This article is written by yours truly. I'm a historian by study and have been thinking more and more about civilizational politics. I'm willing to bet this is going to be a big mover of geopolitics in the next decade onward.
With the ongoing 'rise of the rest,' we're living in a time of great narrative-building by rising powers who want a seat at the table. Although I'm not a subscriber to the 'clash of civilizations' thesis by Huntington at all, I do think that civilizational narratives are potent justifications for spheres of influence. They are so malleable and vague, thus making them valuable chips for geopolitics.
With globalization as we knew it waning, there have been efforts to repackage the nation-state order into looser blocs justified by culture. Many people take liberal universalism for granted, but I believe cultural particularism could potentially become the dominant form of international relations. Alliances are already forming on these grounds. It's arguably the single biggest obstacle to Fukuyama's "End of History" thesis.
In this piece, I first open with some background on 'civilizational theories of history' and why they were initially a fad. I then profile four states who are now leveraging such narratives to project power abroad.
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Notes -
I think you do not understand that Putin does not care about the economy or the people dying. Russia is not the richest country: its GDP is smaller than Italy's, and if you consider the ratio by inhabitant it's even worse. Russia is not the most populated country in the world: its population is just twice France and half the US. But Russia is the biggest country on earth. So Putin somehow thinks that the destiny of Russia is to expand its territory as much as possible, whatever the consequences. And also, to mitigate the effect of the war, he just abducts people. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian people have been deported to Russia.
It takes its root in 20th century history. During the fifties, there were people (like e.g. Günther Anders) that hated the industrialization process in general. You have to understand them: in their eyes, the industry was responsible for Verdun, for Auschwitz and for Hiroshima. For them, the nuclear bomb was the symbol of this process, and they did not want anything to do with it. Nuclear power plants looked related to nukes, it seemed like an obvious symbol of everything that was wrong with the world. Those people inspired the political ecologist of the first generation (and eg Greenpeace), they put the anti-nuclear fight at the heart of their ideology. So now you have ecologist parties that hate nuclear power all over Europe.
On top of that, you can add:
a bit of well-understood interests: oil production firms are funding anti-nuclear associations, and some European politicians like the former Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder have been bought by Russia.
some understable fears: remember that some years ago there was Fukushima.
some deficit of science understanding. Somehow burning gas seems more natural than atomic energy.
When the former french president F. Hollande met with XI Jinping, Xi told him that he was worried about the future of the Communist Party. Under Mao, the Party was the vector for national unity. Then, the Party was used to give prosperity to Chinese people. But now the times of huge economic growth come to an end. Year after year, the chinese economy is growing less. So the Party should have something else to offer to the chinese people, mainly the young people. The thing he came with is ideology.
Thus, now, ideology is China's priority. The ideology is more important than the economy. The ideology claims that the Party is always right, and that it protects the weakest. Ideology says that a strong power is important to protect the population, that individual freedom is dangerous. Thus, it is more important to continue the zero covid policy, as abandoning it would contradict the ideology.
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