural frameworks added to or superimposed on this recurrent pattern (in
Weber’s opinion almost universal). The patrimonial model of order could then be seen
as a shared infrastructure of otherwise divergent configurations. As critics have argued,
Weber’s failure to theorize this cultural differentiation was particularly evident in his
work on China; here the patrimonial aspects of domination were subsumed under a very

complex, distinctive and resilient form of sacred rulership. The notion of a “mandate of
Heaven”, held by a dynasty that could also lose it, served to legitimize the imperial
regime but laid it open to challenges when practice fell too far behind ideological
principles. The Japanese counter-example shows how this model could be transformed
in a different context: during the most intensive phase of cultural borrowing from China,
the Japanese state was restructured along Chinese lines, but the idea of a “mandate of
Heaven” was replaced by the myth of divine ancestry, which made dynastic change
virtually unthinkable.
These two cases suggest more wide-ranging comparisons with other variants of sacred
rulership and their respective implications for social order. But there is yet another
Weberian theme to be considered. In some of his writings on the state, he uses a narrow
definition that equates statehood with an impersonal and increasingly rational
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bureaucratic apparatus; in this sense, the history of the state begins in late medieval and
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early modern Europe (some historians continue to defend that view). A broader
understanding is, however, needed if the concept of the state is to be applied to earlier
historical periods. Weber had that requirement in mind when he claimed that the state is
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based on a monopoly of legitimate violence within a given territory. He also had to
allow for prefigurations of the more rationalized and structured type of statehood; such
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developments were, in various historical contexts, due to bureaucratic modifications of
the patrimonial scheme. These interconnected but incomplete lines of argument result in
a very inconclusive historical sociology of the state. But irrespective of ongoing
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controversies in Weberian studies, the notion of the rational bureaucratic state
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presupposes a new cultural interpretation of power: a de-personalizing turn that paves

the way for new methods of organization as well as new projects – and in the last
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instance phantasms – of maximization. Weber did not see the occidental invention of
the rational state as a stage on the road to democracy, but later authors have argued in
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that vein. Norbert Elias saw democratization, i.e. a progressive adaptation of state
structures to broader participation and a wider range of social interests, as a logical
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long-term consequence of changes that began with the de-personalization of central

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control mechanisms In his view, the process began with the “functional
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democratization” of power balances: as the chains of interdependence expanded, they

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tended to become relatively more equal. This claim is problematic, and in any case, the
overall process is not reducible to the internal dynamics of power structures. The
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seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European monarchies, commonly (but not

uncontroversially) known as absolutist, were at the cutting edge of state formation, but
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at the same time, they reinforced the supremacy of the ruler, and did so through a
complex combination of religious traditions and new ideological currents. The divine
right of kings, the principle of cuius regio, eius religio, and the image of the king as the
first servant of the state represent different aspects of this mixture. The guiding visions
of later democratic transformations, of a more or less revolutionary type, defined
themselves in opposition to the absolutist order and reflected its features in direct and
indirect ways.
The long-drawn-out transition from monarchic to democratic forms of rule in the West
can thus be brought into a civilizational perspective. But the above examples, taken
together and with a view to the changing role of religious traditions, also suggest a more
general conclusion: the “political history of religion”, as Marcel Gauchet calls it in a

pioneering work, is a particularly promising field for further testing of the civilizational
approach. The ideological, institutional and strategic relations between religious and
political frameworks of social life, changing in the course of history and varying from
one civilizational setting to another, are a key part of the broader interconnections of
culture and power.
5.3. The Economic Sphere
It remains to clarify where this focus on culture – especially religion – and politics
leaves the economic sphere. There is no doubt that civilizational analysts have so far
been less interested and less productive in this domain. The most effective way to show
the embeddedness of economic structures and processes in civilizational contexts seems
to be an indirect one: through the dynamics of state formation. Historians of medieval
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and modern Europe have extensively traced the multiple linkages between states and
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economic development; important work of that kind has also been done on China and
Japan. More detailed and comparative analyses of the cultural side to state formation
would strengthen the case for a civilizational view of the whole field. It is true that
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multi-civilizational perspectives have sometimes been brought more directly to bear on
economic history, most prominently in Fernand Braudel’s writings. But his basic
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concepts were ambiguous and underdeveloped, and he was not very interested in that
aspect of the problem.
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Any attempt to conceptualize the civilizational constituents of economic life is
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confronted with a fundamental obstacle: as far as one can judge from the comparative
history of ideas and mentalities, it seems clear that traditional civilizations did not
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problematize their economic practices to the same extent as the political ones. There
was, in other words, no comparable articulation of rules, issues and alternatives, and it is
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therefore much more difficult to link the forms of economic life to cultural problematics
(this changed with the advent of modernity, when the new dynamism of the economic
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sphere opened it up for alternative interpretations). This contrast is undeniable, but it

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should not be overdrawn. Some relativizing suggestions can be made on the basis of the
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very model that has inspired the most seminal accounts of the economic divide between
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tradition and modernity. Modern thinkers have sometimes singled out Aristotle’s
reflections on the arts of household management and acquisition as the first systematic
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discussion of economic problems, and in other cases, the unacknowledged influence of

this source is easy to detect. Reflecting on the experience of the Greek city-states, at a
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time when the end of their most creative phase was in sight, Aristotle saw the household
as a natural framework for an economic life which in his view was inferior and external
to the political life of the city. At the same time, he identified another form of
acquisition, less natural and less compatible with the good life: the accumulation of
wealth for its own sake. The contrast between an economy centered on the household
(the oikos, to use the Greek term that became current in modern thought) and an
economy of accumulation was reformulated by founders of the modern sociological
tradition. For Marx, the capitalist mode of production was the first radical break with
the quasi-natural cycle of reproduction that had been characteristic of premodern
societies. Pre-capitalist forms of economic life could thus be subsumed under the model
of a household writ large. For Max Weber, the concept of the oikos as an organizational
principle, applicable beyond its original setting, was - although less extensively

discussed - arguably as central to the interpretation of premodern economies as the

patrimonial scheme was to his understanding of traditional politics. But Weber went
beyond Marx in his analysis of the various premodern forms of capitalism that coexisted
and intertwined with the structures of the oikos. The combinations differ in regard to
levels of integration and capacities for development; their main shared limitation is a
fundamental inability to transform the organization and orientation of production. The
breakthrough on that level came with modern capitalism.
Two ways of linking these issues to civilizational perspectives may be suggested. On

the one hand, and by analogy with the above discussion of patrimonial rule, it has been
shown that the oikos model - or assumptions derived from it – resulted in oversimplified
views of traditional socio-economic patterns. The most instructive example is the
ongoing controversy among economic historians of classical antiquity. It began with a
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radical disagreement between the “modernists” who saw the development of commerce
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and enterprise in the ancient world as an evolving prefiguration of modern capitalism,
and the “primitivists” who stressed the marginality of market forces within an economy
based on subsistence agriculture and subordinated to social and cultural priorities which
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reflected that background; since the 1970s, the debate has shifted towards closer
examination of the specific connections between commercial growth (with limited but
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not insignificant impact on the forms of production) and the structures of political and
military power, evolving from city-state to empire. The overall configuration and the
socio-cultural context of economic life were different from the modern world, but no
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version of the oikos model is complex enough to grasp their distinctive features.
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The reference to classical antiquity is also a pointer to the other line of comparative
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inquiry. If the view from the oikos was not so much a self-description of the ancient
world as a translation of complex historical patterns into an ideological construct,
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comparison with interpretive schemes developed in other civilizations would seem

useful. More specifically, the classical model, later transmitted to modern thought,
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should be confronted with non-Western ways of articulating the relationship of

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economic life to cultural and political contexts. The comparative history of ideas, and
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particularly of economic thought, has – as far as the present writer can judge – not
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tackled this question in a systematic manner. Some suggestive points may be noted. In
China, the period of the “Warring States” (the fifth to third centuries BCE, i.e. the later
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part of the Axial Age) was marked by a very precocious growth of states interested in an
all-round mobilization of resources – so much so that they have occasionally been
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described as the first developmental states. Their struggle for supremacy was
accompanied by intellectual elaboration of strategies that included economic
interventions. The tradition that crystallized around these efforts merits a more
prominent place in comparative studies than it has so far been given. It became one of
the sources of the imperial tradition, but was overshadowed by the Confucian current
that was less focused on economic concerns. This latter component of Chinese
civilization, undeniably central and often conflated with the whole pattern, also lends
itself to comparative uses. Civilizations differ in respect of the social and cultural status
granted to commercial practices and to the social groups involved in them; it is a
commonplace that the anti-commercial stance of imperial Confucianism did not
constitute a serious obstacle to commercial development, but it can still be argued that
this cultural factor made it easier to contain the social power of merchants and defuse

incipient challenges to the imperial order. The civilizational patterns of the Islamic
world set a higher value on commercial activities and elites, but political outlets for this
potential were blocked by power structures related to other aspects of the same
civilizational context. As these two cases indicate, comparative perspectives on the
economic dimensions of civilizations have to do with several levels: the degrees and
directions of economic development, the cultural meanings attributed to the economic
sphere, and the possibilities of projecting it dynamics into other domains of social life.
5.4. Themes for Further Research
The research program of civilizational analysis goes far beyond the basic themes
discussed above, but only a few points can be noted here. If civilizations are defined as
large-scale formations including multiple societies and cultures, the forms of interaction
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between these constituent units will vary in ways that depend on the broader
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civilizational patterns as well as on the historical context. The dynamics of
differentiation and integration on the civilizational scale have been much less studied
than those of societies organized as nation-states or in comparable forms. Similarly, the
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continuity of civilizations across historical changes presupposes the formation of
traditions, and the concrete modalities of such processes vary widely. Both these aspects
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of civilizational unity – in space and time - also have to do with the structures and
transformations of collective identity. Since this is a long-neglected but now intensively
debated theme of social theory, a few words should be said about civilizational
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approaches to the issue.
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There are two sides to the question. First, collective identity must be seen as a specific
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dimension of civilizational unity, rather than a mere reflection of cultural and

institutional factors. But different cultural and institutional patterns are translated into
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different forms of collective identity. A strong emphasis on cultural traits as

distinguishing and identifying principles can give rise to civilizational self-images that
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allow for more or less thoroughgoing assimilation of others (China and Ancient Greece
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exemplify this type, each in its particular fashion), or to more exclusivistic modes of
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demarcation (as in Hinduism). Civilizational identities based on universalistic religious

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creeds differ from both versions of the culturalist mode, most markedly in the case of
Islam. Ways of tradition-building also affect the formation of collective identity at the
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civilizational level, and their impact depends – among other things – on the inbuilt
provisions for reconstruction and recombination that figure more prominently in some
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traditions than others.
Second, the civilizational backgrounds to the formation of collective identities on a

more local or regional scale merit more comparative study. This applies most
importantly to national identities and their varying historical trajectories. Since the
1990s scholarship has become increasingly critical of modernist approaches to nations
and nationalism, and – by the same token - more interested in premodern sources of
nationhood and long-term processes of nation formation. It is a plausible assumption
that preconditions for such processes will include civilizational factors, and the record
suggests that some civilizations are more conducive to nation formation than others.
The prominent role and - as is now increasingly recognized – long history of nations in
Europe clearly has something to do with the specific configurations of culture and

power in this civilizational setting. The evidence does not justify the claim (occasionally
put forward) that the nation as such is a European phenomenon, but the contrast with
some other civilizational spheres (especially the Islamic world) is striking. On the other
hand, the East Asian constellation should at least be noted in passing: here the
particularly sustained and conclusive nation-forming processes in Japan and Korea
stand in contrast to the much more ambiguous and unfinished Chinese experience. This
is one of many indications of the complex civilizational profile of the region.
6. Towards Modernity
The new interpretation of the Axial Age, pioneered by Eisenstadt, was from the outset
bound up with efforts to re-theorize modernity. The long-term cultural dynamic that
began with axial breakthroughs was expected to provide a new key to modern
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transformations, and the plurality of axial traditions was seen as one of the primary
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factors that would explain the diversity of modern societies. But there was also, as has
been seen, a more direct connection between the revived civilizational paradigm and the
question of modernity: the vision of modernity as a new civilization. This second line of
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interpretation is less developed (Eisenstadt’s reflections do not go very far, and they
have not given rise to a broader discussion), and the following comments will neither
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follow Eisenstadt’s lead nor propose an alternative answer to his question. Rather, the
aim is to underline the complexity of the problem and the links to other unresolved
issues. If the project of civilizational analysis can, as is being suggested, be described as
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a paradigm in the making, its progress is in this particular case dependent on another
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vast and unfinished agenda: the theoretical elaboration of a new understanding of

modernity. The idea of “multiple modernities” is only one - admittedly crucial - aspect
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of a reconceptualizing process that is changing the core assumptions and interpretive

models of earlier scholarship. In the present context, the main point to be emphasized is
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the multi-faceted novelty of the modern constellation, and the difficulty in subsuming
all its aspects under the idea of a new civilization. That view is not to be dismissed out
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of hand, but it should be tested and debated in a more systematic fashion, and it may
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have to be combined with other perspectives in a more complex image of modernity.

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Three brief sketches of areas to be explored – not to be mistaken for a complete list —
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will illustrate the more general line of argument.

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Varieties of modernity (“multiple modernities”) are shaped by civilizational legacies –

not by them alone, and not always to the same extent; in particular, the civilizational
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factors interact with historical contexts and geopolitical constellations, and some
modern formations are more detached from their indigenous backgrounds than others.
But on a global scale, the modern transformation involves three sets of factors: The new
cultural, institutional and organizational patterns that may be seen as core components
of a new civilization; the western traditions that powered the most momentous
breakthrough to modernity (not the only one) and remained active in the Western setting
as well as open to adaptive interpretations elsewhere; and the non-Western civilizations,
undermined and fragmented by global modernizing forces, but still capable of leaving
their mark on distinctive versions of modernity. Eisenstadt’s work has, of course, dealt
with all three aspects of the problematic. They can be defined and analyzed in
civilizational terms, but it is far from obvious how they relate to the idea of modernity
as a civilization in its own right and of a new type. An alternative hypothesis might

stress the paradoxical character of this historical constellation: modernity would,

because of its global reach and corrosive impact, appear as a trans-civilizational
condition, but still dependent on civilizational backgrounds and conducive to a
recomposition of civilizational elements.
These indications of an ambiguous civilizational status can also be theorized at a more

general level: through a redefinition of the relationship between tradition and modernity.
Mainstream modernization theory has frequently been criticized for its use of an a priori
and invidious dichotomy: the vast spectrum of traditional societies was reduced to a
stereotyped opposite of modernity. The civilizational approach has added new
arguments to the countercurrent that insists on the diversity and creativity of traditions,
and on their continuing presence in the modern world. Although the term
“traditionalism” has been used to describe a rather marginal ideological current
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(committed to the notion of a transcendental unity of traditions), it seems applicable in a
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much more general sense: with reference to a widespread and variegated tendency to
reaffirm traditional foundations. The results are always marked by modern
presuppositions and reconstructions, but the popular cliché of an “invention of tradition”
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is based on an elementary misunderstanding: concrete contents are adapted,
reinterpreted or invented, not the historical horizon of tradition as such. The
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traditionalist trend manifests itself in the above-mentioned activation of civilizational
sources as building-blocks of modernity, but also in the revivalist efforts of world
religions, responding to modernizing processes (historians have gradually come to
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recognize the importance of such phenomena). Twentieth-century fundamentalist
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movements are an instructive case in point: as the most insightful analyses have shown,
they embody modern attitudes and aspirations, but their characteristics are also affected
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by different civilizational legacies. Last but not least, nationalist appeals to primordial
roots and constructions of continuous identities belong in this category. Analysts of
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nationalism disagree on the importance and the underlying meaning of the traditionalist
factor, but its presence is beyond dispute. Taken together, all three trends might suggest
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another variation on the theme of modernity as a civilizational paradox: the processes

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that represent a radical break unfold in close connection with rearticulations of

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premodern patterns of meaning. It is tempting to argue that this situation reveals

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modernity as both more and less than a civilization in its own right - more because of its
global transformative impact on all pre-existing civilizations, less because of its
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enduring links to their multiple legacies.

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Finally, a few words should be said on an image of modernity that seems to have gained
some currency since the 1980s. It strongest version, the metaphor of the juggernaut,
depicts the modernizing process as an uncontrollable and inescapable onrush,
accelerated but never encompassed by social actors in pursuit of their various projects.
The accumulation of power is central to this vision, but it is perceived from an angle
that enhances its accompanying destructive effects and its unintended consequences.
There is an obvious reference to contemporary problems: the threat of an ecological
crisis, the geopolitical realignments that might lead to a new round of warfare, and the
erosion of social preconditions for democratic government. But the whole cluster of
connotations also harks back to the idea of civilization in the singular, with renewed
emphasis on the dark sides and self-destructive dynamics emphasized by its critics, and
in a way that makes it more difficult to envisage any stable and specific civilizational

patterns. On this view, modernity appears as a fundamental shift in the relationship

between civilization in the singular and civilizations in the plural, but not so much in the
sense of a triumph for the former as with the result that the very possibility of the latter
is eliminated.
7. Objections and Qualifications
To conclude this discussion of a paradigm in the making (and therefore open to

alternative theoretical options as well as divergent empirical foci), it may be useful to
review some objections to the civilizational approach. It has not been widely discussed,
and nor representative statement of counter-arguments is available; the following
reflections on five different lines of criticism sum up the present writer’s view of the
most obviously controversial issues.
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As some critics see it, the concept of civilization - in the singular and in the plural – is
too burdened with normative connotations to be acceptable as an analytical category.
Such objections are, at first sight, more in order when the civilizational perspective is
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defined in the relatively restrictive terms preferred here. It would, on this view, suggest
an invidious dichotomy: a structural and historical division of human societies into
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civilized and non-civilized. The first point to be noted in response is that there are no
valid reasons for a sweeping proscription of concepts or comparisons that imply specific
patterns of inequality between societies. The unequal spread of literacy is an obvious
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case, with no essentialistic implications, and the same can be said about the present
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version of the concept of civilization: it refers to historically acquired capacities,

relations and forms of life, as well as to varying ways of combining and understanding
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them. It is not meant to suggest an overall value judgment. Questions relating to the
internal problems, paradoxes and dark sides of civilization loom large in the history of
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ideas, and the hypothesis that every civilization may have developed its distinctive ways
of criticizing civilization in general merits further debate. In view of the present state of
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relations between humanity and nature, the critique of civilization is at least as relevant
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as at any other moment in history. Those who did most to re-establish the concept of
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civilization as a cornerstone of social theory – Elias and Eisenstadt in particular - did so

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without any strong evaluative assumptions, and the research program of civilizational
analysis remains open to critical considerations that may affect dominant trends and
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premises. In the final instance, it seem plausible to describe the emergence of

civilization – in the sense defined above as a decisive but permanently controversial
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watershed: the attractive features of stateless or primitive societies (there is no reason to

dismiss the latter term as irredeemably invidious) have, again and again, been
highlighted by the curses of civilization, and seminal works by anthropologists have
enriched the debate. The possibility of more or less radical rejection - articulated in very
different ways – appears to be built into the civilized condition.
7.2. Civilizations, Societies and Religions
If this first objection is discounted, other problems arise at the analytical level. The
concept of civilization is sometimes seen as a substitute for the more frequently used
concept of society, and therefore fraught with similar difficulties. In particular, the
notion of an integrated, coherent and self-contained whole, grafted onto the mainstream

concept of society but later subjected to criticism, seems even less tenable on the larger
civilizational scale. This line of critique is based on a misunderstanding. In classical
sociology, more precisely in the programmatic essay written by Durkheim and Mauss,
the concept of civilization emerged as a complement to - not a substitute for – the
concept of society (it can be argued that in Max Weber’s work, the civilizational
perspective was - less explicitly - developed as a complement to the concept of culture).
Later reformulations have not changed this relationship in any fundamental way; for
example, civilizational analysts will speak of Islamic or Islamicate civilization as well
as of Islamic or Muslim societies. The concept of civilization serves to theorize large-
scale and long-term social formations of a distinctive kind. But this also means that it is
confronted with interpretive problems analogous to those that have accompanied the
concept of society. In the 1970s and 1980s, the dominant understanding of society came
under sustained criticism, so much so that some authors called for a “sociology without
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society.” Later discussions have shown that the concept of society cannot be eliminated,
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but its over-integrated or totalizing version – closely linked to what was then called “the
over-socialized conception of man” – is now generally seen as an obsolete part of the
sociological tradition. Similarly, the concept of civilization lent itself to over-integrated,
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holistic interpretations, and in the most extreme cases to visions of civilizations as
wholly separate and closed worlds (such ideas have, however, been put forward by
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speculative historians, rather than by sociologists). Efforts to avoid this misconstruction
have been evident in late twentieth-century scholarship. As has been seen, Eisenstadt’s
work stresses the internal pluralizing and polarizing dynamics of civilizations. More
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comparative study of intercivilizational encounters would also provide an important
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corrective. Civilizational analysis may not have developed the critique of over-
integrated models as far as sociological theory has, but advances in that direction are
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undeniable.
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A third objection concerns the role of religion: civilizational analysis is accused of

tacitly defining and differentiating its object in terms of religious traditions. The idea of
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civilizations in the plural would, on this view, not amount to more than a new label for
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world religions and - in some cases – their internal divisions. This criticism misses the
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specific thrust of civilizational approaches to the historical sociology of religion: the

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question of religious traditions as constitutive socio-cultural forces is subsumed under a

more general problematic, and interconnections as well as conflicts with other factors
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active on the same levels are taken into account. The civilizational perspective links
together two themes that came to the fore in classical sociology, but were not combined
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in a systematic fashion: the interpretive and the institutional roles of religion, i.e. the
religious frameworks for the articulation of world-views as well as for the construction
and transformation of social order. For civilizational analysts, the diversity of historical
variations to the former aspect and their different effects on the latter are of particular
interest. This may be seen as a combination of Durkheimian and Weberian ideas. On the
other hand, neither of the two aspects can be understood in exclusively religious terms.
It depends on underlying (and essentially contested) definitions whether world-views
and the traditions that codify them are described as religious. To take a prominent
example, the religious status or meaning of Chinese traditions has been a matter of
permanent debate; in this case as in others, there are good reasons to extend the
boundaries of religious beliefs and practices beyond the familiar categories derived
from the experience of monotheistic religions, but the directions and limits of such

redefinitions remain controversial. And in some cases, major transformations of world-

views must be distinguished from religious traditions with which they coexist and
interact. All interpretations of the Axial Age have presented the emergence of
philosophy in ancient Greece as a key part of the record, and although the relationship
of philosophical reflection to the religious components of the polis is a matter of
enduring debate, it is generally agreed that the difference between the two was more
marked and articulate than in the other philosophical civilizations (India and China). In
short, the centrality of religion has to do with its eminent role in making sense of the
world and the human situation within it; in that capacity, it interacts and overlaps with
other patterns of meaning, and comparative civilizational analysis will allow for varying
modes of coexistence in this field. To round off these comments on religion, it should
be added that scholars active in the field have never posited a uniform relationship
between religious traditions and civilizational patterns. In particular, the three world
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religions par excellence – Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism – cannot be subsumed
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under a common model. Islam seems most easily identifiable with a single evolving
civilization, defined in terms of constitutive rules and core institutions; the regional
offshoots that differ most markedly from the heartland – the Indo-Islamic world, the
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Southeast Asian archipelago, and Sub-Saharan Africa – did not acquire their specific
characteristics through religious schisms. In the case of Christianity, religious divisions
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have – in conjunction with other factors – translated into civilizational ones. A
distinction between Western Christendom and Byzantine-Orthodox civilization is
widely accepted and justified on the basis of institutional configurations, political
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cultures and intellectual traditions, even if issues regarding the identity and continuity of
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the Byzantine world remain controversial. More problematic claims have been made on
behalf of peripheral Christian cultures, such as Ethiopia. Finally, Buddhism represents a
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particularly difficult case. Its flowering in India - during the last centuries BCE and
more than the first half of the first millennium CE – can be seen as a key factor in the
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formation of a Pan-Indic civilization that expanded into Southeast Asia ( that line of
argument was developed by Jaroslav Krejčí), but this thesis calls for more concrete
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analysis. In East Asia, the spread of Buddhism affected civilizational patterns in

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significant ways, with distinctive variations developing in China, Korea and Japan, but
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not to such an extent that one could speak of a whole new constellation taking shape.
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The Theravada branch of Buddhism transformed the traditional kingdoms of continental

Southeast Asia (with the exception of Vietnam) during the first half of the second
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millennium CE, and this part of the region has therefore sometimes been singled out as
a Buddhist civilizational area; it is, however, highly debatable whether the
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transformation went far enough to outweigh the links to a broader and more composite
Southeast Asian context.
7.2. Boundaries, Encounters and Entanglements
These varying relationships between civilizations and religions raised a further problem:
the demarcation of different civilizations is never a simple matter, and often so difficult
that it may seem to cast doubt on the civilizational approach as a general line of inquiry.
There is no denying the relevance of this question, but the challenge to civilizational
analysis can perhaps be defused and reformulated as an agenda for further research. It
is, generally speaking, not to be expected that concepts used to describe and distinguish
social-historical formations can simply be mapped onto pre-given units. If we

understand them as ideal types (this Weberian term may now, in its most elementary
sense, be regarded as a common denominator of otherwise different approaches), there
will always be overlaps, border zones and intermediate cases. The demarcation
problems linked to the concept of civilization are comparable to those of other basic
categories, such as culture and society. One consequence of the much-criticized
influence of the nation-state on the sociological imagination was a general tendency to
posit precise borders where closer examination reveals frontier areas and intertwining
patterns. Comparative studies of premodern societies have done much to correct the
overall picture. If demarcation issues are thus accepted as an omnipresent feature of
concept formation and historical interpretation in the socio-cultural sciences, the
specific problems of civilizational analysis can be redefined in a more constructive vein.
They arise on several levels; only the most salient ones can be singled out here.
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As argued above, the comparative analysis of civilizations should not only deal with
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contrasts and parallels between separate cultural worlds, but also with the
intercivilizational encounters that can – to a greater or lesser extent - affect the
underlying structures and internal dynamics of the formations brought into contact.
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Civilizational analysis thus faces, on its particular ground, a more general problem of
historical inquiry: the task of combining comparative study with proper allowance for
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interconnections and crosscutting processes - “entangled histories”, as they are
sometimes called in current discussions. But in the present context, the main point to be
noted is that the problematic of encounters helps to put demarcations in perspective. If
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civilizations interact in mutually but most often asymmetrically significant ways,
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various kinds of intermediate formations are likely to emerge. This general tendency to
intertwine across boundaries takes different forms in diverse civilizational settings as
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well as in different domains of social life. On the level of cultural orientations, a

constellation of successor civilizations with a common background and shared borders
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(e.g. Western Christendom, Byzantium and Islam in relation to late antiquity) differs
from cases of mutually alien civilizations coming into closer contact after expansion
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into contiguous areas (the highly asymmetric interaction between Indian and Chinese
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civilizations, first in Central and Southeast Asia and then within the Chinese world, is
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an obvious example). These two historical types result in different kinds of encounters
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and interpenetrations. Yet another pattern is exemplified by the formation of

monotheism in ancient Israel (a breakthrough with far-reaching civilizational
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implications), which seems to have taken place through a radical and articulate rejection
of the models represented by neighboring and more powerful civilizational centers.
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On the political level, empires are perhaps the most instructive examples of combined
intra- and intercivilizational dynamics. Civilizational patterns are reflected in different
visions, institutional forms and ideological frameworks of imperial power (to underline
this point, it is enough to think of a comparison between Roman, Chinese, Islamic and
early modern Western overseas empires). At the same time, empires often expand
beyond their original civilizational context and take on more or less multi-civilizational
features (it is an interesting fact that the one with the most multi-civilizational reach
emerged from the Inner Asian periphery of the major Old World civilizations: the
thirteenth-century Mongol Empire). As for the economic domain, Fernand Braudel’s
historical analysis of world economies (économies-mondes) is perhaps the best starting-
point. Braudel deals with trans-regional economic networks that preceded and paved the

way for the modern leap to globalism; they develop in ways that reflect different
civilizational backgrounds (Chinese, Islamic and Western European versions of
economic world-making were not cast in the same mould), but the processes of
economic integration unfold beyond civilizational boundaries and impose their own
kind of divisions.
These brief reflections on intercivilizational formations may be linked to the above

comments on world religions and summed up in more general terms: to speak of
civilizations in the plural is to claim that they can, at least in approximate ways, be
demarcated from each other, but to grasp their historical dynamics, due weight must be
given to the structures and processes that bring civilizational factors into play on
intercivilizational levels and superimpose new boundaries on the civilizational ones. To
round off this part of the discussion, it may be useful to add a few words on the topic
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that has sparked the most interesting controversies on boundaries in history. Present
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debates on the concept of a historical region seem to approach consensus on two main
points. First, regions are neither geographical givens nor arbitrary constructs; they are
best understood as cumulative products of historical experiences, and as such open to
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rival definitions. Second, regional patterns take shape on different scales: macro-
regions, such as Eurasia or even Afro-Eurasia, are made up of smaller ones, and micro-
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regions can be distinguished within individual states. The historians involved in these
debates have not been particularly interested in civilizational aspects. But there is an
older precedent for focusing on this connection. Fernand Braudel, the author of the most
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acclaimed classic of regional history (on the Mediterranean), was also one of the
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pioneering advocates of a world history centered on civilizations. It must, however, be

admitted that his conceptual links between regions and civilizations left something to be
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desired; further exploration of this field might prove to be one of the most rewarding
tasks for civilizational analysis. Civilizations can only exist as spatial configurations,
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and in that sense, there is always a regional side to them. If the debatable category of
diasporic civilizations is accepted (Judaism after the destruction of the Temple is the
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most plausible example), they may be seen as a partial exception to this rule. But even
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in the more standard cases, the significance of the regional aspect varies; and
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conversely, civilizational factors do not always play the same role in the making of
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regions. Regional profiles and destinies are affected by other historical experiences, and
historians have often drawn regional boundaries that diverge widely from civilizational
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ones. Medieval Western Christendom was a civilization with relatively clear-cut

regional borders, and the gradual integration of peripheries into the region coincided
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with their assimilation into the civilizational framework; at the same time, the
beginnings of internal regional differentiation (growing divergences between Western,
Southern, Central and East Central Europe) can be traced back to the medieval period.
The Islamic world was a very different case. Its history begins with the imposition of
civilizational unity on a region that had hitherto been divided in that regard, but had a
long record of interrelations on other levels. Continuing expansion led to incorporation
of other regions with older historical identities, and they continued to develop in
distinctive ways within the global Islamic context. It has never seemed plausible to
speak of Islamic civilization as constituting one single region. Rather, it represents the
multi-regional civilization par excellence. East Asia (in the narrow sense centered on
China, Korea and Japan) is a familiar historical region, but its civilizational structure is
contested. For those who regard both Korea and Japan as smaller-scale variants of the

Chinese civilizational pattern, East Asia is a prime example of mutually constitutive

regional and civilizational boundaries. Others (including, as noted above, S.N.
Eisenstadt) have interpreted Japan as a fundamentally different type of civilization; but
in this case, a regional configuration can still be defined on the basis of a long history of
geopolitical and geo-cultural interaction between the core countries. More
conspicuously multi-civilizational regions can be found elsewhere (the Mediterranean is
a particularly striking example). In short, it is a defining feature of civilizations that they
enter into the constitution of historical regions, but their relations to other region-
making factors vary in time and space, and differences in this regard are linked to the
internal logic of civilizational patterns as well as to their external environment.
7.3. Historical and Geographical Settings
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The next objection to be considered tends to marginalize the civilizational aspect of
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history, rather than to question its very existence or identifiability. According to this line
of criticism, civilizational patterns are reducible to the ideological constructs and social
conventions of power elites, and the analysts who mistake ideological products for
R
O
cultural premises are reverting to an obsolete elitist vision of history. A more moderate
version of the argument may serve to defend a minimalist version of the civilizational
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-E
approach after retreat from more ambitious claims; such a shift seems to have taken
place in the work of William McNeill. In response, it should first of all be reiterated that
the civilizational frame of reference does not provide a self-contained paradigm for
AP
global history. Its relative weight depends on broader historical contexts and will not
O
always be assessed in the same terms by analysts working with different versions of the
shared framework. With this proviso, it is true that the revival of civilizational analysis
H
SC
implied a revaluation of elites and their roles in history, with a strong emphasis on the
underlying meanings of the projects through which elites intervene in their socio-
C
cultural worlds. To that extent, the civilizational approach represents a corrective to

anti-elitist biases of social history and a reminder that neither elites nor popular
E
collective actors can be singled out a priori as makers of history. Their interaction is a
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fundamental and enduring feature of the social world, but it takes different forms in
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different settings. Although much more work remains to be done in this field,
U
civilizational analysts have already noted several aspects of its interactive dynamics.
Eisenstadt’s interpretation of the Axial Age stresses the multiple meanings of the new
M
world views that serve to articulate and justify the strategies of political and intellectual
elites, but can also give voice to social protest. Another theme to be explored is the
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complex relationship between central traditions and the local cultures (not least those of
popular religion) which they incorporate and transform to a varying extent, but never
without some degree of mutual adaptation. In this regard, there are major differences
between the respective historical trajectories of Chinese, Islamic and Christian
civilizations. Last but not least, the interplay of cultural patterns and power structures
generates a dynamic that transcends the projects of elites as well as counter-elites and
gives rise to unintended consequences on a very large scale.
Questions have also been raised about the geographical context of civilizational
analysis. The background to the concept of civilization is unmistakably Eurasian; more
precisely, it grew out of a long history of efforts to define the identity and boundaries of
the Western European world in relation to the other major cultural complexes of the

Eurasian macro-region. Its relevance to other parts of the world may seem less obvious,
but this is a matter for further work on a research program, rather than a challenge to
basic concepts. Although the idea of a single African civilization has occasionally been
invoked, it does not seem defensible: it lumps together a large area of diverse socio-
cultural formations. The southern coast of the Mediterranean was, for long periods and
at crucial junctures, in more decisive contact with Eurasian currents of history than with
the rest of the African continent. The same applies, up to a point but with important
qualifications, to the Ethiopian cultural area, which represents a very interesting case for
comparative study. As for the bulk of Subsaharan Africa, three fundamental historical
facts set the parameters for a civilizational approach. Until the arrival of Islam, this
region was much less affected by intercivilizational encounters; it has a highly turbulent
history of rising and falling states, but long-term continuities or developmental patterns
seem less discernible than in key parts of Eurasia; last but not least, written traditions
S
did not take shape before Islamization. There is no doubt that African Islam developed
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some specific features; in light of the limiting factors listed above, it is a more open
question whether one can speak of emerging civilizational patterns in the pre-Islamic
phase.
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O
Civilizational approaches to the history of the western hemisphere face problems of a
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different kind. It is widely agreed that two civilizational complexes – the Meso-
American and the Andean - stand out above the vast spectrum of more local cultures in
pre-Columbian America. Their mutual isolation forms a strong contrast to the Eurasian
AP
record of intercivilizational encounters. The European conquest that brought their
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history to an end was an encounter of the most catastrophic kind: the sudden collision of
mutually alien worlds and the resultant unilateral destruction are without parallel in the
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SC
history of the Old World. This is not to suggest that pre-Columbian legacies were of no
importance for the later history of the respective countries. Traces of the pre-conquest
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past can be found in aspects of social structures and in ingredients of nationalist

ideologies. But these connections differ from the Eurasian pattern of more
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comprehensive links between successive civilizations. As for the new societies that
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developed in both Americas after the conquest, the question of their civilizational
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identity has not proved easy to answer. The two Americas have been described as
U
extensions of European civilization and as new civilizations created on new ground,

often without any attention to the theoretical points at issue. The most reasoned analysis
M
is Eisenstadt’s interpretation of the two Americas as innovative variants of Western

European civilization, based on transformations of the divergent cultural premises that
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had crystallized into the Reformation on one side and the Counter-Reformation on the
other. This line of argument rests on a distinction between religion as an institution
among others and as a meta-institutional interpretive framework for the construction of
social orders and practices: the key features of the American variants have less to do
with the power wielded by core institutions representing the rival branches of
Christianity than with cultural orientations rooted in the respective Christian traditions.
The picture is, of course, further complicated by the fact that in all cases – the two
Americas and the divided Europes - the transformation of traditions shades off into the
more radical innovations that mark the advent of modernity. But notwithstanding some
obviously questionable aspects (for instance, the polarizing vision of two Americas may
have to be replaced by a more nuanced map of “multiple Americas”), Eisenstadt’s
account is the most promising starting-point for further discussions.

Finally, it must be admitted that the Eurasian horizons and – more narrowly - European
sources of civilizational analysis constitute a problem that can only be remedied through
a long-term balancing program. To end on a note indicated at the beginning: if it is still
true that Eurocentric positions are reflected in the perspectives and categories of
civilizational analysis, the only effective response is a continuation of the efforts that
have already been made to draw on other traditions and experiences for the purposes of
comparative studies. For one thing, the conception of the Axial Age, as reformulated by
Eisenstadt, was a genuine and far-reaching attempt to open up a more polycentric
perspective on the civilizations that have evolved in the shifting arenas of world history.
It can be criticized for shortcomings in this regard as in others, and such criticism has
been made easier by advances in comparative history. It is probably true to say that
work grounded in East Asian perspectives has - so far – done most to complement and
counterbalance the European ones. This is obviously not unrelated to the impact of East
S
Asian modernization on twentieth-century economic and political history. It is also
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worth noting that some very significant contributions have come from scholars based in
the West but familiar with the East Asian background. There is every reason to expect
major developments of the whole civilizational problematic when the East Asian view
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O
of world history is articulated more fully from within; but what matters most is the
fusion of horizons, rather than a balance of separate perspectives. The same applies to
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other regions and their distinctive vantage-points.
Glossary AP
O
Classical sociology: A term often used to describe a formative phase in the

development of the social sciences, from the middle of the
H
SC
nineteenth century to 1920.

Cultural ontology: A term introduced by S.N. Eisenstadt; it refers to culture-
C
specific conceptions or images of nature, society and the human

condition.
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Durkheim, Emile: The founder of the French sociological tradition, born 1858 and
N
died 1917.
PL
Eisenstadt, S.N. : Israeli sociologist, born 1923; has played a key role in the
U
revival of comparative historical sociology in general and

civilizational analysis in particular.
M
Elias, Norbert: German sociologist, born Breslau 1897; left Germany 1933 and
spent most of his later life in Britain; died Amsterdam 1990.
SA
Enlightenment: A broad intellectual and cultural movement in seventeenth- and

eighteenth-century Europe; it took different forms in different
countries, but it was, as a whole, characterized by a strong
emphasis on rational inquiry and a critical attitude to traditional
religion.
Eurasia: Seen as a macro-region, it encompasses the conventionally
defined continents of Europe and Asia, and the northern coast of
Africa is often included.
Eurocentrism: A term used in different contexts, sometimes to describe the
belief that European values or cultural patterns are superior to
others, but also in the sense of unduly Europe-centered views of
global history; the latter bias is more difficult to correct than the

former.
Evolutionism: The view that the historical development of human societies can
be understood in terms of more or less lawlike general trends.
Huntington, American political scientist; he was not the first to speak about a
Samuel P. : “clash of civilizations”, but did most to popularize this notion.
Logos: This Greek word is difficult to translate in precise terms, but it
refers to language as well as discourse and reason; it is the last
connotation that comes to the fore when logos is contrasted with
myth.
Functionalism: The view that societies are best understood as made up of
components that contribute to the maintenance and reproduction
of the whole in specific ways.
Mauss, Marcel: Emile Durkheim’s closest collaborator, did much to develop
S
connections between sociological and anthropological lines of
LS
inquiry.
Modernity: One of the most debated and contested concepts of the social
sciences. It refers both to a historical period, now most
R
O frequently seen as beginning in the sixteenth century CE, and to
the socio-cultural patterns that developed and prevailed during
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this phase of world history.
Nelson, Benjamin: American sociologist and historian, born 1911 and died 1977,
AP his interpretation of Max Weber, as well as his own comparative
studies (especially on medieval Western Christendom) were of
O
major importance for the revival of civilizational analysis.

Neolithic societies: a conventional term for the period that now seems to have begun
H
SC
in the Near East as early as the ninth millennium BCE, but later
in other regions; the term originally referred to advanced types
C
of stone tools, but is now associated with the invention of

agriculture and the transition to settled forms of life.
E
Polis The ancient Greek city-state.

N
Pre-Columbian A conventional term for the two Americas prior to European

PL
America conquest and colonization.

U
Unilinear A term used to describe models that assume one dominant law
or trend in the history of human societies.
M
Weber, Max German historian and sociologist, born 1864, died 1920;
regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern sociology,
SA
and as the most productive civilizational analyst among the

classics
Bibliography
Arjomand, S.A. and Tiryakian, E. (eds) (2004) Rethinking Civilizational Analysis. London: Sage. [A
collection of essays on theoretical and historical topic related to civilizational analysis].
Arnason, J. P. (2003) Civilizations in Dispute: Historical Questions and Theoretical Traditions. Leiden:
Brill. [A reconstruction of the history of civilizational approaches in the human sciences, with particular
emphasis on classical sociology, and an outline of a conceptual framework for civilizational analysis].
Arnason, J.P., Eisenstadt, S.N., and Wittrock, B. (eds) (2005) Axial Civilizations and World History.
Leiden: Brill. [A collection of essays reflecting the present state of the debate on the Axial Age].

Assmann, J. (2003) The Mind of Egypt. History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs.
Cambridge/MA: Harvard University Press. [A systematic interpretive history of Ancient Egypt, with
strong civilizational connotations].
Braudel, F. (1981-1994) Civilization and Capitalism, vol. 1-3. London: Collins. [A major work by one of
the most acclaimed historians of the twentieth century; it is an indispensable reference text for
civilizational approaches to economic history].
Clastres, P. (1977) Society against the State. Oxford: Blackwell [An original and controversial work by a
French anthropologist, first published in 1974; it portrays the emergence of the state as a world-historical
revolution.
Durkheim, E. and Mauss, M. (1971) “Note on the notion of civilization”, Social Research 38:4, 808-813.
[A crucially important text, first published in 1913, translated and introduced by Benjamin Nelson. It
signals the discovery of civilizations in the plural by classical sociology].
Eisenstadt, S. N. (2004) Comparative Civilizations and Multiple Modernities, vol. 1-2. Leiden: Brill. [A
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collection of the author’s most seminal writings on civilizational analysis and the theory of modernity].
Eisenstadt, S. N. (1996) Japanese Civilization: A Comparative View. Chicago: University of Chicago
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Press. [A comprehensive analysis of Japan as a distinctive civilization, with comparative references to the
major civilizational complexes of Europe and Asia].
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Elias, N. (1994) The Civilizing Process. The History of Manners, and State Formation and Civilization.
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Oxford: Blackwell. [A landmark work, first published in German in 1938; it brought the concept of
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civilization in the singular back into sociological discourse and linked it to historical analyses of state
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formation].
Gauchet, M. (1997) The Disenchantment of the World; A Political History of Religion. Princeton:
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Princeton University Press. [A very ambitious work on the changing relationship between politics and
religion and society, with particular emphasis on Christianity and its connections to modern democracy
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and individualism].
Hodgson, M.G.S. (1974) The Venture of Islam, vol. 1-3. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [ the most
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ambitious and systematic civilizational study of Islam; it was published shortly after the author’s death,
and some parts are less finished than others].
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Huntington, S.P. (1996) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. [A widely read and
very controversial work, arguing that are becoming more and more dominant in world politics.
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Krejčí, J. (1993) The Human Predicament: Its Changing Image. A Comparative Study of Religions and
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Civilizations. New York: St Martin’s Press. [A brief and tightly argued survey of major civilizations, seen
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as centered on different visions of the human condition].

U
Mann, M. (1986-1993) The Sources of Social Power, vol. 1-2 (unfinished). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. [A major work on the historical sociology of power, with important but unequally
M
developed references to civilizational themes].

McNeill, W. (1991) The Rise of the West. A History of the Human Community. Chicago: University of
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Chicago Press. [ Probably the most widely read twentieth-century account of world history, first
published in 1963; a retrospective essay included in the 1991 edition reflects a changing approach, with
diminishing emphasis on civilizations.
Nelson. B. (1981) On the Roads to Modernity. Conscience, Science and Civilizations. Totowa/NJ:
Rowman and Littlefield. [A collection of essays by the sociologist who did most to reactivate the classical
sources of civilizational analysis].
Pye, L. W. (1985) (with Pye, M.W.) Asian Power and Politics. The Cultural Dimension of Authority.
Cambridge/MA: Belknap Press. [One of the most important comparative studies of political cultures].
Spengler, O. (1980) The Decline of the West, vol. 1-2. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. [A very widely read
study of the rise, decline and fall of civilizations, or “high cultures”, as the author called them, first
published in the aftermath of World War I. Historians have criticized its highly speculative approach and
arbitrary interpretations.

Toynbee, Arnold, J. (1934-1968) A Study of History, vol. 1-12. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [The
most detailed comparative history of civilizations ever written, more empirically grounded than
Spengler’s work but still working with highly speculative presuppositions and without any significant link
to sociological debates].
Weber, M (1958) (1958) The Religions of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism; and (1968)
The Religions of China: Confucianism and Taoism. New York: Free Press. [These two studies, first
published in 1915 and 1916-1917, and extensively discussed by many later scholars, are regarded as
classic models of comparative civilizational analysis.
Biographical Sketch
Johann P. Arnason, born 1940 in Iceland, studied philosophy, history and sociology in Prague and
Frankfurt. Taught sociology in Heidelberg and Bielefeld, 19762-1975, and at La Trobe University,
Melbourne, 1975-2003. Professor of sociology, La Trobe University, 1994-2003. Visiting professor at
the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 1990 and 1997, and at the University of
S
Leipzig, 2004-2005. Research fellow of the Alexander v. Humboldt Foundation, 1970-1972, and of the
Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, 1999-2000. Editor of the journal Thesis
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Eleven, 1987-2002. His research has focused on social theory and historical sociology, more recently with
particular emphasis on the comparative analysis of civilizations. Major publications: Praxis und
R
Interpretation: Sozialphilosophische Aufsätze, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1988; The Future that Failed:
O
Origins and Destinies of the Soviet Model, London: Routledge, 1993; Social Theory and Japanese
TE
Experience: The Dual Civilization, London: Kegan Paul International, 1997; The Peripheral Centre:
Essays on Japanese History and Civilization, Melbourne: TransPacific Press, 2002; Civilizations in
-E
Dispute: Historical Questions and Theoretical Traditions, Leiden: Brill, 2003; Eurasian
Transformations, Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries: Crystallizations, Divergences, Renaissances (edited,
AP
with Björn Wittrock), Leiden: Brill, 2004; Axial Civilizations and World History (edited, with S.N.
Eisenstadt and Björn Wittrock), Leiden: Brill, 2005.
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To cite this chapter

Johann P. Arnason, (2007), CIVILIZATIONAL ANALYSIS: A PARADIGM IN THE MAKING, in
C
World Civilizations, [Ed. Robert Holton], in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), Developed
under the Auspices of the UNESCO, Eolss Publishers, Oxford ,UK, [http://www.eolss.net]
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WORLD CIVILIZATIONS – Civilizational Analysis: A Paradigm in the Making - Johann P.

CIVILIZATIONAL ANALYSIS: A PARADIGM IN THE MAKING

Keywords: Civilization, Civilizations, Axial Age, Cultural Problematics, Political

sociologists is followed by more detailed comments on the late twentieth-century

centered on world-views and their translation into institutional patterns - to the

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

the Old World.

Civilizational analysis, seen as a twentieth-century turn to systematic reflection on a

civilizational conception of world history would be the most effective antidote to

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

civilizational theory, and nothing to distinguish or contextualize the different scholarly

other things - to a civilization as characterized by a system of basic concepts. In this

way, a macro-cultural dimension is added to the macro-social one underlined in the

concepts, complement the large-scale and long-term social-historical frameworks, but

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

By contrast, Max Weber’s comparative studies focused on major Eurasian civilizations

apparatuses (Weber uses metaphors like “machine” and “mechanical cosmos”) of

according to Weber, the most momentous results of rationalization were inseparable

calculation. As for non-Western civilizations, Weber’s analyses of China and India

engage with the Greek source in the same way.

The Weberian project, as transmitted to posterity, is unfinished and unequally

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

3. Eisenstadt and the Axial Age

outcomes of modernizing processes raised questions about civilizational backgrounds:

new insights into modernity.

3.1. Axial Transformations

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world-views open up new possibilities for the justification and transfiguration of

community - become the protagonists of traditions based on axial foundations. These

with momentous long-term historical effects.

In short, Eisenstadt’s interpretation of the Axial Age stresses the interconnections of

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

such defining features maintain civilizational identity throughout successive phases.

3.2. A New Vision of Modernity

This conception of axial civilizations is not obviously applicable to the cultural

constitution of modern societies. It would seem more appropriate to begin with a

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

to emphasize the progress of technically applicable knowledge. What it meant to be

beginning, critics of modernization theory complained about its tendency to rely on a

mirror-image of the innovative dynamics attributed to modernity. As noted above, the

civilizations understood as large-scale and long-term historical formations, crystallize

debate, reconstruction and adaptation to changing constellations. The civilizational

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

integrated through cultural constructions of an embedding community. The primacy of

its evolving and flexible combinations of economic and political power.

4. Civilization and Civilizations

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in the singular, understood as a universal-historical development of human abilities and

civilization as an ongoing transformation of human nature. Marx had similar things in

to be superseded by a more rational mode of development. An even more acute

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

4.1. Norbert Elias and State Formation

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state formation establishes basic preconditions for an increasingly complex division of

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background, and a more explicit reference to it suggests comparison with other

4.2. Early Civilizations

Although neither political nor economic processes can be understood as secondary

In short, the diversity of multi-dimensional civilizational patterns – made up of cultural,

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

These changing interrelations – civilizational formations linked to more local as well as

possibility of societies “singularizing” themselves within the framework of civilizations,