Ce mémoire propose une étude à la croisée du religieux et du politique mettant en parallèle la pensée du pape Benoît XVI avec la théorie du Choc des civilisations de Samuel Huntington. L'analyse des écrits de ce pape théologien fait ressortir son approche critique de la modernité et de l'héritage des lumières, dans un contexte de crise culturelle et spirituelle de l'Occident. Dans une époque marquée par une dynamique interculturelle aussi incontournable qu'imprévisible, Benoît XVI se révèle un ardent défenseur d'une réconciliation entre la raison sécularisée et la foi chrétienne au sein de la culture occidentale. Contrairement à Huntington qui développe une grille de lecture où l'élément religieux représente le mur ultime séparant les grands ensembles culturels du monde, Benoît XVI affirme que l'ouverture à la vérité, présente dans chaque grande tradition religieuse de l'humanité, permet, en principe, une rencontre positive entre celles-ci. Ainsi, le Saint-Père considère que ce n'est pas la religion, mais plutôt le renoncement à la recherche de la vérité sur l'homme et sur Dieu qui représente l'obstacle le plus grand à la rencontre interculturelle. Enfin, alors qu'Huntington préconise un renoncement définitif à l'universalité des valeurs occidentales, Benoît XVI prend plutôt le pari d'un renoncement à l'universalité illusoire de la « civilisation technologique » pour redécouvrir le sens véritable de la fraternité chrétienne à l'échelle de l'humanité. Ce mémoire conclut donc que s'il existe une convergence entre les deux approches quant à l'importance de la religion et de la culture dans les relations entre les peuples et les états, des divergences fondamentales existent, tant au niveau de la perspective historique, anthropologique et philosophique que des orientations pratiques. Ceci permet d'affirmer que l'approche interculturelle de Benoît XVI ne peut pas être interprétée comme étant une approche huntingtonienne.

It has been ten years since the 26-year-old fruit seller set himself on fire to protest corruption in Tunisia. The street vendor created a wave of protests in the Arab world, a campaign for civil resistance, better known as the "Arab Spring". The protests led to the removal of long-standing authoritarian regimes in countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya. The civil resistance was a result of an economic crisis, high unemployment and corruption. The citizens of the arab world were demanding freedom of expression and greater civil rights. Tunisia became a successful example, where the country today is a complete democracy. In Egypt, the revolution also led to democratization, but for a short period of time. Egypt became more authoritarian after a coup led by the military. The other states failed and the consequences have been devastating with results of civil wars in Libya and Yemen. The main purpose of this essay was to sort out and understand why Tunisia succeeded to become a democracy after the arab spring 2010, while Egypt failed. A qualitative analysis with a comparative democratization study, composed of a most different system-design. The theoretical framework is based on Samuel Huntington (1991) “third wave democratization” and the author’s criteria on democracy, which includes regime legitimacy, economical modernization, and religious change.

Thesis advisor: Paul T. Christensen / The terms “jihad” and “Islamic fundamentalism” appear to dominate world news today. After the September 11th terrorist attacks, people began to wonder if the world of Islam and the world of the West were diametrically opposed and thus doomed to collide. In this thesis I study the work of Samuel Huntington, the leading theorist on the clash between Islam and the West, and his critics. Through case studies of Algeria, Indonesia and Lebanon, all predominantly Muslim countries, I argue that there is not a fundamental clash between these cultures. The conflict that is occurring today is a result of factors such as US foreign policy decisions, and not an existential culture clash. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2004. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

After decades of repression and segregation South Africa managed to break free from the Apartheid era. The year was 1994 when democracy started to prevail in South Africa. That year a truth commission was created in the country to deal with the human rights violations of apartheid. This thesis will analyze the truth commission’s management through three perspectives. These perspectives are the Truth Commission’s, a report by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and lastly a theory by Samuel Huntington. The analysis is designed as a case study of the truth commission’s work. This thesis describes the commissions work and the challenges that followed. The purpose of the thesis is to describe and analyze some of the different approaches on South Africa’s process of reconciliation. This has been done to see if there is parallels or possible contradictions between the perspectives and to highlight challenges. The result shows that the perspectives do have split opinions about the commissions work. The Truth Commission aims to bring the country forward in a fast pace, while Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch stands more critical on how the commission chooses to go about. Clear parallels are also shown between Huntingtons theory and the reality of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The case of Kosovo conflict serves as tool to test the validity of Huntington's theory. Owing to the fact that Mr, Huntington himself described the Balkans and Kosovo as an example of a fault line war, my aim is to verify his assumptions that the roots of the Kosovo conflict are to be found in the religion. During this work the conflict is reconstructed using Mr. Huntington's hypothesis and claims as well as interpreted by three hypothesis. Firstly, Kosovo could represent a conflict at the fault line, which would mean that the theory of the clash of the civilizations is verified. Secondly, the intervention of NATO implies participation of the third civilization in the conflict. To put in differently, the democratic West (NATO) intervened against the orthodox civilization (Serbia) in order to prevent the humanitarian catastrophe the Albanian population of Kosovo (Islam) was to face. Verification of this theory would imply that if there was a conflict between the civilizations in Kosovo, it was between the West (and Kosovo as an integral part of it) and the orthodox civilization. The third hypothesis interprets the Kosovo conflict as a war of the Civilization to promote its own values. Despite the fact that this explanation of the Kosovo conflict could possibly be the most probable one, original assumption of Mr. Huntington stating that the problems of Kosovo are of religious character would be falsified.

The diploma thesis describes theory of Samuel Huntington about the clash of civilizations. Its focus is on the clash between Islam and the West. The thesis describes also history of Afghanistan until 2001 and the fall of the Taliban movement. In accordance with Huntington's thesis, and taking into account his critics, it aims to answer the question, whether there is a clash of civilization in Afghanistan. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Uppsatsen har som syfte att beskriva relationen mellan den svenska militära underrättelsetjänsten och beslutsfattare på politisk nivå. Utgående från Samuel Huntingtons och Morris Janowitz teorier om civil-militära relationer studerar jag 1974 och 1996 års underrättelseutredningar för att genom en jämförelse av dessa försöka beskriva relationen utifrån teorins etablerade begrepp imperatives och control, i denna studie översatta till fordringar och kontroll. Studien genomförs som en kvalitativ innehållsanalys och dokumentstudie. Analysen av hur utredningarna beskriver den svenska militära underrättelsetjänsten tjänar som underlag för att beskriva relationen mellan beslutsfattare och underrättelsetjänst och hur denna utvecklats. Slutsatserna visar att det sedan mitten av 1970-talet råder en uttalad och tämligen oförändrad syn på att det är de funktionella fordringarna som styr den militära underrättelsetjänsten. Med en förändrad säkerhetspolitisk situation har den militära underrättelsetjänsten fått en viktigare roll och ökat inflytande i den politiska processen samtidigt som den politiska sidans syn på behov av kontroll och insyn i underrättelsetjänsten har ökat. Underrättelsetjänstens autonomi visavi beslutsfattarna kan sägas ha minskat.

This Master's Thesis deals with the famous work of a Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington. The topic is described to full extent. First of all, there are defined basic terms connected with culture. Afterwards, the conception of a Clash of Civilizations is described in its basic concepts, whereas there are not omitted consequences connected with the author's other works as well as his life. A special chapter is dedicated to the impact that this work caused. This chapter is devided into two parts. In the first part, there are presented general references of several authors. In the other part, there are discussed comprehensive conceptions of certain authors. Concretely, they are represented by Francis Fukuyama, Immanuel Wallerstein, Alvin Toffler and Michael Novak. After description of basic ideas of these big thinkers, there is made a comparison of their conceptions, which is based on the following terms -- universalism, democracy a capitalism, world order and modernization. In the last part of this Master's Thesis, there are deduced conclusions from the comparison of these conceptions that deal with the international system, which makes this issue more clear for both public and academic people.

Private military companies have rapidly filled in many operational force capacities that national militaries now longer have the capabilities to fill natively. As such, PMCs have expanded their rosters as well as their services provided to fill in many roles, and have carried out many such roles such as logistics management, personal and site security, and some inherently state functions such as training indigenous security forces and interrogation of prisoners. This rise has impacted national militaries in many facets of their operations and abstract professional bases. The ability of the PMC to carry out operations at the same standard as regular soldiers but with higher pay has impacted how the regular soldier views their own place in the professional national military, and creates problems for the establishment as a whole. This thesis will discuss the Iraq War as a case study and the impact of PMCs on the war, as well as introduce the Huntingtonian theories of soldier professionalism and corporateness, and will also employ a critical Marxist perspective to analyse the role and impact of PMCs in the modern military convention and in civil-military relations.