Intercivilizational Encounters Research Articles

Civilizational Analysis as a Mode of the Intercultural: Intercivilizational Encounters, the Intercultural and Contemporary Historical Sociology

ABSTRACT Classical and contemporary civilizational analysis has not sat comfortably with theoretical constructions of the intercultural or their empirical applications. A ‘classical era’ of civilizations analysis generated a program of research problems that was productive in critical and multidisciplinary ways and limited in scope and vision in others, but this failed to generate a provisional notion of the intercultural. Contemporary civilizational analysis improves on this position significantly in respect of the intercultural, particularly in the development of a current around ‘intercivilizational encounters’. This essay examines this current especially in the work of Benjamin Nelson, Marshall Hodgson and Johann P. Arnason. Arguing that this approach represents vital advances for theoretical constructions of the intercultural in civilizational analysis and more generally in the human sciences, the essay also identifies limitations in latter-day approaches.

Development of the Civilizational Perspective in Sociological Analysis in the Last Decades

The article is devoted to the rethinking and rediscovery of “civilization” and “civilizations” as a theoretical perspective in contemporary sociology. In a broader historical context, the trajectories and interactions of social sciences with the civilizational concept are traced, within which the self-determination of sociology has taken place, as well as the construction and transformation of its research programs. The new development of the civilizational dimensions in sociological analysis, which began after the 1970s, stands out, based on the classical sources of the French and German schools of thought, and further developed as an alternative to the one-sided “cultural” and “social” reductionism and determinism in sociology. The article draws attention to the important contributions and the original theoretical concepts of S.H. Eisenstadt and J.P. Arnason, which have wide international recognition, but are relatively little known in Bulgaria. Overcoming the dominance of culture as a civilization-forming factor allows these authors to develop broader theoretical and interpretive models. They are centered on the relationship between culture and other fields of social life, including the structures of political and economic power, and are considered in the specific temporal and spatial context of the accompanying intercivilizational encounters. The place and importance of the problems of civilizations in different analytical perspectives and theoretical directions are outlined, as well as the opportunities it offers for the study of contemporary processes and political realities.

The Civilizational Dimension of the Structurating of Societies

The civilizational approach in contemporary sociology aims at clarifying the relationships between social structure and culture, and institutions and actors. The civilizational dimension of the structuring of societies focuses on uncovering the complex interactions between the civilizational pattern and social structure. The focus is on a historically-defined combination of interpretive models and institutional frameworks in which the social dynamics of society unfolds. The fundamental premise of civilizational analysis in sociology is the rejection of social or cultural reductionist determinism. The key moments are distinction and autonomy, and are contingent on the interweaving of the structural, institutional, and cultural aspects of social interaction. The basic concepts of the civilizational dimension of structuring societies are (a) the determination of the method of differentiation and integration of the spheres of social life; (b) the establishment of basic norms and “debentures” for the main institutional sectors; (c) the building a social center and establishing its relationship with the periphery; (d) the construction of collective identities; (e) giving order to the formation of social stratification and the social division of labor; and (f) a self-representation and the strategies of sociopolitical elites, and their management practices. The key aspects of the civilizational structuring of social formations are highlighted and considered in the examples of the Imperial and the Soviet periods in the history of Russian society. Contemporary societies in the civilizational dimension are a combination of (a) inherited local civilizational traditions (often with their own anticipations of modernity), then (b) perceived in the course of inter-civilizational encounters with cultural and institutional influences of “other” traditions and reactions to them, and then (c) develop, inherit their own, borrow, or take on imposed-from-the-outside articulations and visions of the problems of modernity civilization, including models of modernity which receive universal meaning and value.

Socio-cultural dynamics of multiple modernities in Brazil and Russia

The article is devoted to comparative-historical analysis of transformation processes in Brazil and Russia from the viewpoint of the multiple modernities theory. Shmuel Eisenstadt’s study of the Latin American version of modernity and interpretations of his ideas in the works of contemporary sociologists are characterized. The peculiarities of modernization in Brazil are singled out including the impact of orientation to external centers of liberal modernity. The article considers the spread of modern ideologies and institutions in Brazilian society and the role of socio-cultural factors in its transition to democracy. The modernizing dynamics of Russian society is discussed on the basis of Johann Arnason’s sociological theory. It is emphasized that Arnason’s analysis of intercivilizational encounters and “imperial modernization” is essential for understanding social transformations in Russian society. The study of the Soviet model of modernity in Arnason’s works is also discussed in the article. It is argued that a comparative analysis of Brazil and Russia should take into consideration the impact of religious traditions and institutions on socio-political changes, the differences between modernizing trajectories of the two countries, the unequal length and intensity of imperial experience, the degree of openness towards western liberal modernity. The main difference of contemporary Russia from Latin American societies is the legacy of the Soviet period.

Grounds for engagement: Dissonances and overlaps at the intersection of contemporary civilizations analysis and postcolonial sociology

This article elucidates grounds for engagement between two fields of the social sciences engaged in critique of Eurocentrism: contemporary civilizations analysis and postcolonial sociology. Between the two fields there are both evident dissonances and points of potential dialogue and engagement. The article identifies three areas of high contention: divergent perceptions of essentialism, commitments to transformative politics and evaluations of the paradigm of multiple modernities. Despite extensive theoretical and normative differences, a notional intersection of the two fields is outlined in the form of three conceptual and methodological shifts. The first is a displacement of ideal typology. The second move is the most original. ‘Intercivilizational encounters’ and ‘intracivilizational encounters’ are re-cast as ‘intercivilizational engagement’. The goal is the demarcation of a discrete position based on a strong version of interaction that goes further than the notion of intercivilizational encounters recently re-developed in civilizational analysis. To illustrate potential grounds for engagement on this point, the article reviews the historiography of ‘connected histories’ and the insights of relational historians. Finally, the article urges for a nuanced definition of ‘region’ and deeper appreciation of the multiplicity of regionalisms as a meeting point for both fields of critique of Eurocentrism.

The Many Americas

Civilizational analysis has not concerned itself too greatly with the historical experiences of the American New World. There are good reasons to correct this position and Shmuel Eisenstadt’s principal work on America’s distinct modernities goes some way to establishing the colonization of the Atlantic world as an opening phase of modernity. Nonetheless, a more far-reaching analysis of the distinctiveness of diverse American societies can be developed that goes beyond the image of a Protestant North America contrasted with southern Latin cultures. This article outlines the basis for a more nuanced approach in three steps: a focus on intercivilizational engagement (which goes beyond the notion of ‘intercivilizational encounters’ developed by Benjamin Nelson and Johann Arnason), examination of civilizational factors neglected by Eisenstadt and reconsideration of the conceptual range of the notion of ‘civilization’ itself. The archetype of two Americas is replaced by a model of four with some consideration given to indigenous civilizations as a fifth America.

Understanding Intercivilizational Encounters

The notion of a ‘clash of civilizations’, which now seems to have become a fashionable cliché, should be discussed in the context of a broader set of questions: the problematic of intercivilizational encounters. This is an important but very underdeveloped part of the research programme now known as civilizational analysis. The article begins with a brief survey of the Indian experience. Indian history includes a long succession of intercivilizational encounters, both those initiated from the West (by Greeks, Muslims and Europeans) and those that brought Indian influence to bear on other regions (as did the spread of Buddhism to East Asia and the ‘Indianization’ of Southeast Asia). These examples serve to sketch a phenomenology of encounters. For a more theoretical approach, the article turns to the work of Benjamin Nelson, who first introduced the concept of intercivilizational encounters. His analyses focus on the encounters that involve contacts or conflicts between the basic ‘structures of consciousness’ that define different civilizations. Such interactions can lead to fusion or to prolonged internal conflicts, but they may also be instructive because of the very absence of significant effects: in the latter case, fundamental blockages to intercivilizational borrowing or engagement are built into the structures of consciousness. For Nelson, the early modern encounter between China and the West was a prime example of that kind. The last part of the article takes the question beyond Nelson’s historical cases and relates it to the advanced phase of modernity, where the dominant type of encounters is three-cornered: it involves Western and non-Western civilizations as well as the new (modern) civilizational patterns adumbrated in the West but open to redefinitions in other contexts.

From Jāmi' ah to University

Sociology has a role to play in the development of multiculturalism and, therefore, the facilitation of interreligious dialogue. Multiculturalism does not merely refer to the coexistence of a plurality of cultures but is a social context that encourages the possibilities for harmonious interactions of different cultures. Sociology may contribute in meaningful ways to multiculturalism by the thematic development of a number of areas concerning the study of societies and civilizations. This article focuses on three such themes, that is: the multicultural origins of modern civilization, intercivilizational encounters and the point of view of the other. The author argues that these themes are essential for the facilitation of dialogue and the development of the multicultural outlook. Dialogue here is not restricted to the literal sense of the term, that is a conversation between two sides, but rather is a metaphor for peaceful and harmonious relationships founded on mutual trust and admiration and informed by the spirit and substance of multiculturalism.

CIVILIZATIONAL SOCIOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES ON THE ATLANTIC

This paper calls for an opening of dialogue on the historical character of the Atlantic world between two fields. To date, historical sociologists researching the significance of inter-civilizational encounters have not paid a great deal of attention to the case of the Americas. While historical and comparative sociology has assimilated the lessons of post-colonial critique, the startling histories of transatlantic colonialism have not had the impact on studies of civilizations carried out in this field that they should have. When it comes to the second field, Atlantic Studies, the paper argues that sociologists working in the first field have something to offer in their re-theorization of the character of long term inter-civilizational contacts. A fresh approach to the study of civilizations is sketched out here that reconstructs theoretical conclusions drawn in historical sociology in a way that will be of interest to specialists in Atlantic Studies. The first part of the paper examines the historical sociology of civilizations and sets out a new framework that revolves around a re-conception of radical difference and Otherness. In the second section, I explore how dimensions of the historical experience of transatlantic colonialism—such as mapping, place-naming and early ethnological curiosity—constituted the Americas as a vital zone of the growing sense of civilizational superiority amongst Europeans between the 16th and 18th centuries. In this section, the article argues that civilizational sociology would profit from a systematic examination of this crucial historical zone. The conclusion puts out a call for further detailed inter-disciplinary research that combines the best insights of both the fields of Atlantic Studies and civilizational sociology.

Rationalization, Transformations of Consciousness and Intercivilizational Encounters

This article provides a critical reconstruction of Benjamin Nelson's work on the sociology of civilizations. His main concepts for civilizational analysis are located within the sociological tradition, in particular, the work of Durkheim, Mauss and their school and Max Weber. The article focuses especially on the historical, comparative and analytic value of Nelson's distinction among three types of structures of consciousness (sacro-magical, faith and rationalized structures), particularly the historical role of rationalized structures. It suggests how these concepts might be given both a fuller analytical differentiation and more detailed historical specification. The article emphasizes how inter-civilizational encounters provide the settings for cultural innovations which serve as starting points for the later historical transformations of civilizations. Outcomes of civilizational encounters between Greece, Rome and Judaism in the Hellenistic era are given special attention. The article's main themes are illustrated throughout by reference to a variety of substantive issues and historical comparative civilizational contexts. These include the role of world religions, sciences, philosophies and other cultural forms in the ancient world, Western Europe, Russia and elsewhere.

Civilizational Patterns and Civilizing Processes

The notion of civilization has from the outset had a double meaning: unitary and pluralistic. Both aspects were important to the development of the social sciences, but attempts to theorize them at the level of basic concepts are of relatively recent date and the results still controversial. While the idea of civilization in the singular found its most seminal expression in Norbert Elias's analysis of the civilizing process, classical sociology did not go beyond inconclusive reflections on civilizations in the plural, and a more explicit frame of reference for comparative analyses has only begun to take shape in the last few decades (most importantly in the work of S. N. Eisenstadt). This article outlines a provisional model of civilizational patterns and suggests ways of linking it to the study of civilizing processes. The main structural components to be noted are cultural interpretations of the world (understood as latent problematics, compatible with a variety of articulations); institutional constellations, with particular reference to the frameworks for political and economic life; and representative ideologies, linked to canonical texts and embodied in the strategies and self-images of sociopolitical elites. The dynamics of these interconnected factors must be analysed in several contexts: on the level of civilizational complexes which encompass whole families of societies; in the historical dimension, stretching across successive generations of societies; and with reference to regional configurations and their distinctive historical patterns. This conception of civilizations provides a background to the analysis of intercivilizational encounters, and a better understanding of the latter theme - on the whole neglected by civilizational theorists, with the notable exception of Benjamin Nelson - will in turn serve to develop a more interactionist theory of civilizing processes.

Great Revolutions of the 20th Century in a Civilizational Perspective

The great revolutions of modern times have been analysed from various angles, but their civilizational aspects and contexts have on the whole been neglected. More specifically, the major 20th-century revolutions can be seen as particularly important cases of intercivilizational encounters. They represent different responses to the ascendant and challenging civilization of the West. The Western civilizational trajectory (or set of trajectories), based on a shift from fideism to empiricism and on multiple social dynamics fuelled by this cultural reorientation (such as those of the capittalist economy and the one-nation-state), is selectively appropriated by non-Western societies which at the same time reject the less adaptable parts of the West in the name of traditional or invented alternatives. Russia, China, Turkey and Iran are analysed as variations of this recurrent pattern. At one end of the spectrum, the Russian revolution aspired to transcend Western models on the basis of a more radical interpretation of their own principles; at the other, the Iranian revolution, made up of several episodes with intervals in between, has been characterized by an exceptionally tenacious - and in some ways inventive - defence of a pre-existing civilizational identity.

The Southeast Asian Labyrinth: Historical and Comparative Perspectives

In the Southeast Asian context, the questions of civilizational identity and civilizational premises of modernity cannot be posed in the same way as with regard to China or India. From a long-term perspective, the most salient features of the region have to do with intercivilizational encounters and their local ramifications. As the debate on `Indianization' has shown, Southeast Asian traditions took shape in active interaction with dominant external models, and it is a flexible combination of imported and local patterns that is most characteristic of the region, rather than any persisting indigenous infrastructure. Cultural patterns of state formation are the most distinctive outcome of this process; they can be traced back to the Indianizing phase, but they also play an important role in the early modern history of the region, and they are relevant to the debate on `re-traditionalization' in contemporary Southeast Asia.

At the Crossroads of Civilizations: The Cultural Orientations of Malaysian Intellectuals

Too often civilizational analyses remain sealed in a hermetically closed vacuum. Disembodied motifs, designs, and themes tumble over one another in symbolic space, while fragments of Hinduism, Buddhism, and other civilizational complexes vie for idealistic preeminence. Intercivilizational encounters come to resemble pure clashes of ideas, not of individuals or strategic social groups, whose relevance for collective behaviour is minimized. The power of ideas, to mobilize and transform people and be transformed themselves, is thus denied.

Inter-Civilizational Encounters and the Construction of Social Actors. A Note

Inter-Civilizational Encounters and the Construction of Social Actors. A Note

Reflections on the Sociology of Civilizations

are only in the beginning of empirical investigation and the concomitant conceptual clarification of this notion. The very terminology, however, has the advantage of sensitizing us to the fact that models of this kind are cultural objects, diffusable and learnable and capable of being studied in their own right. I conclude this note in the hope that it does illustrate some strategically important ways in which the focus on inter-civilizational encounters calls for new concept formation in sociology which simultaneously integrates microsociological analyses and their yield into the emergent body of knowledge of broad patterns of historical development.

Civilizational Complexes and Intercivilizational Encounters

The main stress of the present essay is on the importance of variant structures of consciousness and the contacts of historically complex societies which have been the cradles and homes of world religions. My chief reason for adopting this emphasis is that it seems to provide exceptionally apt ways of relating to the questions we are obliged to ask ourselves in the comparative study of both civilizational complexes and intercivilizational encounters. The present draft allows much to remain implicit which will need to be made explicit at a later date. Thus, little detail is offered here on many of the so-called real (in the sense of material) factors influencing the shapings of cultural patterns, civilizational complexes and the impacts and outcomes of intercivilizational encounters. Cultural as well as social facts of great importance in these connections are treated lightly; e.g., the forms of language and script, the degree of formalization of the classificatory systems. The first and last sections of the paper reflect some of the results of case studies which I and others have conducted in this area. Evidence for some of the arguments will be found in other papers of mine-some hitherto published, some now in press. A list of these papers is included in the References which will be found at the end of the essay.