Note critique entre «The clash of civilisation ? » de Samuel Huntington et « The end of History » de Francis Fukuyama

Note critique entre «The clash of civilisation ? » de Samuel Huntington et « The end of History » de Francis Fukuyama

The first text « The end of history » is an article published in The national interest in 1989. It is written by Francis Fukuyama a few months before the fall of the berlin wall. Quickly, the American political scientist Huntington has opposed to the vison of Fukuyama. So he has written the essaie « the clash of civilisations ? » in 1993. In these texts, autors try to make a constat on the future of the international relations after the fall of the berlin wall. Fukuyama speak of the end of history : the end of the Cold War marks the ideological victory of democracy and liberalism over other political ideologies. So, he announces the absolute and definitive supremacy of the ideal of liberal democracy. Huntington is not agree with these theories : for him, the end of the cold war announces a redefinitions of the internationale relations : he speaks about a clash of civilisations : cultures will be the new main cause of the international conflicts in front of the economic or ideological aspect. There is also a reflection on civilizations on both texts.

So we can wonder if the future of the international relations can be reduce to a new world order where the liberal democracy is at his peak and where conflicts doesn’t exist ?

First I’m going to talk about the authors' vision on international relations after the end of the cold war, then i’m going to put forward the nature of conflicts in history according to the authors and finally I will try to explain the different visons of the authors on the subject of civilizations.

I.

With the end of the cod war, a lot of person have thought that the world will be heading to an era of appeasement by the unification of peoples around the Western model of liberal democracy : many thought that we would witness the realization of a universal civilization. That is the cas of Francis Fukuyama. For describe our society, Fukuyama talks about a "growing homogenization of all human societies". Thereby, the principles of liberal democracy (human rights) would constitute the end of history : human would be at the peak of evolution. According to Fukuyama this type of liberal democracy permets a pacification of human relations beceause of international exchanges but also because liberal democracy puts an end to the the expansionist wishes of countries. Countries don’t want to be better than other countries but equal (in the norm of liberal democracy). Since the defeat of fascism in the Second World War, all expansionism has been done in establishing defense against others with overtly expansionist ideologies. After the liberalization of the market and the economy, expansionism disappears. A world of liberal democracies should therefore have fewer opportunities for war since all nations would reciprocally recognize their mutual legitimacy.

Huntington develops a theory opposing to the Fukuyama’s theory : Huntington's thesis is that, in spite of appearances, the world is moving towards fragmentation rather than unification, splits and rivalries rather than peace . Huntington shows that we have moved from a bipolar world to a multipolar world divided into three parts: the rich democratic western world, the communist world and the third world. Actually, he doesn’t believe to an end of conflicts but he believes that the nature of modern conflicts are changing since the end of the second world war.

II.

We can observed that the autors have some common points in their analys : the end of the second world war and the end of the cold war are a first step in the end of ideologies. During the second world war, the conflict was principaly due to atagonist ideologies (liberalism and fascism). The economic aspect was obviously present but it was not the first cause of the conflict. Actually, according to fukuyama, the main cause of conflict is ideologie : for him, human history must be seen as « a battle of ideologies culminating in the universalization of Western liberal democracy ». To support his statement Fukuyama use the work of Friedrich Hegel by using examples like the french revolution (where the liberal democracy has triumphed). So, the liberal democray will lead to the end of history and so to the end of conflicts. But according to Fukuyama the end of the communism and the victory of liberal democary will not lead to a direct end of conflicts

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