The Clash of Civilizations and Game Theory

Abstract

The study examines two defining geopolitical paradigms of the post-Cold War world order, "the end of history" and "the clash of civilizations," and then presents a game-theoretical model for the latter. The author, József Zoltán Málik, first outlines the uncertainty following the collapse of the bipolar world order. He then details Francis Fukuyama's "end of history" thesis, which argues that liberal democracy represents the ideological endpoint of human history, and that major ideological struggles (with fascism and communism) have concluded. The article discusses criticisms of this thesis and presents Anne Norton's related thoughts on Islamophobia as a projection of the internal fears of Western civilization. The main focus of the study is on Samuel P. Huntington's "clash of civilizations" theory. According to this, future conflicts will primarily occur along the cultural fault lines between major civilizations (Western, Confucian, Islamic, etc.). The author also presents Huntington's arguments (the fundamentality of civilizational differences, the world becoming multipolar) and examples (the Yugoslav war, the prediction of the Ukrainian crisis). The last, most original part of the article applies a game-theoretical model to analyze the tension between the West and religious fundamentalism. The situation is modeled as a variation of the "Battle of Sexes" game, where the strategies of the liberal West (maximum freedom of speech vs. self-restraint) and fundamentalists (enforcement of sacred doctrines vs. concession) clash. The analysis of the model concludes that the possible equilibrium states (unilateral concession by one party) are not democratic, and, citing Amartya Sen's theorem, it demonstrates the paradox caused by "nosy preferences." The final conclusion is that spontaneous coexistence based on mutual concessions is fragile even within the West, so some form of Huntington's clash of civilizations paradigm must be taken seriously.