In an article published in Foreign Affairs, a few years after the counter revolution in the Soviet Union and other European socialist countries, Huntington titled The Clash of Civilizations and his subsequent book with the same title he put forward the idea that neither economics nor ideology would be the cause of conflicts, but different values based on history, traditions, language and religion.įor Huntington there is no struggle between socialism and imperialism, nor is there any struggle over control of a country’s own resources by its people against control by imperialistic powers in favor of the transnational corporations, nor class struggle as the motive force today.įor him the conflicts center over cultural values of different 'civilizations.' The one which seems to dominate his thinking the most in his mind is the clash between the 'West' and the Muslim world. In reality Huntington is an ideologue presenting a world model in which imperialism and the different people’s struggle to resist and destroy it have nothing to do with the conflicts in today’s world. It seems, then, that the problem of the preservation of American cultural identity is rooted in the very culture that Huntington wishes to preserve.Samuel Huntington, Harvard professor and chairman of its Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, has drawn both criticisms and praise for his writings regarding the major divisions in the world in the post-Soviet world.

In the end, this ambiguity works to undermine a public sense that the political order should try to conserve a particular culture, a tendency that is furthered by a democratic regime’s natural inclinations toward universalism and egalitarianism. The Declaration of Independence and the social contract theories that helped inform it seem to invite a kind of cosmopolitan commitment to a creedal identity while at the same time leaving open the possibility of a more exclusive cultural identity. While Huntington presents himself as trying to conserve a traditional American identity based on both political creed and Anglo-Protestant culture, I contend that America’s founding political theory and its philosophic sources are ambiguous on the question of culture and national identity. Responding to Samuel Huntington’s argument in Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity, this article explores the problematic character of American national identity.

'Who Are We? : Samuel Huntington and the Problem of American Identity.' Perspectives on Political Science, 40:2 (2011): 106-114.

Who are we huntington