Cultural Diversity and the Future of International Relations

Abstract

Civilizations and World Order: Geopolitics and Cultural Difference. Edited by Fred Dallmayr, M. Akif Kayapinar, Ismail Yaylaci. Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2014. 276 pp., $90 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0739186060). Civilizations and World Order contributes to the literature on cross-cultural international relations and geopolitics in the post–Cold War era. It raises interesting and timely questions on the role of various civilizations in the current and future world order, and challenges the reader to leave the mono-civilizational EuroWestcentric view and think in terms of a multicivilizational perspective. The authors of the book argue that, in the aftermath of the Cold War, a unipolar world system has emerged, and the Western powers, convinced of their civilizational superiority, embraced a hegemonic approach to establishing a new world order by imposing the Western civilization onto other civilizations. They further assert that, in the absence of a balance of power, certain political camps were quick to declare a civilizational victory for the West (Fukuyama ⇓) or else they embarked on finding new enemies to replace the Soviet Union (Huntington ⇓). They suggest that these approaches cannot sustain a peaceful world order without paying due respect to different civilizations, and the way forward is a multicultural world system in which each civilization participates equally. This book has three parts, each of which features four essays. Part I, “Geopolitics and World Order,” is centered around the geopolitical and power-political context of civilizations. In Chapter 1, Richard Falk argues that the modern era has been shaped by Eurocentrism/Westcentrism that is hegemonic to other civilizations, and this leads to the EuroWestcentric denial of civilizational equality. In Chapter 2, Hans Kochler argues that, in the twenty-first century, in the absence of a balance of power, the world order is defined by the self-proclaimed architects' conviction of civilizational supremacy and their hegemonic ambitions. In Chapter 3, Raymond Duvall and Cigdem …