The Clash of Interests: An Explanation of the World [Dis]order

Abstract

The paper is a critical re-examination of the Post-Cold War theories– especially Fukuyama's "End of History" and Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations"– and aims to provide an alternative explanation for the global political crisis and instabilities during this era. It is argued that the end of the Cold War strategic balance based on bipolarity has created sensitive regions on a large geopolitical and geoeconomic zone, because there is a vacuum of power to control the strategic capabilities of the geopolitical core areas as well as the vast resource-production-trade capabilities of international political economy. The revival of cultural and civilizational identities after the collapse of the ideological identities of the bipolar Cold War era has been exploited to justify the intra-civilizational strategic competition among the systemic power centers in order to control these sensitive geopolitical and geoeconomic zones. The Eurasian component of the Muslim world, which became the intersectional arena of these two phenomena, civilizational revival and strategic competition, appears as the focal point in international relations.