Transcript WHAT IS POLITICS? - High Point University

CULTURE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
• What is culture? Can we use it to explain political behavior
generally?
• Are societies where culture plays a stronger, more explicit role in
political life less “modern”? Are ethnicity and democracy
contradictions? Why do Americans think so?
• Some key terms: “ethnicity,” “race,” “nations,” & “civilizations”
• What’s the difference between “liberal nationalism” (the idea of
freedom to create a democratic state that represents people who
want to be in that state) & “ethnonationalism” (states formed on
the basis of ethnic ties)? Why is it worth separating the two
concepts?
• Where does our identity come from? Primordial (kinship) vs.
socially constructed (imagined) vs. hybrid identities
• Are religious fundamentalism and nationalism the same thing?
Which is more important (evidence from Afghanistan and Iraq)
WHY DOES SAMUEL HUNTINGTON THINK
ENTIRE CIVILIZATIONS WILL CLASH?
• Huntington's ideas have been hammered… so why
are we still talking about them?
• Cultural conflict is innate to the human condition…
it remains when other sources of conflict are gone
• Cultural conflict is reinforcing: you can’t change
sides
• Expanding kinship: Globalization, modern warfare,
immigration, the media
• Weakening of states: back to tribalism as identity
• The weakening of the west
• Economic regionalism overlaps the civilizations
DOES ISLAM THREATEN THE GLOBE?
A few basics
• Is it monolithic? It’s the world’s second largest religion, a
global religion, and a less-reformed religion (the Shias and
the Sunnis)
• Is it inherently violent? The basic tenets of Islam and the
Qur’an:
– monotheism, prophethood,
– “Peace”
– “submission,” &
– “jihad”
• Is Islam inherently anti-Christian & and anti-Jew?
• Is there no separation between state and society in Islam?
(shari’ ah)
WHAT IS ISLAMISM?
• Nationalism, post-colonialism, and the writings of Sayyid
Qutb (A John Locke?)
• Ijtihad (interpretation) and the new meaning of jihad (call to
struggle against anti-Islamic rulers—takfir) in Muslim
majority states) to deal with jahilliyah (state of barbarous
ignorance)
• Is Islamism in practice an anti-western civilizational
movement? Or is it really localized?
• Why do some Islamo-nationalist (not fascist!!!) want a
massive state (caliphate)?
• Is (Was) Al Qaeda a “fantasy” that was largely constructed
after 9-11? What does it want?
• Who belongs to the Islamic political movements:
Conservatives, disillusioned, and the dispossessed at the
economic fringe; Who doesn’t? Most Muslims?