Huntington argues that civilizational differences are gaining lucidity in the post cold War world, without providing convincing evidences. "Huntington states repeatedly, without any convincing evidence, that cultural differentiation is increasing in today's world... And it seems perverse to deny that present trends are creating cross-cultural ties and even uniformities that did not exist before... Most human beings are n fact becoming more alike in some parts of their lives." (Jack F. Matlock, 1999)
There are no increased inter-civilizational conflicts in the post Cold War world. "Findings reveal that states belonging to different civilizations are neither more nor less likely to fight one another during the post Cold War era... Thus the general relationship between civilization membership and interstate war is the opposite of that suggested by Huntington" (Henderson & Tucker, 2001)
This theory ignores the relatively larger role of nationalism in global politics compared to civilizations. "The major critique of [this] thesis is that it ignores the persistent role of nationalism in world politics... Contrary to Huntington's thesis, the nation, and not the civilization, appears to be the largest identity group to which people consistently swear fealty in the post-Cold War era... Since civilizations are more or less ideational constructs rather than political agents, they are devoid of decision-making power or control over political or economic resources. By comparision, states "can mobilize their citizens, collect taxes, issue threats, reward friends, and wage war; in other words, states can act"; moreover, "[nationalism is a tremendously powerful force precisely because it marries invidivual cultural affinities to an agency-the-states-that can actually do something (Walt, 1997)." (Henderson &
The theory is potentially dangerous as it intensifies tensions between perceived "different civilizations". "John Ikenberry says that Huntington's thesis is civilizational equivalent of "security dilemma", in which misperceptions about the other eventually increases the tension and then leads to conflict. He also suggests "if ideas by prominent thinkers have any ipact on the real world" the clash thesis is potentially dangerous. On the other hand, both Mahbubani and Sato contend that Huntington's policy recommendations, if applied, will be so dangerous and they will cause a disaster for international peace and security." (Erdem, 2002). Moreover, "Huntington's theses basically depends on orientalist understandings of Islam, in which Islam - the 'other' - is perceived as culturally inferior to the West and identified as threat and even enemy. This understanding ignores the diversity, plurality and various dynamics of Islam/the Muslim World as well as that of 'Islamism' and 'Islamic fundamentalism'. This approach, however, closes the avenues for mutual understanding and dialogue as well as it leads to 'clash of misunderstandings'." (Erdem, 2002)