It’s time for the US to rethink Huntington’s philosophy: Part I

American security studies’ most problematic fave is the late Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington. A recent dataset of graduate international relations syllabi lists Huntington’s work as appearing on well over 200 syllabi and reading lists, and at this point, generations of both political science students and security professionals have been exposed to his (in)famous “Clash of Civilizations” thesis.

There have been many efforts to fire Huntington from the security studies canon, for reasons ranging from the racism ingrained in "Clash," to its lack of analytical use now that so few of its predictions have panned out, but his work keeps finding its way back to the fore.