Samuel Phillips Huntington (born April 18, 1927) is a political scientist known for his analysis of the relationship between the military and the civil government, his investigation of coup d'etats, and his thesis that the central political actors of the 21st century will be civilizations rather than nation-states. More recently, he garnered widespread attention for his analysis of threats posed to the United States by modern-day immigration. He is a professor at Harvard University. Huntington came to prominence as a scholar in the 1960s with the publication of Political Order in Changing Societies, a work which challenged the conventional view of modernization theorists that economic and social progress would bring about stable democracies in recently decolonized countries. April 18 is the 108th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (109th in leap years). ... 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Political science is a social science discipline that deals with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. ... A coup détat, or simply a coup, is the sudden overthrow of a government, usually done by a small group that just replaces the top power figures. ... The 21st century is the century that began on 1 January 2001 and will last to 31 December 2100. ... The word civilization (or civilisation) has a variety of meanings related to human society. ... The term nation-state, while often used interchangeably with the terms unitary state and independent state, refers properly to the parallel occurence of a state and a nation. ... Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. ... Modernization is closely aodieasde linked to classical liberalism. ... Colonialism in 1945 Decolonization is the process by which a colony gains its independence from a colonial power, a process opposite to colonization. ...

Notable arguments

Political Order in Changing Societies

In Political Order in Changing Societies Huntington argues that order is the most important characteristic of states. Order is threatened when the level of mobilization exceeds the level of institutionalization within a society. Huntington is concerned that, as a result of economic development, political mobilization will increase faster than the appropriate institutions can arise, thus leading to instability. As a solution he advocates a stronger emphasis on institution building in development, most importantly the establishment of stable party systems. He remains highly skeptical of less institutionalized political mobilization and protest, which made him the target of heated criticism by student activists at the time of the book's publication in 1968. Political Order is widely considered one of the classical works in post-war political science and is still required readings for most graduate students in political science in the U.S. A party system is a concept in political science concerning the system of government in a state where political parties exist. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards and appeal to a wider international audience, this article may require cleanup. ... 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Political science is a social science discipline that deals with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. ...

In the 1970s, Huntington applied his theoretical insights as an advisor to the Brazilian military dictatorship. In 1972 he discussed with representatives of the Medici that had approached him and one year later he produced a paper entitled "Approaches to Political Decompression", in which he warned against the risks of a rapid liberalization and proposed gradual steps and a strong party state after the image of the Mexican PRI. After a drawn out transition process, Brazil became fully democratic in 1985. Huntington has frequently cited Brazil as a success and alluded to his own role in his 1988 presidential address to the American Political Science Association, commenting that political science had "played a modest role in this process". Critics such as the British political scientist Alan Hooper point to the fact that Brazil today has an especially unstable party system, in which the best institutionalized party, Lula da Silva's Partido dos Trabalhadores, emerged in opposition to the controlled transition process. Moreover, Hooper claims that the lack of civil participation in today's Brazil goes back to the top-down transition process. The Medici family was a powerful and influential Florentine family from the 13th to 17th century. ... PRI may refer to: Partido Revolucionario Institucional, a major political party in Mexico Public Radio International Primary rate interface Precision Reflex, Inc. ... In telecommunication, a transition is the change from one signal state to another signal state. ... The American Political Science Association, founded in 1903, serves more than 15,000 members in more than 80 countries, bringing a variety of services to political scientists both inside and outside academic institutions. ... Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (born October 6, 1945) is a left-wing Brazilian politician. ... Brazilian Workers Party flag. ...

The Clash of Civilizations

For more details on this topic, see Clash of Civilizations.

In 1993, Huntington ignited a major debate in international relations with the publication in the journal Foreign Affairs of an extremely influential and often-cited article entitled "The Clash of Civilizations?" The article contrasted with another political thesis regarding the core dynamics of post-Cold War geopolitics expressed by Francis Fukuyama in "The End of History." Huntington later expanded the article into a full-length book, published in 1996 by Simon and Schuster, entitled The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. The article and the book articulated his views that post-Cold War conflict would occur most frequently and violently along cultural (often civilizational, e.g., Western, Islamic, Sinic, Hindu, etc.) instead of ideological lines, as under the Cold War and the bulk of the 20th century. This cultural organization better describes the world than the classical notion of variegated sovereign states. Cover of The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order The Clash of Civilizations is a controversial theory in international relations. ... 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ... International relations (IR), a branch of political science, is the study of foreign affairs of and relations among states within the international system, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and multinational corporations (MNCs). ... Foreign Affairs is an American journal of international relations. ... Geopolitics analyses politics, history and social science with reference to geography. ... Francis Fukuyama (born October 27, 1952 in Chicago) is an influential American political economist and author. ... The End of History and the Last Man is a 1992 book by Francis Fukuyama, expanding on his 1989 essay The End of History?, in which he argues the controversial thesis that the end of the Cold War signals the end of the progression of human history: What we may... 1996 (MCMXCVI) is a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... Jean-François Millet Le Semeur (The Sower) Simon & Schuster logo, circa 1961. ... A compass rose with west highlighted This article refers to the cardinal direction; for other uses see West (disambiguation). ... Islam (Arabic: ; ( â–¶ (help· info)), the peaceful submission to the will of God) is a monotheistic faith, one of the Abrahamic religions and the worlds second-largest religion. ... Sinic refers to a putative civilizational category devised by Samuel Huntington in defense of his theory of the clash of civilizations. Huntington identifies China as the primary Sinic member, in addition to Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan, and various Asian communities around the world. ... A Hindu (archaic Hindoo) is an adherent of philosophies and scriptures of Hinduism, the predominant religious, philosophical and cultural system of India (Bharat), Nepal, and the island of Bali. ... For the generic term for high-tension and / or indirect struggle between states, falling short of actual open hostilities, see cold war (war). ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the... A state is an organized political community occupying a definite territory, having an organized government, and possessing internal and external sovereignty. ...

He surmised that to understand conflict in our age and in the future, cultural rifts must be understood, and culture (instead of the state) must be accepted as the locus of war. Thus, he warned that Western nations may lose their predominance if they fail to recognize the irreconcilable nature of this brewing tension. An act of war - the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945, effectively ending World War II. The bombs over Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki immediately killed over 120,000 people. ...

Critics (see Le Monde diplomatique articles) call Clash of Civilizations the theoretical basis to legitimize aggression by the US-led West against China and the world of Islam. However, Huntington has also argued that this shift in geopolitical structure requires the West to strengthen itself internally, abandoning democratic universalism and incessant interventionism. The monthly publication Le Monde diplomatique (nicknamed Le Diplo by its French readers) offers well-documented analysis and opinion on politics, culture, and current affairs. ...

It is interesting to compare Huntington, his theory on civilization, and his influence on policy makers in the U.S. Administration and the Pentagon, with A.J. Toynbee and his theory, which relied heavily on religion and was criticised similarly. Arnold Joseph Toynbee (April 14, 1889 - October 22, 1975) was a British historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, 1934-1961, was a synthesis of global history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline. ...

Who Are We and immigration

The latest book by Huntington, Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity was released in May 2004. The subject is the meaning of American national identity and the possible threat posed to it by large-scale Latino immigration, which Huntington warns could "divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages". Like The Clash of Civilizations, this book has also stirred controversy, and some have accused Huntington of xenophobia for lauding America's Anglo-Protestant identity and disparaging other value systems. This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... For publications of this name, see also Nation (disambiguation) A nation is a community of people who live together in an area (or, more broadly, of their descendants who may now be dispersed); and who regard themselves, or are regarded by others, as sharing some common identity, to which certain... // Etymology Latino, feminine Latina derives from Latin (the adjectives latinus, latina), originally referring to Latium, the area of Rome, by aitiology derived from a king of the name Latinus. ... Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Culture The neutrality of this article is disputed. ... Xenophobia denotes a phobic attitude toward strangers or of the unknown and comes from the Greek words ξένος (xenos), meaning foreigner, stranger, and φόβος (phobos), meaning fear. ...

The National Academy of Sciences controversy

In 1986, Huntington was nominated for membership in the National Academy of Sciences. Nominations are voted on by the entire academy, but most votes, which are by scientists who are mainly unfamiliar with the nominee, are token votes. This status quo was disturbed when Serge Lang, a Yale mathematician, began challenging Huntington's nomination. Lang campaigned for others to deny Huntington membership and was eventually successful, with Huntington being nominated and rejected twice. President Harding and the National Academy of Sciences at the White House, Washington, DC, April 1921 The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine. ... Serge Lang (May 19, 1927–September 12, 2005) was a mathematician known for his work in algebra and for writing a variety of mathematics textbooks, including the very influential Algebra. ... Yale can refer to an educational institution: Yale University, one of the United States oldest universities. ... This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...

Huntington's prominence as a Harvard professor and (at the time) director of Harvard's Center for International Studies contributed to the coverage by publications such as The New York Times and The New Republic.

Lang was largely inspired by the writings of Neal Koblitz, another mathematician, who accused Huntington of misusing mathematics and engaging in pseudo-science. Lang's accusations included claims that Huntington had distorted the historical record and used pseudo-mathematics to make his conclusions appear more convincing. Lang's side of the controversy is covered in his book Challenges. Neal Koblitz is a Professor of Mathematics in the University of Washington in the Department of Mathematics. ... A pseudoscience is any body of knowledge purported to be scientific or supported by science but which fails to comply with the scientific method. ...

Huntington's supporters included Herbert Simon, a 1978 Bank of Sweden Nobel Laureate in Economics. The Mathematical Intelligencer offered Simon and Koblitz an opportunity to engage in a written debate, which they accepted. Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was a researcher in the fields of cognitive psychology, computer science, public administration, economics and philosophy (sometimes described as a polymath). ... The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (in Swedish Sveriges Riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is a prize awarded each year for outstanding intellectual contributions in the field of economics. ... The Mathematical Intelligencer is a mathematical journal published by Springer Verlag that aims at a conversational and scholarly tone, rather than the technical and specialist tone more common amongst such journals. ...

Quotes

• "It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future."

• "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."

Selected publications

• The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (1957),
• The Common Defense: Strategic Programs in National Politics (1961),
• Political Order in Changing Societies (1968),
• American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (1981),
• The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (1991),
• The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996), the original 1993 Foreign Affairs article is available at Alamut.com
• Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity (2004), an article based on the book is available after (free) registration at Foreign Policy

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order cover The clash of civilizations is a controversial theory in international relations. ... This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ...

See also

• Civilization
• Spanish in the United States
• Clash of civilizations
• Modernization theory

The word civilization (or civilisation) has a variety of meanings related to human society. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Cover of The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order The Clash of Civilizations is a controversial theory in international relations. ... Modernization theory is a socio-economic theory, sometimes known as (or as being encompassed within) Development theory, which highlights the positive role played by the developed world in modernizing and facilitating sustainable development in underdeveloped nations, often contrasted with Dependency theory. ...

External links

• Huntington's personal homepage at Harvard University
• A list of comments, mainly critical ones, on Who Are We on Foreign Policy, available to (freely) registered users. Among the writers are a number of eminent scholars of immigration and Latin American studies.
• Professor Edward Said's deconstruction of Huntington's 'Clash of Civilisations' theory.
• An article by Alan Hooper that criticizes the impact of Huntington's advice during the transition process on the quality of democracy in Brazil.
• "Your New Enemies" by Said Shirazi - A leftist critique of Huntington.