civilizational analysis in international relations: mapping the field and advancing a...

ANALYTICAL ESSAYS: EVALUATION,

SYNTHESIS, REFLECTIONS

Civilizational Analysis in InternationalRelations: Mapping the Field and

Advancing a “Civilizational Politics” Lineof Research1

Gregorio Bettiza

European University Institute

This article maps and develops—theoretically and empirically—the fieldof civilizational analysis in international relations (IR). In particular, itteases out a more explicit “civilizational politics” line of research, whichbuilds upon latent and underdeveloped themes in the civilizational turnin IR. “Civilizational politics” offers an avenue for theoretically inclined,empirically minded scholars to explore how social and political actorshave come to understand, change, and construct world politics as if plu-ral civilizations existed and their relations mattered. The article anchors“civilizational politics” research to a modernist-constructivist approachto IR and structures it around two key steps. The first step is to recoverand interpret subjective and intersubjective meanings through partici-pants’ discourse. The article proposes an understanding of civilizationsas “imagined communities” narrated by political and intellectual elites:as essentialized or non-essentialized entities; and as clashing/conflictingor dialoguing/engaging with each other. The second step outlines threecausal pathways that explain how narrated civilizational imaginariesaffect world politics and turn civilizations into social facts: by guidingand structuring social action; by shaping and becoming embedded informal institutions and patterned practices; and by bestowing recogni-tion and socially empowering actors claiming to speak for civilizations.The empirical import of a “civilizational politics” line of research isdemonstrated through a re-reading of Turan Kayaog

lu’s article “Con-

structing the Dialogue of Civilizations in World Politics: A Case of Glo-bal Islamic Activism.”

1Author’s notes: I would like to thank Emanuel Adler, Maria Birnbaum, Adam Bower, Katerina Dalacoura, J€orgFriedrichs, Dan Pearson, and Fabio Petito for insightful conversations about civilizational analysis and/or usefulsuggestions on earlier drafts of the paper. Thanks must also go to the anonymous reviewers and the editors ofInternational Studies Review for their detailed and very constructive comments. The paper benefited from feedbackfrom the 2012 joint BISA-ISA International Conference in Edinburgh, and the European University Institute’sInternational Relations as well as Religion and Politics seminars in 2012 and 2013. Finally, I would like to thankEUI’s Max Weber Programme and its team for the support I received. Any errors or mistakes are solely myresponsibility.

Bettiza, Gregorio. (2014) Civilizational Analysis in International Relations: Mapping the Field and Advancing a “CivilizationalPolitics” Line of Research. International Studies Review, doi: 10.1111/misr.12100© 2014 International Studies Association

International Studies Review (2014) 16, 1–28

Civilizational politics is gaining ground in international relations (IR). What doI mean by this? I mean that nonstate actors, states, and internationalorganizations are increasingly talking and acting as if civilizations, intheir “plural”2 sense, exist and that relations between them matter in world poli-tics. As Fabio Petito suggests, “civilizations, defined in a fundamentally culturalist-religious sense” appear to be reasserting themselves “as strategic frames of reference,not as direct protagonists, of international politics [emphasis in original]”(2011:767). This is evident in two types of discourses that have proliferated in theinternational public sphere over the past two decades. First are the growing publicinvocations about the importance of “Christian,” “Judeo-Christian,” “Western,”“Slavic,” “Orthodox,” “Asian,” “Confucian,” “Muslim,” “Islamic,” “Hindu,” and/or“African” values and identities. Second are the ever more pervasive discoursesabout the perils of “clashes” or the imperative of “dialogues” among civilizations.What is also becoming apparent, however, is that beliefs about civilizational

identities and relations are not solely emerging as frames of reference in interna-tional discourses. They are also increasingly becoming an organizing principlefor a growing range of social actions, international institutions, and practices. Inother words, as social and political actors frame international politics in civiliza-tional terms, so actions, institutional arrangements, and practices structuredaround managing inter-civilizational relations are emerging as well. Thesechanges are empowering those very same people and organizations that claim tospeak in the name of civilizations. In the process, a positive feedback loop isgenerated between civilizational narratives: the (re)orientation of actions, institu-tional arrangements, and international practices around civilizational categories;and processes of recognition bestowed on actors claiming a civilizational identityand voice. This process is contributing to socially and materially construct civili-zations as meaningful and real entities in world politics. This is what I meanhere by “civilizational politics.”Take, for instance, American foreign policy. How the United States can best

confront, engage, or transform the “Muslim world”—generally understood as abroad category of peoples, countries, and institutions that share a cultural andreligious identity—have become major preoccupations for both the Bush Jr. andObama administrations. Indeed, the “Muslim world” is increasingly seen as anunproblematic civilizational category, not only in American foreign-policy dis-courses, but also in its practices and institutions. Highly symbolic speeches havebeen delivered, explicitly reaching out to “Muslims,” by presidents Bush (2001)and Obama (2009a,b). Countless educational, interfaith, economic, and democ-racy-promotion initiatives have been targeted toward a hugely diverse group ofpeople and countries, across multiple continents, because they are thought tobelong to or speak in the name of the “Muslim world” (Amr 2009). As of 2013,the United States has two “ambassadors” to Islam: a Special Envoy to the Organi-zation of Islamic Conference/Cooperation (OIC), and a Special Representativeto Muslim Communities.

2Civilization/s is a notoriously problematic and ambiguous concept. Broadly speaking we can research and thinkof civilizations in the “plural,” “invoked when we discuss the criteria for distinguishing and comparing civilizations”(Arnason 2003:1), or of civilization in the “singular,” used “when we speak of the origins, achievements or prospectsof civilization” (Arnason 2003:1). In the former case, civilizations are understood as distinct macro-cultural, macro-social, and/or macro-historical units, which may rise and fall and interact in multiple ways, across time and space(for classical examples in history and social theory see Braudel 1994; Eisenstadt 2003). In the latter case, civilizationis thought of as progress, as a certain standard of attainment that distinguishes the economically, politically,socially, or scientifically “civilized” from the “un-civilized.” The scholar becomes engaged in unpacking either thesources and effects of civilizing processes (in social theory see Elias 1994; for an IR perspective see Linklater 2010)or of civilizing norms and discourses (for perspectives close to IR, see Bowden 2009; Gong 1984; Suzuki 2009).Even if the two concepts of civilization—in the plural and in the singular—are distinct, they are not necessarilymutually exclusive. We can divide the world into multiple civilizations and then impute a higher standard of civiliza-tion to any of these entities compared to others.

2 Civilizational Analysis in International Relations

It is possible to think of other glaring examples of “civilizational politics”unfolding. For instance, the United Nations has long been an organization con-cerned primarily with ensuring peace among nations and protecting individualhuman rights. Yet, ever since the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations(UNAOC) initiative was institutionalized in 2006, the UN has become involvedwith promoting mutual understanding among civilizations. International institu-tions designed along civilizational lines such as the OIC, which claims to be “thecollective voice of the Muslim world,” and whose scope is to “galvanize the Um-mah into a unified body,”3 are acquiring greater visibility. The OIC has been atthe forefront in promoting “dialogue of civilizations” and “defamation of reli-gion” norms at the UN, seen as a way to curb perceived criticism of Islam andMuslims worldwide (Kayao�glu 2012).IR scholars seem by and large unable, or uninterested, in making much sense

of these changes in beliefs, discourses, institutions, and practices around civiliza-tional categories. A promising avenue does, however, appear to be emerging.Indeed, although still marginal, a growing attention and interest toward civiliza-tional analysis is noticeably gaining ground in IR. This literature is slowly over-coming a widespread skepticism—mostly driven by an overwhelming repudiationof Samuel Huntington’s (1993, 1996) “clash of civilizations” thesis—toward tak-ing seriously civilizations as a concept and category in the discipline.So far civilizational analysis in IR has developed mainly around three broad

lines of research, or what I loosely identify as civilizational research paradigms:“civilizational dynamics,” “inter-civilizational ethics,” and “the politics of civiliza-tion/s.” “Civilizational dynamics” research has a strong historical and sociologicalbent. It is mostly concerned with the constitution and shape that plural civiliza-tions, as objective ontological realities, have and the multiple ways they interactwith each other. “Inter-civilizational ethics” literature is mostly normative. Thisscholarship also starts from a perspective that sees civilizations and, especially,global cultural pluralism as objective facts which structure social reality. Its mainconcern is then to devise the appropriate normative and institutional frameworksfor promoting international peace through inter-civilizational dialogue andunderstanding. Scholars in “the politics of civilization/s” paradigm instead donot take civilizations as an ontological reality. Researchers here are largely con-cerned with deconstructing civilizational discourses and invocations. These dis-courses are generally seen as highly political acts used to draw exclusionaryboundaries between the “self” and the “other” in order to sustain and legitimizeunequal power relations and practices.This article argues that “civilizational politics” would constitute a fourth line of

research, which is latent in the literature but has not yet been fully articulatedand explicitly developed. This approach shares much—as the similarity in namesattests—with “the politics of civilization/s” research. Most importantly, bothapproaches to civilizational analysis share an interpretivist epistemology skepticaltoward assigning any ontological reality to civilizations beyond the understand-ings and practices of the social actors that constitute and instantiate them.Hence, both “civilizational politics” and “the politics of civilization/s” researchtend to look for civilizations mostly in the discourses and deeds of social andpolitical actors, rather than using civilizations as objective categories and as thestarting point for analyzing international relations.Compared to “the politics of civilization/s” research, which tends to be inspired

by radical or critical variants of constructivism, and by post-structuralism and postco-lonial theory, I ground “civilizational politics” research within a modernist approachto constructivism.4 Hence, unlike much of “the politics of civilization/s” research,

3See http://www.oic-oci.org/oicv2/page/?p_id=52&p_ref=26&lan=en (accessed July 3, 2013).4On “radical,” “critical,” and “modernist” styles of constructivism, see Adler (2013:116–17).

Gregorio Bettiza 3

“civilizational politics” research takes civilizational invocations not solely as arhetorical tool through which inclusionary/exclusionary practices are legitimizedand promoted, but as representing a significant shift in the way individuals aremaking sense of themselves and the social world around them.This article proposes to interpret civilizational discourses as the carriers of a

particular kind of intersubjective knowledge structure: the view that world poli-tics is divided among different civilizations and that intra- and inter-civilizationsrelations are key to international peace and security at this historical juncture. Iconceive of civilizations as “imagined communities” of a particular kind—trans-national, inter-human, and de-territorialized cultural communities—that act assalient identity markers in, and as strategic frames of reference to make sense ofa globalizing and ever more complex and multilayered international system.Thinking of civilizations as imagined communities leads a “civilizational poli-

tics” approach to emphasize less how civilization/s discourses are in constantflux and opportunistically called upon to promote a wide range of practices,which—as in much of “the politics of civilizations” research—often have little civ-ilizational content to them. The focus is directed more explicitly, instead, towardteasing out the way in which civilizational imaginaries stabilize and become insti-tutionalized, turning civilizations into social facts by (re)shaping the structuresof world politics around inter-civilizational relations. A “civilizational politics”line of research is hence less concerned with deconstructing civilizational dis-courses. It is more interested in exploring the processes by which actors thatframe international relations along civilizational imaginaries contribute tosocially and materially construct civilizations.Three causal pathways are outlined through which civilizational imaginaries

bring civilizations and inter-civilizational relations into being: (i) by guiding andstructuring social action (that is, “speech acts” and behavior); (ii) by shapingand becoming embedded in the material structures of world politics, such as for-mal institutions (that is, international organizations, state bureaucracies) andpatterned practices (that is, diplomacy, aid, military interventions); and (iii) bybestowing recognition and socially empowering those actors who claim to speak,or are believed to be speaking for, one’s own or other civilizations.In short, what is salient from this perspective is not so much to determine

which civilizations exist and how they relate to each other (pace “civilizationaldynamics” and “inter-civilizational ethics”), nor to reveal the contingent politicsof drawing and re-drawing boundaries (pace “the politics of civilization/s”). Whatis central is the desire to investigate how actors come to perceive the interna-tional as a place where civilizations and their relations matter; and how actors,when reshaping international politics along these beliefs, bring civilizations intoexistence as social facts (through different causal pathways) at this historicaljuncture in world politics.The article is divided as follows. In the first part, I map out the civilizational

turn in IR5 onto a two-by-two matrix. This matrix helps to organize civilizationalanalysis in four broad lines of research. In the second part, I seek to advanceand tease out more explicitly one of these lines of research—what I call “civiliza-tional politics.” “Civilizational politics” has been only latently and sporadicallydeveloped so far in IR. Yet, I argue in this section, a more explicit focus on thisline of research can help us in important ways to understand and explain signifi-cant changes in world politics today. I develop the theoretical foundations,conceptual toolkit, and methodological contours—rooted in a modernist

5Civilizational analysis has a long tradition across the humanities and the social sciences, from history to socialtheory, political philosophy, and postcolonial studies. This article focuses mainly on civilizational analysis in IRgiven its exponential growth over the years. Where relevant, however, the article will highlight the main externalintellectual and disciplinary influences on the different IR debates.


constructivist “style of reasoning” (Pouliot 2007:361–64)—for carrying out “civili-zational politics” research. While doing so, I also build and extend on JacintaO’Hagan’s (2002) insights on “civilizational identities,” Peter Katzenstein’s(2010b:12–13) sketch of a “primordiality” approach to civilizations, and MichaelWilliams and Ivor Neumann’s (2000) investigation into the relationship betweencivilizational-based thinking and NATO’s policy of enlargement.The third section briefly demonstrates the empirical import of a “civilizational

politics” line of research. Rather than offering an entirely new case study, Ire-read, through explicit “civilizational politics” lenses, Kayao�glu’s (2012) recentarticle: “Constructing the Dialogue of Civilizations in World Politics: A Case ofGlobal Islamic Activism.” The article explains why and how different Islamicactors came, over the past two decades, to successfully promote a series of initia-tives and institutions around the “dialogue of civilizations” in international soci-ety. Kayao�glu’s article is chosen because it is one of the clearest examples ofempirical research carried out, albeit implicitly, along what I would theoreticallyidentify as a “civilizational politics” approach.

Mapping Civilizational Analysis in IR

Explicit attention to civilizational analysis entered the field of IR abruptly andmost prominently two decades ago with Huntington’s (1993, 1996) controversial“clash of civilizations” thesis. In the decade that followed, the concept of civiliza-tions as a meaningful category in international politics, let alone the idea thatthese supposedly coherent entities were destined to violently clash, was subject toa barrage of theoretical6 and empirical7 critique within and outside of IR. Hun-tington’s thesis was refused as too simplistic at best, if not pernicious at worst. Thevery case for civilizational analysis in IR was rejected altogether as inherentlyflawed or dangerous, and no respectable scholar wanted to appear to endorse it.8

Regardless of what IR scholars tended to conclude, civilizational talk—especiallyin the wake of 9/11—continued to resonate widely in public discourses and policycircles around the world (see for example, Hoge 2010). As such, a new wave of IRscholarship has slowly emerged, willing to engage in a more substantive and directway with civilizational analysis than had been the case before. This literature, likethe earlier, generally springs from a critique of Huntington’s conception of civili-zations: seen as either too conflict-prone, too static, too fixed, too closed, toomonolithic, and/or too essentialist. Yet, rather than throwing the civilizationalbaby out with the Huntingtonian bath water, IR scholars have increasingly takencivilizations seriously, both as an object of study and as an analytical category ininternational politics. As Martin Hall (2007) perceptively notes:

Civilizational analysis is important not least because the concept of civilization isbeing used. It seems, at this historical juncture, that the notion of civilization is asignificant carrier of knowledge and of thereby attendant preferences andpolicies. (p. 199)

Overall, it is possible to identify four broad lines of research (what I also call civi-lizational research paradigms) along which civilizational analysis has progressed inIR. Of these four, three have been particularly developed: “civilizational dynamics,”

6For a realist critique, see Walt (1997). For a liberal one, see Ikenberry (1997). For a Marxian critique, see Hall-iday (2002). For a postcolonial perspective, see Said (2001). For a broader philosophical critique of Huntington’sarguments, and against the essentialization of individuals around unique and singular identities, see Sen (2006).

7For a wide range of studies arguing that Huntington’s thesis of civilizational/cultural clashes has very little, orno, empirical evidence, see Chiozza (2002), Fox (2002), Henderson and Tucker (2002).

8For an important exception, one still critical of Huntington’s essentialization of civilizations in clash, seePuchala (1997).

Gregorio Bettiza 5

“inter-civilizational ethics,” and “the politics of civilization/s.” A fourth line ofresearch (what I identify as “civilizational politics”) has received only scarce theo-retical and empirical attention. These research paradigms contain a plurality ofvoices across theoretical spectrums that often can, and do, profoundly disagree.These are not sealed or purposely coherent research projects. Scholars interactand debate across research paradigms. Yet, even if these four lines of research arenot necessarily mutually exclusive, and they can and do overlap at times, they tendto flow from different ontological and theoretical premises.Research paradigms can be divided along two main axes. First, they can be

split between those who treat civilizations as ontological realities and as founda-tional to international politics, and those instead who do not give ontologicalprimacy to civilizations and take international politics as the foundation of civili-zations. Put differently, the divide is between those approaches that take pluralcivilizations as the primary unit of analysis—either in terms of fixed structures orevolving relations and processes—and those who do not—focusing instead onhow social and political agents understand and discursively frame the worldaround them along civilizational categories.This division largely mirrors that proposed by Katzenstein (2010a,b) between

“dispositional” and “discursive” modes of analysis when thinking about civiliza-tions. Even more so, it is in line with Jackson’s (2010) distinction between “schol-arly” and “participant” specification ontologies. The issue for Jackson is “who”—whether the scholar or the actors that the scholar investigates—“gets to makethe determination about what constitutes a civilization” (p. 185). In the case of ascholarly-specification ontology, it is the analyst who looks at the social worldand defines what civilizations are and how they relate, or ought to relate, to eachother. In the case of a participant-specification ontology, the scholar is insteadengaged in interpreting how human actors themselves individually and collec-tively see and describe the world around them in civilizational terms.A second distinction in civilizational analysis, which both Jackson and Katzen-

stein do not directly touch upon, exists between research programs guided lar-gely by an analytical approach to theory and those with a normative/criticalorientation. This is an important distinction to make, especially when touchingupon sensitive and controversial subjects like civilizations. In light of this catego-rization, it is possible to place these lines of research on a two-by-two matrix withscholarly and participant-specification ontologies on the vertical axis, and analyti-cal and normative/critical approaches to theory on the horizontal one (seeTable 1).A “civilizational dynamics” research paradigm is situated on the top-left quad-

rant where an analytical approach to theory meets a commitment to scholarlyspecification. The premise of this line of inquiry is that there is, across time andspace, in the social world, a plurality of civilizations—broadly understood as dif-ferent macro-formations and entities organized around distinctive cultural,social, and/or economic structures/relations. Based on this premise, the scholarthen becomes engaged in defining and conceptualizing what civilizations areand do, what s/he understands to be the internal characteristics and, possibly,the external interactions of civilizations. There follows an investigation into themultiple ways in which civilizations, as units of analysis, have a bearing acrosstime and space on world politics.

TABLE 1. Mapping Civilizational Analysis in IR

Analytical Theory Normative/Critical Theory

Scholarly-Specification OntologyParticipant-Specification Ontology


This type of research has dominated civilizational analysis in IR—as well as inthe social sciences more broadly. This research is also marked by considerableinternal differences and debates. The chief line of disagreement runs betweenthose who theorize civilizations along essentialist lines and their critiques thatconceptualize civilizations along non-essentialist lines. Essentialist approaches tendto see civilizations as bounded, coherent, integrated, centralized, homogeneous,consensual, and static entities. Non-essentialist ones treat civilizations as weaklybounded, contradictory, loosely integrated, heterogeneous, contested entities,which are in a constant state of flux (Hall and Jackson 2007a:7).9

The chief essentializer is Samuel Huntington who—drawing also from thework of Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee, and Fernand Braudel—maps out theworld along eight or nine discrete civilizational blocks marked by historical andreligio-cultural continuity. Huntington (1996) defines a civilization as the “high-est cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity peoplehave short of what distinguishes humans from other species” (p. 43). In Hun-tington’s world, cultural and historical differences are likely to lead to civiliza-tional clashes. In similar essentialist lines, other scholars close to an IRperspective have focused more narrowly on one specific, macro-cultural group-ing; whether the Classical-Christian-Secular West (Gress 1998; Ferguson 2011),the Muslim world (Lewis 1990, 2002), or the Asian mind (Mahbubani 2002),ascribing a coherent history and a set of clearly identifiable values and character-istics to these entities.Without renouncing the analytical value of parceling the world into distinct

civilizations, authors like Peter Katzenstein have been among the clearest propo-nents of a non-essentialist plural and pluralist view of civilizations in IR. Katzen-stein (2010a,b)—who draws from the work of social theorists such as ShmuelEisenstadt, Randall Collins, and Norbert Elias—defines civilizations as “looselycoupled, internally differentiated, elite-centered social systems” (p. 5). Civiliza-tions may be thought of as “configurations, constellations, or complexes. Theyare not fixed in space or time. They are both internally highly differentiated andculturally loosely integrated” (p. 5). These “civilizational configurations are mostsimilar not in their cultural coherence and tendency toward clash,” Katzensteinargues, “but in their pluralist differences and in their intercivilizational encoun-ters and transcivilizational engagements” (p. 7). Starting from this conceptualpremise, Katzenstein’s edited trilogy (Katzenstein 2010b, 2012a,b) then seeks toexplore the conditions that give rise to clashes, encounters, or engagementsamong a plurality of internally differentiated civilizational complexes such asAnglo-America, Europe, China, Japan, India, Islam, and the overarching Civiliza-tion of Modernity.Similarly to Katzenstein, a number of other scholars from constructivist

(Acharya 2013), neo-Gramscian (Cox 2000; Cox and Schechter 2002), and histor-ical sociological (Puchala 1997; Hobson 2004, 2007b) perspectives haveunpacked, along non-essentialist lines, the processes which constitute civilizationsand shape their interactions—beyond clashes—in world politics and history.Both in their essentialist and non-essentialist forms, civilizations are rarely seenas political actors themselves. Civilizations are conceptualized as containingvarious types of political units, be they nonstate actors, states, empires, or polities(Huntington 1996:44; Katzenstein 2010b:24). Civilizations are the broadest cul-tural and social structures (for essentializers) or relations (for non-essentializers),which constitute political actors’ identities and interests, determining (for

9The distinction here between essentialist and non-essentialist approaches reflects to a great extent that madeby Jackson (1999, 2010) between substantialist/attribute and processural/relational ontologies when investigatingcivilizations in world politics.

Gregorio Bettiza 7

essentializers) or constraining and enabling (for non-essentializers) their actionsin world politics.An “inter-civilizational ethics” line of research sits on the top-right quadrant of

the matrix where a scholarly-specification ontology shifts toward a normative/critical approach to theory. “Inter-civilizational ethics” scholarship, like “civiliza-tional dynamics” scholarship, takes civilizations (or at least civilizational identi-ties) as ontological realities in the social world. Much of this literature stemsfrom a critique of Huntington. The bone of contention with the former-Harvardprofessor is not so much with his essentialization of civilizations, but with his pre-dictions of clash. “Inter-civilizational ethics” scholars take cultural and religiouspluralism in international society as an important, constitutive, and valuable ele-ment of world politics. They are driven by a commitment toward avoiding civili-zational confrontations. As a result, they seek to devise the intellectual,normative, and institutional frameworks that help promote international peacethrough better inter-civilizational (cultural and religious) dialogue and under-standing.For Fabio Petito (2011), avoiding civilizational clashes cannot be reduced to

“theorizing civilizational identities away,” as, for example, intellectuals such asAmartya Sen10 and Edward Said11 have attempted to do. Petito finds the oppo-site to be true. In a post-Cold War world, marked by the reassertion of civiliza-tional frames of reference, a “strong” sense of civilizational identity and traditionbecome essential conditions for developing an effective dialogue among worldcultures and religions (see also Michel and Petito 2009). Other IR scholars, forinstance, have sought to frame and promote the European-Mediterranean Part-nership (EMP) as a case for the convergence of civilizations in a post-9/11 world(Adler, Crawford, Bicchi, and Del Sarto 2006). Fred Dallmayr (1996), a politicalphilosopher whose work has inspired much of Petito’s, is normatively concernedwith developing a multicultural ethic for a globalizing world. Over the years, agrowing range of academics, public intellectuals, religious and political leadersacross the globe have insistently advocated for better dialogue across civilizations(Esposito and Voll 2000; Dallmayr 2002; Forst and Ahmed 2005; Dallmayr andManoochehri 2007).“The politics of civilization/s” is the third major line of research currently

unfolding in IR. It sits on the bottom-right quadrant of the matrix, where a nor-mative/critical approach to theory meets a participant-specification ontology.Much of this literature is partly inspired by the seminal work of Edward Said onOrientalism (2003) and his critique (2001) of Huntington’s clash thesis. Scholarsin this line of research generally investigate how discourses about civilizations inthe plural, often blending with those of civilization in the singular,12 are thendeployed to draw boundaries, de-humanize the “other,” legitimize repressive andcolonial practices, or sustain unequal power relations. Civilizations are seen ashaving no ontological reality aside from the inclusionary/exclusionary practicesthat their invocations help to promote. The focus is then on unpacking how,and in whose interest, are civilizational categories and boundaries drawn andrevealing who is included/excluded and why.One of the clearest expressions of this approach can be found in the edited

volume by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and Martin Hall, which largely focuses onthe “necessarily power-laden” processes through which civilizational “boundaries

10Sen (2006).11Said (2001).12This research instructively points out how the boundaries that are drawn between civilizations, say “the West”

and “the Rest,” often overlap with those distinguishing the “civilized” and the “un-civilized.” Hence, discourses arereproduced, for instance, of a “civilized West” as opposed to an “un-civilized Rest.” This explains the slash (/) inthe word “civilization/s” when it comes to this research program.


are continually produced and reproduced” (Hall and Jackson 2007a,b:6).13 Jack-son, in his book Civilizing the Enemy (2006), provides a case study of how publicrhetoric after World War II was deployed to draw and redraw the boundaries ofwhat “Western civilization” consisted in, delegitimizing all policy options otherthan West Germany’s incorporation into America’s sphere of influence. Ameri-can foreign policy, in the aftermath of 9/11, has provided a fertile ground forthis kind of analysis, with scholars seeking to unpack the ways in which contro-versial policies associated with the War on Terror were legitimized by discoursesthat “othered” terrorists and Islam as “barbaric” and “uncivilized” (Adib-Moghad-dam 2011; Mullin 2013; Pasha 2007; Salter 2002, 2007; for a similar analysis ofhow civilizational discourses played out in Western policy toward the Balkans inthe 1990s, see Hansen 2006, especially chapters 6 and 8).Civilizational research paradigms are not hermeneutically sealed. Some

scholars straddle various approaches to civilizational analysis in their work. BrettBowden (2009), for instance, exposes how the notion of civilization, as a stage-managed account of history, has been used to legitimize imperialism, uniformity,and conformity to Western standards, not only during the War on Terror but asfar back as the Crusades and the colonial era. By deconstructing the concept ofcivilization (in line with “the politics of civilization/s” approach), Bowden, how-ever, seeks to demonstrate that “the West” and “the Rest” have more commonali-ties than differences and hence that a genuine inter-civilizational dialogue ispossible (in line with an “inter-civilizational ethics” approach) (see also Hobson2007a,b).Table 2 shows the three main lines of civilizational research within the

matrix. The bottom-left corner—where a participant-specification ontologymeets an analytical approach to theory—is filled by a potential, hence in par-entheses, “civilizational politics” paradigm. Theory and research of this kind stilllacks a more self-conscious understanding of its possible contribution to IR’scivilizational turn. The next section explains why and how a more clearly articu-lated “civilizational politics” research agenda can move forward civilizationalanalysis in IR.

Toward “Civilizational Politics” Research

This section builds upon themes latent in the literature in order to develop amore explicit “civilizational politics” line of research in IR. In the first part, Ihighlight the theoretical and empirical payoffs that a more clearly defined lineof research on “civilizational politics” yields. At the same time, I also survey someof the limits of the main three unfolding civilizational research paradigms out-lined above. Put differently, I seek to answer the question why “civilizational poli-tics” research? In the second part, I tease out the conceptual andmethodological tools for doing “civilizational politics” research. Here, I answerthe question how “civilizational politics” research?

TABLE 2. Civilizational Research Paradigms in IR

Analytical Theory Normative/Critical Theory

Scholarly-Specification Ontology Civilizational Dynamics Inter-Civilizational EthicsParticipant-Specification Ontology (Civilizational Politics) The Politics of Civilization/s

13For a similar perspective, focused more narrowly on the politics involved in speaking and representing “theWest,” see Browning and Lehti (2010a,b).

Gregorio Bettiza 9

Why “Civilizational Politics” Research?

There are important pragmatic and philosophical reasons why scholars may findcompelling a participant-specification ontology to investigating civilizations in IR.This is an ontology which underpins “civilizational politics” research, as well as“the politics of civilization/s” research, contra “civilizational dynamics,” and“inter-civilizational ethics.” First, a participant-specification ontology is compel-ling because it firmly orients research toward empirical questions. Attention isdirected toward interpreting actors’ invocations (and possibly beliefs) about whatcivilizations are and do, rather than attempting to objectively identify, throughbroad conceptual abstractions, the putative characteristics of those civilizationsthat straddle the international system today. As such, a “civilizational politics”line of research—which focuses on what actors, rather than scholars, take to bereal—pragmatically sidesteps seemingly endless and irreconcilable definitionaldebates about the character and influence of civilizations in world politics (seealso O’Hagan 2007:21).Second, a participant-specification ontology may be appealing to those who

are dubious about a scholar’s ability to objectively identify what civilizations areand do (or should do) in the first place. Take states for instance. There are mul-tiple and contested debates when it comes to defining what states are. Yet, theiridentifiable centralized institutional underpinnings, the sovereign rights whichare bestowed upon them, and their legally recognized territorial borders do pro-vide some hooks to which scholars can give states some sort of corporate agencyor conceptual coherence. Civilizations lack all of that; they are of an “intangiblenature” (O’Hagan 2002:13). Civilizations have “no front office or central bureau-cracy” (Jackson 2007:47), they have no legally recognized borders, nor any othersorts of formal rights which make them clearly distinguishable. Nor are thereany international actors with the capacity to certify actions performed by, or inthe name of, whole civilizations.Third, a participant-specification approach to civilizations speaks to those

scholars that tend toward the agency side of the agency–structure dichotomy.Scholars who are skeptical toward assigning any ontological reality to civilizationsbeyond the social actors and practices that help to constitute and instantiatethem may find a home here. A participant-specification line of inquiry shifts theattention away from analyzing civilizations as objective structures and relations.The focus is, instead, on interpreting why and how social and political actorscome to make sense of, and talk of, their surroundings in civilizational termsand on the causal power that civilizational claims and discourses exercise insocial and political practice (Hall and Jackson 2007a:4).Within a participant-specification ontology, however, there are subtle but

important epistemological and theoretical differences which come to distinguisha “civilizational politics” research paradigm from “the politics of civilization/s”.The former approach, as teased out here, is largely anchored to a positivist epis-temology and an analytical approach to theory—characteristic of modernist con-structivists. The latter instead rests on a post-positivist epistemology and a criticalapproach to theory—characteristic of thicker variants of constructivism and ofpost-structural and postcolonial theories. There are a number of theoretical andempirical reasons for expanding research from a participant-specification per-spective along an analytical approach to theory.First, an interpretivist approach to civilizations that overwhelmingly engages in

critique, as laudable as the emancipatory purpose behind this enterprise is, oftenleads only to partial portrayals of what is taking place in the social world. In fact,“the politics of civilization/s” research tends to overwhelmingly focus on Westernnarratives that construct civilizations as essentialized entities in clash. This,however, is a narrow, although clearly powerful and controversial, portion of all


civilizational invocations in the public sphere. The general concern with howAmericans and Europeans essentialize civilizations in confrontation tends toneglect that “non-Westerners” also essentialize themselves and reify “the West”just as much (Buruma and Margalit 2004; Halliday 2002 chapter 7, Kinnvall2007; Mandaville 2007). “The politics of civilization/s” scholarship also generallygives little recognition to the policy impact that voices, both within and outside“the West,” which do not essentialize—and which do call for greater dialoguerather than conflict among civilizations—have on international politics.Put differently, “the politics of civilization/s” often overlooks the fact

that identities, as Richard Ned Lebow (2008) has argued elsewhere, are notsolely constructed and maintained along essentialized categories and against neg-atively stereotyped “others.” Hence, an analytical participant-specification ontol-ogy, which underpins “civilizational politics” research, helps to expand researchbeyond one particular type of civilizational discourse—however controversial thatdiscourse is. Research is opened up to exploring how multiple actors, in multiplelocations, think in multiple ways about themselves and others in plural civiliza-tional terms.Second, what is important is not just who and how actors talk about civiliza-

tions, but also what kind of political consequences follow. Both lines ofcivilizational research rooted in a participant-specification ontology (contra ascholarly-specification ontology) share an interest in investigating “what the invo-cation of civilizational identities does in world politics [emphasis in original]”(O’Hagan 2007:16). This said, analytical approaches and normative/critical oneslargely differ precisely on what they understand civilizational-based discoursesand invocations as “doing” in international relations. This divergence is rootedin different interpretations of the origins and substance of civilizationalinvocations and identities themselves.The healthy skepticism toward the ability of the scholar to understand and

explain what civilizations are, which is part of a participant-specification ontol-ogy, generally translates within “the politics of civilization/s” research into askepticism toward most modes of civilizational-based thinking. In an attempt todemystify essentialized civilizational discourses, the critical gaze of the scholar inthis research paradigm tends to stress the contingent and the political nature ofpublicly uttered invocations of civilizational identity. Meanings appear in contin-uous flux, which can be called upon to constantly redraw, from moment tomoment, the boundaries of civilizations or opportunistically “other” new ene-mies.14

The possibility that public invocations are rooted in the way that social actorsmay come to perceive—even if wrongly—the world as divided in plural civiliza-tions is generally discounted. As Fred Halliday (2002) suggests about the “clashof civilizations” thesis: “Despite the fact that such myths can be revealed as false,once generated and expressed they can acquire a considerable life of their own”(see also Bottici and Challand 2010:7). The same can be said more broadlyabout the existence of civilizations as categories and entities in world politics.Hence, public invocations about civilizations can be understood not solely as

myths to be busted, but also as embodying subjective and intersubjectively heldmeanings with considerable causal power in need of interpretation and explana-tion.15 This is not to say that ideas about civilizations, as O’Hagan (2002) care-fully traces, are not historically contingent or unchangeable. Yet, the fact that atthis point in time a growing number of scholars, intellectuals, and religious and

14See also Katzenstein’s (2010b:11–12) critique of “discursive approaches” to civilizations.15As Amir Lupovici (2009:202) emphasizes, “the study of discourse should not, as some scholars suggest, be lim-

ited to a critical revelation of hegemonic relations or discovering the ‘truth’” but can be used to unpack emergingor dominant identities and ideas in circulation at any given time and trace their effects on international politics.

Gregorio Bettiza 11

political leaders give meaning to civilizational categories, by either making senseof their surroundings or framing international politics in civilizational terms, issocially significant and warrants close attention to its causal effects on the struc-tures of international society.“Civilizational politics” would put greater emphasis on how social actors treat

civilizations as if they were social facts and carefully investigate the causal mecha-nisms by which they become such facts. Social facts are those things that “existonly because people collectively believe they exist and act accordingly” (Finne-more and Sikkink 2001:393). Mutually shared understandings both “set upexpectations about how the world works, such as what types of behavior are legit-imate and which identities are possible” (Klotz and Lynch 2006:356) andbecome “knowledge that makes social worlds come into being” (Pouliot2007:364). Social facts “depend, by way of collective understanding anddiscourse, on the attachment of collective knowledge to physical reality” (Adler2013:121), that is, policies, institutions, and practices.A “civilizational politics” approach would concentrate on exploring how and

when civilizational-based thinking stabilizes; turning civilizations into social factsby becoming an organizing principle around which social action is conducted,international institutions and practices are shaped, and actors are identified (seeWilliams and Neumann 2000).16 Particular attention would be paid toward inves-tigating the causal processes through which emerging plural civilizational modesof thinking, in and beyond the West, affect the way international politicsbecomes reconstituted around civilizational categories and inter-civilizationalrelations. Rather than focusing on contingency and deconstruction, the scholar’sinterest is stabilization and social construction.17 The salient issue then is identi-fying the mechanisms through which civilizations come to exist.Overall, a “civilizational politics” research paradigm builds upon and expands

what Peter Katzenstein (2010a,b:12–13) has called a “primordiality” approach tocivilizations. For Katzenstein, “primordiality” offers a via media between “disposi-tional” approaches to civilizations, which take civilizations as concrete units ofanalysis (similar to what I identified as “civilizational dynamics” research), and“discursive” ones, which understand civilizations mostly in terms of power-ladendiscourses (similar to “the politics of civilization/s” research). In Katzenstein’swords:

Civilizations come to exist in the conventional understanding of that term as“being believed to exist,” as tightly or loosely coupled, and taken-for-granted orhighly contested cultural complexes. Being named is an important aspect of theexistence of civilizations, not just mere rhetoric or cheap talk. (p. 13)

This “believing” and “naming” civilizations into existence occurs for Katzen-stein mainly when civilizations are thought of in essentialist/primordialist termsand as closed, clashing entities. Huntington’s books and articles, which havebeen widely translated across the world, reaching thousands of people, have had—according to Katzenstein (2010a:13)—a powerful effect in shaping intersubjec-tive knowledge about what civilizations are and do in world politics today. Yet,

16William and Neumann’s investigation into the background knowledge that led to the policy of NATO enlarge-ment following the end of the Cold War is one of the few, and one of the clearest, examples—albeit one notdirectly couched in terms of an engagement with the civilizational turn in IR—of “civilizational politics” research.In their article, the authors trace how NATO’s enlargement was, among others, the product of an explicit re-con-ceptualization among policymakers of the institution as “the military and material expression of a value-based civili-sational structure [that is, the West]” (2000:371).

17Many of the differences outlined here between “civilizational politics” and “the politics of civilization/s”research paradigms, overlap with the distinctions that Iver Neumann (1999, see especially the concluding chapter)identifies between how (modernist) constructivists and poststructuralists theorize processes of identity formationand the role of identity in international relations.


why not extend the ability to construct civilizations to those who understandthem in non-essentialist ways (as, for example, Katzenstein and others do)?Furthermore, why not extend the ability to construct civilizations to those whothink about them as likely to enter into dialogue and engage with oneanother rather than clashing (as, for example, Petito and others do)? In thenext section, I will tackle in greater detail the issues raised by these questions.

How “Civilizational Politics” Research?

In this section, I develop the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological frame-work for a more explicit “civilizational politics” line of research anchored to amodernist-constructivist style of reasoning. Most constructivists share a dual under-standing of the “social construction of knowledge” and the “construction of socialreality” (Adler 2013:113). By highlighting the interplay of how knowledge andsocial reality are mutually constitutive of each other, constructivists see (and inves-tigate) the world as “coming into being” rather than taking it a priori “as it is.”These common assumptions have then led to the development of a wide variety ofconstructivisms. A modernist-constructivist lens “results from the combination ofobjective hermeneutics with a ‘conservative’ cognitive interest in understandingand explaining social reality [emphasis in original]” (Adler 2013:116; see alsoWendt 1998). Modernist constructivists generally explore how “new ideas changepolitical discourse and the basic categories through which actors see reality” (Tan-nenwald 2005:19–20) and how actors holding and reproducing these new ideas,discourses, and categories mobilize and change social reality.For “civilizational politics” research, understanding is involved when recovering

and interpreting the multiple ways in which social actors subjectively and inter-subjectively make sense of world politics in civilizational terms. Explaininginvolves tracing instead the causal pathways and mechanisms that link emergingideas and discourses about civilizations to particular kinds of changes in worldpolitics along similar categories.“The ideational capacities or mechanisms that enable ideas and beliefs to

affect policies,” Albert Yee (1996:94) highlights, “can be illuminated if networksof ideas and systems of beliefs are viewed as languages or discourses.” Discoursesare “systems of signification,” that is “structure[s] of meaning-in-use” (Milliken1999:231), whose analysis and interpretation can reveal how actors define theirsocial realities. To recover widely held ideas about civilizations requires a turntoward analyzing discourses, which are first and foremost the medium for “theconstruction of intersubjective meanings” (Adler 2013:125).Yet, this does not entail that we should simply borrow the language of the

actors under investigation and accept uncritically what they say. Actors’ dis-courses are a springboard toward broader and deeper inquiries into the type ofintersubjective knowledge and meanings that have social and political power atany given time. Actors’ interpretations of their reality, accessible to the scholarmostly through the language actors use, require a process of objectification.Put differently, the scholar needs to engage in interpretations of interpreta-

tions. This is what is generally known as the hermeneutic circle (Klotz and Lynch2006:356; Pouliot 2007:364–68), which highlights the issue of relating individualparts (specific beliefs and discourses) to the larger whole (a broader system ofmeaning), while recognizing that the whole cannot be understood without alsocomprehending its parts. The aim here is to chart a middle road between takinguncritically the perspective of the practitioners in the field under investigationand unreflectively imposing one’s own categories on the social world. Objectifi-cation from a participant-specification perspective is oriented toward recoveringwhat agents understand to be real in the social world, interpreting theirsubjective knowledge in the context of intersubjective meanings, placing these

Gregorio Bettiza 13

structures of meanings within a historical context, and drawing the social andpolitical implications that follow (Pouliot 2007:364).Over the past two decades, two broad sets of discourses have come to circulate

in the international public sphere that can be interpreted as forming the websof meaning that sustain a larger turn toward thinking along civilizational catego-ries in world politics. First, actors have increasingly publicly come to definethemselves and others with broad cultural and religious categories such as,among others, the “West” (whether defined as Christian, Judeo-Christian, or Sec-ular), the “Muslim/Islamic world,” “Asian values,” and “Confucian civilization.”Second, actors have persistently come to discuss the dangers of existing oremerging conflicts, or the need for improved dialogue and engagement,between, say, “the West” and “Islam” or “civilizations,” more broadly.When actors participate in discourses about what the West, Muslim world, or

Confucian culture are, and how these entities relate to each other—whetherthrough conflict or dialogue—they are, among other things, participating in alarger conversation about the place and role of civilizations in world politics. Wecan interpret these two webs of discourse as underpinning a broader intersubjec-tive structure; based on the idea that international life is increasingly structuredaround plural civilizations, mostly understood in cultural and religious terms,and that what happens within and between these entities matters to peace andsecurity in international relations.This larger intersubjective structure of meaning can be interpreted to represent

a turn toward understanding one’s own and others’ identities along “civilizationalimaginaries.” The notion of civilizational imaginaries here builds on BenedictAnderson’s (2006[1983]) understanding of the nation-state as an “imagined com-munity” (see also O’Hagan 2002). As often observed, an imagined community isnot solely tied to nations, but can be understood more broadly to underpin theway people come to believe they share a common identity, history, and destiny—also beneath and beyond territorially defined nation-states—with others who theyhave never met, but believe share their values and expectations of proper behav-ior (Adler 1997:249–50; O’Hagan 2002:11–14; Buzan 2004:135).The notions of “imaginary” and “imagined community” are important because

they help clear the conceptual ground for taking seriously the ways in whichactors come to understand, individually and collectively, the world around themin civilizational terms. Anderson’s (2006[1983]) effort to interpret nationalism asan important carrier of knowledge and meaning was very much centered on hisunderstanding of “imagination,” which he conceptually contrasted with ErnestGellner’s view of nations as “invented”:

Gellner makes a comparable point when he rules that “Nationalism is not theawakening of nations to self-consciousness: it invents [sic.] nations where they donot exist.” The drawback of this formulation however, is that Gellner is so anx-ious to show that nationalism masquerades under false pretences that he assimi-lates “invention” to “fabrication” and “falsity”, rather than to “imagining” and“creation”. In this way he implies that “true” communities exist which can beadvantageously juxtaposed to nations. In fact, all communities larger than pri-mordial villages of face-to-face contact (and perhaps even these) are imagined.Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by thestyle in which they are imagined. (p. 6)

This point elegantly captures what is at stake between taking civilizationalimaginaries and discourses mostly as reflections of the political, or instead ontheir own terms. That is, either as genuinely believed by social agents or, at least,as providing shared meanings that powerfully constitute identities and helpmake reality more intelligible. As O’Hagan (2002) points out, civilizationalidentities can “influence the way people believe the world should be, the goals


that should be striven for and, perhaps more fundamentally, the things that areat stake.” (p. 11–12). Hence, a “civilizational politics” perspective is—followingAnderson—less concerned with establishing the falsity/genuineness of the con-cepts social actors use to frame the world around them, concentrating insteadon unpacking the “style” in which communities are imagined and talked aboutat a particular historical juncture.Civilizational imaginaries appear today as imagined communities of a particular

kind. The end of the Cold War, the ensuing processes of globalization, along withthe unexpected events of 9/11, has been a time of rapid change and fostered thesense of an uncertain future for many around the world. Under these conditions, agrowing sense of “ontological insecurity” (Kinnvall 2004) and “identity crisis”(Guzzini 2012), some argue, is leading people to (re)imagine old and new identi-ties and “homes” for themselves (see also Adler 1997:250). For Barry Buzan (2004),the end of the Cold War ushered in “a new world disorder defined by the degree towhich inter-human identities whether kinship, ethnonational, religious, political-ideological, cultural or epistemic have spilled out of the state” (p. 137). In unsettledperiods, questions such as “who are we?” and “how should we live?” come promi-nently to the fore of political life; in such circumstances, cultural and religious val-ues and symbols can often provide important building blocks for the constructionof identities (see also Swidler 1986; Lapid and Kratochwil 1997; Kinnvall 2004).In parallel, processes of economic, political, and cultural globalization have

brought to the fore of international politics a wide range of sub-state actors(multinational corporations, transnational social movements, international non-governmental organizations, religious institutions, terrorist networks, and so on)and supra-state organizations (whether international organizations, such as theUN, or regional ones, such as the European Union or the Organization for Isla-mic Cooperation). These actors have come to exist and act side-by-side, but alsobeyond, beneath and through, nation-states. As John Gerard Ruggie (1993)points out, territoriality is becoming ever more “unbundled.”First, an important way in which “self” and “other” identifications are changing,

and boundaries are being re-imagined beyond territory is along what Adler calls“cognitive regions,” that is, “transnational nonterritorial regions constituted bypeoples’ shared values, norms, and practices” (Adler 1997:252). This concept helpsalso to capture the ways in which identities are being decoupled beyond the strictconfines of the nation-state: how people are increasingly subjectively and intersub-jectively giving meaning to their social existence, how they come to see themselvesfitting together and with others in a world of plural civilizations.18

Second, in light of globalizing trends, civilizational imaginaries may functionas “strategic frames of reference” (Petito 2011) that give meaning to a complexand multilayered international sphere on whose stage a dizzying array of politicalactors increasingly perform—whether secular or religious individuals, nonstateorganizations and movements, or supranational institutions. Civilizational imagi-naries capture the fact that, and help order a world where, international politicsis no longer simply about inter-state relations, but also about relations betweenand across supra-state, state, and sub-state levels.In sum, I suggest that, at this point in time, civilizational imaginaries appear

to be underpinning a view of world politics that is not exclusively structured

18This is not to say that states and national identities are withering. Indeed, the idea that the growth in transna-tional flows and identities would render the state irrelevant is, using Ruggie (1993), “fundamentally misplaced” (p.142). Moreover, identities are rarely singular, but operate as “concentric circles” (Adler 1997:265) and through a“range of scales” (Buzan 2004:135). These can go from more circumscribed communitarian identities (family, clan,ethnicity), to larger ones (nations, religions), up to universally shared identities (human race). Since individualshave multiple, parallel, and layered identities, the identification of “self” and “other” in civilizational terms—whileappearing, as O’Hagan (2002) also notes, to be “an increasingly important one” (p. 12)—does not necessitate, how-ever, giving up other narrower identities.

Gregorio Bettiza 15

around relations between institutionally defined territorially based states, but alsoperceives international affairs as governed by relations among broad transna-tional non-territorially based communities of peoples understood as sharing acommon history and identity—often based on cultural and religious values andmarkers. As O’Hagan (2007) similarly puts it, the concept of civilizational iden-tity provides a “useful framework with which to understand how agents locatetheir identities in broad, transnational, transtemporal cultural identities” (p. 19,see also O’Hagan 2002:11–13).Nation-states do not disappear from this view of the international system. They

remain one of the most important political units through which people mobilizeand act along with other agents, such as secular and religious sub-state andsupra-state actors and organizations. All are thought of, however, as embeddedwithin, and representative of, particular civilizations. Civilizations (as imaginedcommunities) are perceived as underpinning the identities of most actors inworld politics, while also providing important frames of reference for making aninternational reality—which has witnessed an exponential growth in nonstatepolitical agency—more intelligible.Civilizational imaginaries are conveyed and constructed through discursive nar-

ratives (Browning and Lehti 2010a:20–22; Williams and Neumann 2000:362).There are multiple ways in which civilizations are subjectively and intersubjec-tively imagined and publicly narrated by social actors.19 Civilizational narrativescan take the form, for example, of decline/triumph20 or superiority/inferior-ity.21 A set of powerful civilizational narratives that have come to pervade under-standings and discussions about plural civilizations and their internationalrelations following the end of the Cold War are also clearly reflected in thedebates animating the current literature on civilizations in IR.Specifically, civilizational imaginaries are being narrated in: (i) essentialist and

non-essentialist terms; and (ii) as destined to violently clash and conflict, or as ableto dialogue and peacefully engage with each other. This categorization yields atwo-by-two matrix with essentialist and non-essentialist narratives about what civili-zations are on the vertical axis, and clash/conflict and dialogue/engagement nar-ratives about how civilizations relate to each other on the horizontal axis (seeTable 3).In order to fill the empty boxes above, we need to ask: who gets to narrate civ-

ilizations? Also, whose civilizational imaginaries have the greatest influence oninternational relations and its practices? Barnett and Adler (1998) have foundthat “transnational identities are generally an elite-centered phenomenon”(p. 426). Recall Katzenstein’s “primordiality” approach to civilizations, which canbe subsumed and expanded under a “civilizational politics” paradigm. For Kat-zenstein (2010a), it is elites—such as Harvard-based professors like Samuel Hun-tington—who are among the central carriers and constructors of primordialcivilizational identities:

TABLE 3. Civilizational Narratives

Clash/Conflict Dialogue/Engagement

EssentialistNon-Essentialist

19For an excellent overview of the multiple and complex ways in which, across history, “Westerners” have nar-rated civilizations see O’Hagan (2002).

20Narratives that are amply explored, when it comes to “the West,” in the volume by Browning and Lehti (2010,b).21Narratives that are amply explored in the edited volume by Hall and Jackson (2007a,b) and, from a non-

Western and more historical perspective, in Cemil Aydin’s (2007) book.


Deeply meaningful to many members of the cultural elite, as self-conscious andlived identities, civilizations do not rank at the top for most people and typicallydo not manifest themselves in an everyday sense of strong belonging. (p. 12)

A “civilizational politics” research paradigm would understand primordiality asbut one way in which civilizations can be narrated by political and intellectual elites.We can picture the current civilizational scholarship in its entirety, for instance,partaking in building narratives about what civilizations are and do. Indeed, we caneven tentatively add scholars and scholarship explored in this very same article atvarious intersections of the civilizational narratives matrix (see Table 4). For exam-ple, the way Huntington understands the post-Cold War world very much fits in thetop-left corner of essentialized cultural–religious civilizations in clash. Petitoemphasizes the importance of recovering, rather than dismissing, civilizationalidentities in order for genuine inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue andunderstanding to occur. His narrative, of what civilizations are and (should) do, fitsin the top-right corner where essentialization meets dialogue and engagement.Scholarship in “the politics of civilization/s” can be added in the bottom-left

corner instead, where non-essentialization meets clash. This scholarship exploresthe contested nature of civilizations and especially civilizational discourses. In away, this literature leaves a space open for tracing both essentialized and non-essentialized narratives of what civilizations are, but its critical lens leads it tooverwhelmingly focus on how particular interpretations of what civilizations areand do crystallize around an understanding of civilizations as coherent, mutuallyexclusive, conflicting entities. Lastly, in the bottom-right corner, where non-essentialist perspectives meet dialogue, we can add Katzenstein’s understandingof civilizations as marked predominantly by internal difference, rather than simi-larity, and inter-civilizational encounters and engagements, rather than clashes.Scholars and intellectual elites are important carriers of civilizational imaginar-

ies. However, research—as the following case study will show—can focus also onthe narratives put forward by secular and religious norm entrepreneurs, episte-mic communities, policymakers, and political leaders.Identifying civilizational imaginaries and narratives and those who utter them

is crucial along with understanding the evolution of intersubjective meaningsalso to establishing causality. In fact, while discourse enables us to recover “theactors’ understanding of the social world of which they are part,” it also “consti-tutes and defines the social parts and practices of this world” (Lupovici 2009:45).“Civilizational politics” research, hence, should carefully trace the “fate of ideas”(Pouliot 2007:371) about civilizations—how they are displacing dominant beliefs,whether there is congruence between ideas and behavior, and whether they arebecoming institutionalized. Attention to discourse is complemented with a meth-odological interest in tracing the process and mechanisms22 through which thecarriers of civilizational imaginaries socially construct civilizations as meaningfulentities by causally influencing world politics.

TABLE 4. Civilizational Analysis and Civilizational Narratives

Clash/Conflict Dialogue/Engagement

Essentialist Samuel Huntington Fabio PetitoNon-Essentialist “The politics of civilization/s” Peter Katzenstein

22As Lupovici (2009) suggests, “discourse analysis combined with process tracing can show that reality in othertime periods not only could have a different interpretation, but could have been differently developed” (p. 203).On combining discourse analysis and process tracing to establish causality in modernist-constructivist research, seealso Pouliot (2007) and Klotz and Lynch (2006).

Gregorio Bettiza 17

There are three distinct, yet overlapping and often complementary, causalpathways through which civilizational imaginaries and narratives—of essential-ized or non-essentialized civilizations in clash or dialogue—shape world politicsand construct civilizations as social facts. First, by guiding and structuring socialaction (that is, behavior and “speech acts”). Second, by shaping and becomingembedded in the material structures of world politics such as formal institutions(that is, international organizations, state bureaucracies) and patterned practices(that is, diplomacy, aid, military interventions). Third, by bestowing recognitionand socially empowering those actors who claim to speak, or are believed to bespeaking, for civilizations.The first pathway pays attention to the way civilizational narratives guide and

constrain social action in two ways: through “speech acts” and through the “quasi-causal effect of intersubjective meanings” on behavior. “Speech acts,” Adler (2013:125) points out, “have an ‘illocutionary’ dimension (doing something by sayingsomething); hence not only do they describe reality, they also construct it.” Speechacts also socially construct reality by having perlocutionary effects (the effects ofutterances on listeners) (Yee 1996:95), especially by producing rhetoricalresponses and discursive interactions (Risse 2000). Social agents “produce andreproduce the intersubjective structures of meanings”—in this case civilizationalimaginaries –“through their communicative practices” (Risse 2000:10).Beyond speech acts, intersubjective meanings can “quasi-causally affect certain

actions,” Yee highlights, “by rendering these actions plausible or implausible,acceptable or unacceptable, conceivable or inconceivable, respectable or disrepu-table, etc.” (Yee 1996:97). More specifically, meanings and ideas (embedded indiscourses) can be seen as constitutive of actors’ identities and preferences andhence provide broad orientations and reasons for behavior (Tannenwald2005:14). “Civilizational politics” research would investigate how civilizationalimaginaries and narratives provide “particular cognitive scripts and shape inter-pretations and understandings of permissible actions” in the global arena (O’Ha-gan 2007:21). In sum, when social action, whether through speech behavior, isoriented around and toward a particular civilizational imaginary the simple factthat that civilizational category is taken into account in words and deeds contrib-utes to calling that community into existence.A second causal pathway, through which civilizational imaginaries and dis-

courses influence international relations and reproduce civilizations as socialfacts, is shaping and becoming embedded in material institutions and practices.The focus here is on unpacking how social agents create new, or reorient old,international institutions and practices in accordance with their civilizational nar-ratives—whether essentialized or non-essentialized, and in conflict or in dia-logue. A “civilizational politics” framework can draw here from the vast literatureon the causal mechanisms that secular and religious norm entrepreneurs, episte-mic communities, and policymakers employ to transmit and institutionalize theirideas and beliefs.23

Civilizations, hence, also come to exist when civilizational imaginaries becomeembedded in institutions and in policy practices. Constructivists have long shownhow institutions are the material manifestations of ideas and norms, as well asthe perpetuators of those ideas and norms that are encased within them (seeFinnemore 1996:405–07; Yee 1996:88–92; Berman 2001:237–41). More recently,greater focus has been given to the material embodiment of ideas and meaningsin practices (Neumann 2002; Pouliot 2008; Adler and Pouliot 2011). From a

23See Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) for pioneering work on norm entrepreneurs and Adler and Haas (1992)on epistemic communities. For religious actors as norm entrepreneurs and epistemic communities, see, respectively,Adamson (2005) and Sandal (2011). For an overview of ideational causal mechanisms, see Finnemore and Sikkink(2001:400–03), Tannenwald (2005:29–33), Yee (1996:86–92).


“civilizational politics” perspective, practices can be thought of—to quote andparaphrase Adler and Pouliot (2011)—as “socially meaningful patterns of action,which, in being performed more or less competently, simultaneously embody,act out, and possibly reify background knowledge and discourse,” about civiliza-tions, “in and on the material world” (p. 4).I am not arguing here for the conceptualization of civilizations as institutions

or as “communities of practice” (contra Adler 2010). What I suggest is that, care-fully tracing how old or new institutions and practices are (re)designed aroundand (re)oriented in line with civilizational narratives, helps illuminate how mate-rial changes instantiate and reproduce civilizational imaginaries in world politicsalso through the “play of practice” (Milliken 1999:230).A third pathway toward empirically explaining why, when, and how civiliza-

tional imaginaries can shape international politics and become reified entities isto trace processes of social recognition and empowerment. Both insiders’ andoutsiders’ narratives play an important role in defining what civilizations are andhow they relate. As Williams and Neumann (2000) point out “[the] successfulembodiment of a given identity depends also on the recognition by others ofthe narrative itself and of their acquiescence to its adoption by the particularactor involved” (p. 363; see also Browning and Lehti 2010b:24–27). The pointhere is that civilizations are socially constructed when people somewhere notonly identify themselves but are also recognized by others as either the archety-pal representatives of a civilization (when essentializing) or as representing apart/section of an internally differentiated civilization (when non-essentializing).Recognition socially legitimizes and materially empowers old and new actors

that understand themselves, or are understood by others, as representatives ofthis or that civilization. Scholars may want to empirically trace how emergingsocial actions, institutional arrangements, and material practices structuredaround civilizational imaginaries channel authority and material resources toactors who claim for themselves, or are perceived by others, as speaking and act-ing for civilizations—either as the onward soldiers of civilizational clashes or asthe promoters of inter-civilizational dialogues.

Islamist Actors and “Dialogue of Civilizations”

There are few cases of “civilizational politics” research being conducted—espe-cially research that explores the social and material reification of civilizationsbeyond clashes and beyond the West. A rare example, albeit one which is notframed explicitly in “civilizational politics” terms, is Turan Kayao�glu’s (2012) arti-cle “Constructing the Dialogue of Civilizations in World Politics: A Case of Glo-bal Islamic Activism.”Kayao�glu opens by noting how, since the 1990s: “The dialogue of civilizations

has been increasingly institutionalized in world politics” (p. 129).24 In order toexplain this puzzle, the author investigates the way in which a number of Islamicactors increasingly came to see the world split along civilizational lines, and howthey successfully took the lead in promoting and institutionalizing a series of“dialogue of civilizations” initiatives. In this section, I re-read Kayao�glu’s article

24For example, the UN designated 2001 as the Year of Dialogue among Civilizations. UNESCO selected “dia-logue among civilizations” as a “strategic objective” for the period 2002–07. In 2004, the Spanish Prime MinisterJos�e Luis Rodr�ıguez Zapatero and the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo�gan cosponsored the Alliance ofCivilizations, which generated a UN High-Level Group on the dialogue of civilizations in 2006. A growing numberof NGOs have emerged in the last decade also calling for civilizational dialogues, such as: the Foundation for Dia-logue among Civilisations, the Institute for Interreligious Dialogue, the Center for Dialogue, the World PublicForum “Dialogue of Civilizations,” the Comprehensive Dialogue among Civilizations, the Dialogue Euroasia Forum,and the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue Between Cultures.

Gregorio Bettiza 19

through a more explicit “civilizational politics” lens in order to explore theempirical import of such a research paradigm.Kayao�glu starts by implicitly distancing himself from civilizational analysis

research rooted in a scholarly-specification ontology, and in particular from whatI identified earlier as “inter-civilizational ethics” research. “Unlike other works,which focus on the ‘true’ nature of the dialogue of civilizations and its impor-tance for global coexistence and peace,” Kayao�glu explains, “the focus of thisarticle is the emergence and spread of this agenda among Muslims” (p. 129).Kayao�glu takes a markedly interpretivist approach to empirical inquiry into civ-

ilizations. Unlike the majority of “the politics of civilization/s” research, however,his article focuses on exploring the diffusion of norms and processes of socialconstruction, rather than on deconstructing narratives. Given the author’s impli-cit preference for a participant-specification ontology, he does not provide uswith a definition of what the “Muslim world” or the “West” are or are not. Nordoes he tell us whether civilizations are destined to clash or not. Kayao�glu’s mainconcern is instead to investigate the meanings that individual and collectiveactors assign to the Muslim world and to inter-civilizational relations.The focus in the first part of the article is on recovering and interpreting civili-

zational imaginaries and narratives. Attention is devoted to a plurality of Islamistvoices that suddenly emerged following the end of the Cold War, calling for acivilizational dialogue between the Muslim world and other civilizations and reli-gions, especially the West and Christianity. As a “civilizational politics” frameworkanticipates, Kayao�glu finds the clearest articulation of “dialogue of civilizations”norms among political and intellectual elites, most prominently by MohammadKhatami, the former-president of Iran.In the post-Cold War and then post-9/11 worlds, the Muslim narratives of dia-

logue are presented in relation, and in direct competition, to other civilizationalnarratives: essentialized narratives of civilizations in clash coming from certainIslamists actors such as those of Sayyid Qutb and Osama Bin Laden which por-tray “Islamic and Western values [as] mutually exclusive and antagonistic,” aswell as clash narratives coming from outside the Muslim world, especially thoseof American-based scholars such as “the historian Bernard Lewis” and “the politi-cal scientist Samuel Huntington” (p. 131). In this context, Islamic actors wouldmostly frame the dialogue of civilizations in two ways: as an opportunity to pro-mote an Islamic revival through learning and engagement with other civilizationsin a globalizing world, and as a tool to help overcome misconceptions of Islamand Muslims across cultures and religions (p. 133). In the process, Kayao�glu’spaper shows how a re-conceptualization of international politics along inter-civili-zational relations is taking place between Muslim and non-Muslim elites.The motives (that is, the politics) leading Islamist actors to call for dialogue are

multiple. Probably there is an element of material interest, especially in the caseof president Khatami, seen as attempting to score political points vis-�a-vis domes-tic opponents (p. 134). Yet, Kayao�glu argues, instrumentalist logics cannot fullyexplain Khatami’s continued support for the dialogue of civilizations, even afterhis tenure as president.25 Khatami’s endorsement of civilizational narratives ofdialogue seems to go beyond political expediency and appears to be rooted,according to Kayao�glu, in his intellectual appreciation of Habermasian commu-nicative rationality, his preference for a multicultural international society, andhis view of world history as cyclical, where civilizations rise and decline, ratherthan linear and progressive, directed toward a teleological secular-liberal end-point (pp. 134–35).

25Khatami established in 2004 a Tehran-based International Institute for Dialogue among Cultures and Civiliza-tions, and in 2007 a Geneva-based Foundation for Dialogue among Civilizations.


Implicit in Khatami’s view is an understanding of civilizations in non-essential-ist terms. Khatami is shown to recognize the plurality of voices, both within theWest and the Muslim world, that believe in the possibility (in the case of Hun-tington), or the necessity (in the case of Bin Laden), of a clash of civilizations.In order to sideline these voices, and turn the clash into a distant nightmarerather than a present day occurrence, Khatami is seen to relentlessly advocatefor ties across civilizations, and especially with those in the West willing to enterinto a dialogue.All in all, hence, whether dialogue of civilizations narratives are adopted for

instrumental reasons, or genuinely believed, is of marginal importance. Whatemerges from Kayao�glu’s investigation is how such narratives become meaning-ful to Khatami and other Muslim actors as a way to either make sense of, oradvance their interests in, the post-Cold War world. “Muslim groups and lead-ers support this agenda because it constructs a frame of reference (a meta-frame) that provides symbols and a vision”—Kayao�glu explains—“that empowerssome Islamic discourses, groups, and normative positions over and againstother Islamic and non-Islamic discourses, groups, and normative positions”(p. 130).The three broad causal pathways through which civilizational imaginaries

become instantiated within, and reproduced through, the structures of interna-tional society are present to different degrees in Kayao�glu’s account. First, Kha-tami’s interpretation of world politics in need of improved inter-civilizationalunderstanding becomes closely linked to the former Iranian president’s lobbyingactivities, and a series of speeches delivered, particularly within the context ofthe OIC. Khatami most clearly and publicly introduced the dialogue of civiliza-tions agenda in 1997, when chairing OIC’s 8th Summit Conference in Tehran.Khatami’s advocacy was effective in bringing on board OIC member states as theSummit Conference ended with a declaration calling for, among others things,greater emphasis on the dialogue of civilizations.Second, the author carefully traces the passages through which Khatami—

thanks to mechanisms of communicative action and persuasion—was able to pro-gressively reorient the OIC, its institutional structures and practices, toward dia-logue of civilizations imaginaries. Throughout the 1990s, the term “dialogue”within the OIC progressively shifted from one centered on “dialogue and coop-eration among all nations,” to one where dialogue “took on an increasingly reli-gious and cultural connotation” (p. 136). From the late 1990s onwards,particularly following Khatami’s efforts, the dialogue of civilizations “became anintegral part of the OIC’s global vision and agenda […] both as a means tochange Islam’s image in international society and as a perspective on interna-tional relations” (pp. 136–37). Three OIC bodies were then directly assigned tocarry forward this agenda: the Dawa Affairs Committee; the Research Centre forIslamic History, Arts and Culture (IRCICA); and the Islamic Educational Scien-tific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO).Along with institutional developments, changes in practices, based on improv-

ing inter-civilizational relations, followed. New policies and programs startedbeing implemented by the OIC, especially in the aftermath of 9/11. “Symposia,seminars, and workshops on Islamic culture” were held to “disseminate ‘correct’ideas about Islam” and “improve Islam’s global image” (p. 138). “Interfaith dia-logue” activities were undertaken to “highlight the beliefs and practices sharedby all faiths” (p. 138). OIC’s ISESCO became particularly active in organizingconferences “both among Muslim-majority states and between Muslim and non-Muslim states,” and supporting “dialogue-related publications,” as well as “lobby-ing for the dialogue of civilizations at UNESCO” (p. 139).The third causal pathway for socially constructing civilizations is also present

in Kayao�glu’s account. With Muslim-majority states empowering the OIC to seek

Gregorio Bettiza 21

a dialogue with other civilizations, the organization has increasingly come to con-ceive of itself and has become perceived by non-Muslim actors alike, as a legiti-mate representative and speaker for Muslim civilization. As Kayao�glu points out:“[the] OIC’s sense of importance and legitimacy grew as the idea of dialogue ofcivilizations found broader international acceptance” (p. 137). In the process,the OIC has increasingly come to “internalize the dialogue agenda as its definingquality in its engagement with the organs of broader international society”(pp. 137–38). In 2008, its charter was revisited to provide the OIC with an evengreater role for dialogue of civilizations objectives.Changes in actions, institutions, and practices, along with the emergence of

voices recognized as embodying a civilizational narrative of dialogue between theMuslim world and others, were not limited to the OIC. Thanks to Khatami’s ini-tial efforts and to the OIC’s growing ownership of the dialogue agenda, furtherinitiatives and practices gained ground from the late 1990s onwards. In Novem-ber 1998, the UN General Assembly debated and then agreed to President Kha-tami’s proposal to designate the year 2001 as the UN Year of Dialogue amongCivilizations. Following Khatami, the OIC then “became the intergovernmentalbasis through which Islamic groups and activists have promoted the dialogueagenda [and pushed] for change within the UN” (p. 135). This prepared theground that led the Spanish Prime Minister Jos�e Luis Rodr�ıguez Zapatero andthe Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo�gan to cosponsor, in 2004 in thepost-9/11 climate, a UN initiative known as the Alliance of Civilizations. This ini-tiative became fully institutionalized in the UN’s structure in 2006.Kayao�glu further traces how the rise of civilizational narratives of dialogue led

to changes not only within international organizations, but also opened thespace for activities at the civil society level. Multiple Muslim activists developedan interfaith discourse from the 1990s onwards to accommodate the religiousother, established interfaith-oriented NGOs and initiatives, and reached out tofollowers of other religions at both the grassroots and elite levels. Two examplesare given of Muslim religious leaders who felt increasingly empowered to providetheological justifications for including the dialogue agenda in Islamic politicalthought: the Turkish preacher Fethullah G€ulen, founder of the G€ulen move-ment; and a broad-based coalition of Muslim scholars and leaders signatory tothe “A Common Word” document, led by Prince Ghazi, director of the RoyalAal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Jordan. Both sought to challenge“the basic assumption of the clash of civilizations and pave the way for a dia-logue of civilizations within a religious framework” (p. 144). These initiatives“both strengthened and extended the dialogue agenda, substantiating it withreligious ideas and thus legitimizing it among Muslim organizations and themasses” (p. 140).Dialogue of civilization imaginaries have led with time, Kayao�glu observes, to a

“deep-rooted change in Islamic thought and practice regarding world politics”(p. 145). The meanings embedded within the sum of actors’ (sub-state, state, andsupra-state) discourses and actions, the changes in institutions and practices tomanage inter-civilizational relations, along with the growing recognition bestowedon claimants of a civilizational identity, appear to be inescapably turning civiliza-tional dialogues into a social fact for many in the Muslim world and its beyond.

Conclusion

This article sought to comprehensively map out the emergent field of civiliza-tional analysis in IR and identify avenues for future theoretical and empiricalinquiry. On the one hand, civilizational research was divided according towhether it is rooted in a scholarly or a participant specification ontology. On theother hand, IR’s civilizational turn was divided among scholars taking an analyti-


cal approach to theory and those taking a more normative/critical one. The pay-offs of dividing the field in this way are multiple. Most importantly, in terms ofthis article, the mapping exercise highlighted how a line of civilizational researchwhich combines a participant-specification ontology with an analytical approachto theory has received little sustained theoretical and empirical attention thusfar. I called this research paradigm “civilizational politics.”A more self-conscious and explicit “civilizational politics” line of research has

the ability to broaden and move forward the nascent civilizational turn in IR inpromising ways. By virtue of being anchored to a participant-specification ontol-ogy, this line of research pragmatically sidesteps broad, abstract, and, for some,politically tainted conceptual debates seeking to define and identify what civiliza-tions are and do. These debates have tended to dominate the civilizational turnin IR. “Civilizational politics” offers instead an important avenue for theoreticallyinclined, empirically minded scholars to get on with the business of exploringhow individual and collective actors have come to understand and change worldpolitics as if plural civilizations existed and their relations mattered.Moreover, a “civilizational politics” research paradigm anchors more firmly—

than has been the case thus far—a participant-specification ontology lens to ananalytical, rather than a critical, approach to theory. Critical participant researchhas overwhelmingly been concerned with showing how exclusionary boundariesbetween selves and others are opportunistically re-drawn from moment tomoment, highlighting the contingent nature of (mostly) essentialized Westerndiscourses about civilizational “others” and their legitimating effects on policies.First, an analytical participant approach to civilizations would broaden the focustoward the multiple ways in which civilizations are thought of and talked aboutin multiple locations. Second, it directs particular attention to the causal path-ways through which meanings become fixed and civilizational-thinking turns civi-lizations into social facts. Such an interpretative line of civilizational research—which Katzenstein (2010a,b) partially identifies in his discussion of “primordial-ist” approaches to civilizations—is only latent in the literature.Most importantly, the article sought to tease out the theoretical, conceptual,

and methodological grounding for conducting “civilizational politics” research inIR. First, it suggested that the growing invocations of plural civilizations in publicdiscourses be understood as the instantiation and reproduction of a particularkind of subjective and intersubjective knowledge structure. Building on O’Hagan(2002), the article contended that actors are increasingly conceiving of their,and mapping others’, identities along broad cultural, transnational, inter-human,and de-territorialized imagined communities. These are what were called civiliza-tional imaginaries. Civilizational imaginaries are instantiated by narratives, whichat this historical juncture regularly frame civilizations as: (i) essentialized or non-essentialized entities; and (ii) that interact either through clashes and conflict orthrough dialogue and peaceful exchange.Making sense of civilizations as multiple narrated imagined communities

places greater emphasis on the fact that such imaginaries are powerful carriersof meaning and knowledge, rather than debating at length the “falsity/genuine-ness” (Anderson 2006[1983]:6) of these beliefs. Narrated civilizational imaginar-ies mark a shift, especially among elites, from interpreting international peaceand security as determined exclusively by what occurs within and between states,to one that is also dependent on what goes on within and between a plurality ofcivilizations.The second step was then to outline how narrated civilizational imaginaries

turn inter-civilizational relations into social facts by affecting world politicsthrough processes of enactment, institutionalization, and recognition. In termsof enactment and institutionalization, the focus was placed on causallytracing how social actions, international institutions, and patterned practices are

Gregorio Bettiza 23

(re)shaped toward narrated civilizational imaginaries—whether essentialized ornon-essentialized and in clash or in dialogue. In terms of recognition, attentionwas placed on identifying how changes in discourses, actions, institutions, andpractices can normatively legitimate and materially empower those actors seen asrepresenting civilizations.In sum, this article has attempted to advance an explicit framework for IR

scholars to make sense of how actors are re-imaging themselves and explaininghow they are transforming and re-constituting international politics, around mul-tiple civilizational imaginaries. The empirical import of a “civilizational politics”line of research was explored through a re-reading of Turan Kayao�glu’s (2012)investigation into how non-essentialized narratives of civilizational dialogue havebecome a significant component of contemporary Muslim and internationalthought, institutions, and practices.A “civilizational politics” framework, however, opens up a host of further inter-

esting questions and avenues for research. It can be used to explore, forinstance, the multiple narratives among American elites about the “Muslimworld.” Scholars, for instance, have neglected that many American elites haveoften emphasized dialogue and engagement (see for instance, the US-MuslimEngagement Project 2009), rather than solely clash and confrontation with theMuslim “other.” These narratives seem, for instance, to have found their way intoObama’s (2009a) Cairo Address and the activities that followed (Lynch 2010).Further research could also explore why and how Zapatero and Erdo�gan took

the lead in institutionalizing the Alliance of Civilization at the UN. A closer lookshould also be given to the Alliance of Civilization itself. Which actors and narra-tives dominate the agenda, representing and reifying which civilizations? Howdoes the UN negotiate its commitment to nation-states and individual humanrights, with the recognition it increasingly bestows also on civilizational identi-ties? The hope is that, by advancing a more explicit “civilizational politics” frame-work for research, IR scholars pay ever more sustained theoretical and empiricalattention to the causes, consequences, and meaning of these remarkablechanges in international society.

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