Suchergebnisse

The study is based on the concept of Huntington's civilizations. They were used as a methodological basis for an analysis of the changes in their geopolitical power between 1995–2020 with the following conclusions: 1) The large population growth of 1995-2020 has been driven primarily by African, Islamic and Hindu civilizations, 2) Economically, the unquestionable superiority of Western civilization has remained, although its share has declined. A large economic growth has been mainly seen in the Confucian and Hindu civilizations, 3) Of the core countries, the USA, Russia, and China match the status of superpowers, while for India it seems to be only a matter of time, 4) Most of the civilizations are economically highly compact and their compactness has increased over the last 25 years (except of African civilization) and 5) The Western, Hindu and Latin-American civilizations are politically highly compact. Conversely, the African, Islamic, Orthodox and Confucian civilizations show low cohesion. The Muslim civilization is the least compact – politically as well as economically. 6. The superpowers (United States, China, Russia and India) will remain or become the most important players in the multipolar world of the 21st century. However, it is a question whether the most important issue will be the relations of the Western and non-Western world or the mutual relations among the other three (actual or rising) superpowers.

Estonia enjoys a very delicate geographic position. It is located not just in the neighborhood of Russia, which is modernizing or Westernizing with fluctuating success, but it is situated strategically on the border of two civilizations reminiscent of Samuel P. Huntington's thought-provoking article in the journal Foreign Affairs. However, Estonia has not become a borderland in the classical meaning of the term since the country belongs historically and integrally to the sphere of the so-called Lutheran-German civilization. For centuries this has blocked attempts from the East to incorporate the northern Baltics (which include Finland) into the Orthodox-Slavic Eastern civilization. In the context of conflicting civilizations, each such invasion has been not so much an ethnic matter but rather one of clashing civilizations and of a choice between two competing civilizations. In the last couple of years, Europe has once again witnessed the failure of one more Eastern assault that was launched with the signing in 1939 of the Hitler-Stalin agreement, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Civilizations are not a novel subject of research.Todaytheyareincreasinglypopularbothinaca demicandpoliticalspheres.State and non-state actors talk as if civilizations were real actors of world politics. The article outlines the intellectual map of civilizational research in world politics. It finds three actual and one possible directions of civilizational research, namely: civilizational dynamic, inter civilizational ethics, politics of civilizations and civilizational politics. The author stresses the importance of nonessentialist approach in civilizational dynamics studies, its leader being Peter Katzenstein. The rest of the article is devoted to cultivating the selected research direction. The author proposes to view civilizations as a strategic reference framework rather than a real actor of world politics. These reference frameworks are constructed on religious value basis and detailed in a shared literature corpus. They are heterogeneous and in a constant state of flux. It can be viewed as a continuum with one pole being a fundamentalist state of civilization and the opposite one - post secular state of civilization. The middle ground is occupied by secular civilization. The clash and dialogue are not among civilizations but rather among different states or social groups within and among civilizations. The most conflictual group is a fundamentalist one, its reference framework is totally determined by religious values. Compromise for such a group is impossible. The most cooperative group is post secular one since it is based on dialogue. The author concludes that dialogue is guaranteed among post secular societies within the Christian civilization. Within and among non-Christian civilizations dialogue is possible but not guaranteed.

Discusses the characteristics, problems, and sociology of suburbs and megalopolises, with particular reference to the New York City area.