🌏 The new concept of Russia’s foreign policy, unexpectedly for many, introduced the idea of a state-civilisation in official use.
The concept of civilisation has long appeared on the “radar” of political theory. For liberalism and socialism, civilisation is determined by the measure of the dominance of the human mind. The more civilised a society is, the more rationality and progress it has. Such a linear picture divides the world into developed civilised societies and undeveloped uncivilised ones, with a large grey area in between.
There was another approach, considering civilisations as large communities, united within themselves by spiritual and material culture and by no means always reduced to separate states. Civilisation can go far beyond the history of a particular state, and also spatially cover a large number of them.
What is the advantage of this approach to international relations?
1️⃣ First, the historical depth. Liberalism, socialism and conservatism often operate within a relatively narrow range of historical experience. At best, we are talking about several centuries, although their intellectual roots are much deeper. For civilisational studies, the depth of analysis is hundreds and even thousands of years.
2️⃣ Second, this approach allows us to go beyond the usual scheme in which the players are nation-states. Obviously, cultural and civilisational motives can act as a factor in international politics, where not only interests but also identities collide. In addition, quite specific civilisational components are used in the national ideology of a number of states. The states of the Islamic world are a striking example.
3️⃣ Third, the civilisational view covers both spiritual and material aspects of culture. The nation state is but one of the possible political forms born of the Western civilisation and, in a relatively short period of time, became ubiquitous, but not necessarily definitive.
Bringing the concept of the state-civilisation into an official document brings us back to the fundamental questions of our identity, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Ivan Timofeev.
https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/a-state-as-civilisation-and-political-theory/
#EconomicStatecraft #politics #state #civilisation
@valdai_club
The concept of civilisation has long appeared on the “radar” of political theory. For liberalism and socialism, civilisation is determined by the measure of the dominance of the human mind. The more civilised a society is, the more rationality and progress it has. Such a linear picture divides the world into developed civilised societies and undeveloped uncivilised ones, with a large grey area in between.
There was another approach, considering civilisations as large communities, united within themselves by spiritual and material culture and by no means always reduced to separate states. Civilisation can go far beyond the history of a particular state, and also spatially cover a large number of them.
What is the advantage of this approach to international relations?
1️⃣ First, the historical depth. Liberalism, socialism and conservatism often operate within a relatively narrow range of historical experience. At best, we are talking about several centuries, although their intellectual roots are much deeper. For civilisational studies, the depth of analysis is hundreds and even thousands of years.
2️⃣ Second, this approach allows us to go beyond the usual scheme in which the players are nation-states. Obviously, cultural and civilisational motives can act as a factor in international politics, where not only interests but also identities collide. In addition, quite specific civilisational components are used in the national ideology of a number of states. The states of the Islamic world are a striking example.
3️⃣ Third, the civilisational view covers both spiritual and material aspects of culture. The nation state is but one of the possible political forms born of the Western civilisation and, in a relatively short period of time, became ubiquitous, but not necessarily definitive.
Bringing the concept of the state-civilisation into an official document brings us back to the fundamental questions of our identity, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Ivan Timofeev.
https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/a-state-as-civilisation-and-political-theory/
#EconomicStatecraft #politics #state #civilisation
@valdai_club
https://vk.com/video-214192832_456239125
#VALDAI2023 #Russia #civilisation
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LIVE: Russian Civilisation Through the Centuries. Eighth Session of the 20th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club
Russia is a country of European culture, but this is not its only characteristic. The Russian cultural and social structure has absorbed important elements of various non-European cultures and traditions, resulting in a unique fusion. The development of a…
🌏 The concept of a civilisation state is now becoming almost an official approach to understand Russia’s place in the world.
It occupied a prominent place in Vladimir Putin’s recent speech at the 20th Annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club. This concept has both domestic and foreign policy dimensions. It relies to a certain extent on the works of conservative pre-revolutionary Russian thinkers (Ilyin, Danilevsky), and is intended to provide justification for the “peculiarity” and “special path” of Russia.
In more or less modern world politics as it is theoretically understood, the revival of attention to civilisational issues is associated not least with Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilisations”. The main provisions of this concept were published in 1993. The text itself appeared as a kind of response to the overly optimistic concept of the “End of History”, put forward in 1989 by Francis Fukuyama under the influence of the euphoria of the end of Cold War and bipolar confrontation.
Huntington’s concept played a role in promoting the idea of “the West vs the Rest” and therefore promoted a kind of internal mobilisation of the West in the new political conditions after the end of the Cold War. Although not directly, the influence of this concept can be traced in the development of the political practice of Western countries in the “projection of democracy” to other regions of the world and civilisation in the Huntingtonian sense. Thus, a course was laid for the universalisation of Western civilisation and its absorption by all others in the future (leaving only cultural differences in a kind of folklore sense).
The Russian case of a civilisation state, even if accepted on its own, still leaves room for questions about its universal applicability in other countries of the world, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Oleg Barabanov.
https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/civilisation-state-theory-and-practice/
#Norms_and_Values #civilisation #geopolitics
🗣 🗣 🗣
It occupied a prominent place in Vladimir Putin’s recent speech at the 20th Annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club. This concept has both domestic and foreign policy dimensions. It relies to a certain extent on the works of conservative pre-revolutionary Russian thinkers (Ilyin, Danilevsky), and is intended to provide justification for the “peculiarity” and “special path” of Russia.
In more or less modern world politics as it is theoretically understood, the revival of attention to civilisational issues is associated not least with Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilisations”. The main provisions of this concept were published in 1993. The text itself appeared as a kind of response to the overly optimistic concept of the “End of History”, put forward in 1989 by Francis Fukuyama under the influence of the euphoria of the end of Cold War and bipolar confrontation.
Huntington’s concept played a role in promoting the idea of “the West vs the Rest” and therefore promoted a kind of internal mobilisation of the West in the new political conditions after the end of the Cold War. Although not directly, the influence of this concept can be traced in the development of the political practice of Western countries in the “projection of democracy” to other regions of the world and civilisation in the Huntingtonian sense. Thus, a course was laid for the universalisation of Western civilisation and its absorption by all others in the future (leaving only cultural differences in a kind of folklore sense).
The Russian case of a civilisation state, even if accepted on its own, still leaves room for questions about its universal applicability in other countries of the world, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Oleg Barabanov.
https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/civilisation-state-theory-and-practice/
#Norms_and_Values #civilisation #geopolitics
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‘Civilisation State’: Theory and Practice
It is clear that any state pursues its own policy to strengthen the national identity. First of all, this is important and significant for multi-ethnic countries. How theoretically and practically effective is it to move from here to the next logical level:…