Summary

Identity, Culture and Challenges to the West

Rise of Identity Politics

Westernization as modernization

Modernization has traditionally worn a western face. Western societies have conventionally been
portrayed as ’developed’ or ‘advanced’ societies, implying that they offer a model that will, over
time, be accepted by all other societies. The political face of westernization took the form of the
advance of liberal democracy. Liberal societies have therefore tended to ‘privatize’ culture, in
that issues such as religious belief, moral principles and sexual conduct have been increasingly
thought of as matters to be decided by the individual rather than the larger society. This has been
reflected, particularly since the 1960s, in the spread of so-called ‘permissive’ values and social
norms. Such a trend has been associated with a general decline in deference and the weakening
authority of traditional values and traditional hierarchies (not least those linked to gender
roles).The key feature of such a system is that the right to rule is gained through success in
regular and competitive elections. In this way, a competitive and market-based economic system
was complemented by an open and pluralistic political system. Such economic and political
arrangements have very particular implications for the culture of western societies, however.

Politics of collective identity

Whereas politics during the ‘short’ twentieth century, and especially during the Cold War era,
was dominated by ideological rivalry, politics since appears to have been structured increasingly
by issues of cultural difference. The East–West rivalry between communism and capitalism was
based on a clash between contrasting models of industrial society, each offering a supposedly
universal solution to economic and social ills. Identity politics is also a source of liberation and
empowerment. It promises that social and political advancement can be achieved through a
process of cultural self-assertion aimed at cultivating a ‘pure’ or ‘authentic’ sense of identity.
Black Nationalism gained greater prominence in the 1960s with an upsurge in both the reformist
and revolutionary wings of the movement. In its reformist guise, the movement took the form of
a struggle for civil rights that reached national prominence in the USA under the leadership of
Martin Luther King (1929–68) and the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured
People (NAACP). The strategy of protest and non-violent civil disobedience was nevertheless
rejected by the emerging Black Power movement, which supported black separatism and, under
the leadership of the Black Panthers, founded in 1966, promoted the use of physical force and
armed confrontation. The underlying strategy of Black Nationalism was, however, to confront a
dominant white culture through a process of consciousness-raising that has subsequently been
adopted by other forms of identity politics.
Is cultural conflict inevitable?

The rise of identity politics is often seen as part and parcel of a broader phenomenon: the
growing salience of culture as a factor affecting international relations and word affairs. Some,
indeed, believe that since the end of the Cold War culture has effectively displaced ideology as
the organizing principle of global politics. One of the most widely discussed and controversial
attempts to highlight the importance of culture in contemporary global politics have been Samuel
Huntington’s ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis. Huntington’s basic assertion was that a new era in
global politics was emerging in which civilization would be the primary force, a civilization
being ‘culture writ large’. As such, the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis contrasted sharply with the
neoliberal image of world affairs, which stresses the growth of interdependence, particularly in
the light of globalization. Furthermore, just as orthodox Marxists made the mistake of
‘economism’, by overstating the importance of economic and class factors in determining
identity, Huntington made the mistake of culturalism, in that he failed to recognize the extent to
which cultural identities are shaped by political and social circumstances. Huntington helpfully
underlines the capacity of cultural difference to generate political conflict, even though this may
too often be portrayed as a natural, rather than political, process. Nevertheless, Huntington’s
theories are often more flexible and sophisticated than his critics allow.

RELIGIOUS REVIVALISM

Religion and politics

The most prominent aspect of the growing political importance of culture has undoubtedly been
religious revivalism and the rise of religious movements. In Huntington’s (1996) view, religion
is the ‘central defining characteristic’ of civilizations, in which case the ‘clash of civilizations’
effectively implies a clash of religions. Ideas such as social equality, toleration, critical
rationality and democracy are thus key elements in western culture, but none of these can be
traced directly to Christianity. Indeed, one of the features of western, and particularly European
societies is their secularism, the USA, where about a quarter of voters define themselves as
‘born-again Christians’, being an exception. Such developments are based on the so-called
‘secularization thesis’. Advocates of the secularization thesis have been confounded by
developments from the late twentieth century onwards. Religion has become more important, not
less important. This has been evident in the emergence of new, and often more assertive forms of
religiosity, in the increasing impact of religious movements and, most importantly, in a closer
relationship between religion and politics, through both the religionization of politics and
politicization of religion. This became evident in the 1970s within Islam, and was most
dramatically demonstrated by the 1979 ‘Islamic Revolution’ in Iran, which brought the
Ayatollah Khomeini to power as the leader of the world’s first Islamic state. Religious revivalism
has nevertheless served a variety of political purposes. Three of these have been particularly
prominent. The first is that religion has been an increasingly important component of social
conservatism, offering to strengthen the moral fabric of society through a return to religious
values and practices. Second, religion has been an increasingly significant component, even the
defining feature, of forms of ethnic nationalism. Third, religion has gained its greatest political
influence through providing the basis for militant politico-cultural regeneration, based on the
belief that, in Khomeini’s words, ‘Politics is religion’.

The fundamentalist upsurge

The term ‘fundamentalism’ was first used in debates within American Protestantism in the early
twentieth century. Between 1910 and 1915, evangelical Protestants published a series of
pamphlets entitled The Fundamentals, upholding the inerrancy, or literal truth, of the Bible in the
face of modern interpretations of Christianity. It is difficult to generalize about the causes of the
fundamentalist upsurge that has occurred since the late twentieth century because, in different
parts of the world, it has taken different doctrinal forms and displayed contrasting ideological
features. Religious fundamentalism may also be intrinsically linked to the advance of
globalization. Religious fundamentalism has been attractive both because it offers the prospect of
a non-western, and often specifically anti-western, political identity, and because, particularly
since the decline of revolutionary socialism in the 1970s, it articulates the aspirations of the
urban poor and the lower middle classes.