“Civilizationalism” in Ideology, Geopolitics and Authoritarian Outreach

Workshop.

In the post–Cold War era, civilizational thinking has emerged as both a powerful political instrument and an influential analytical framework for interpreting global conflicts and regional dynamics. Amid the rise of the Global South and growing challenges to liberal universalism, civilizationalism offers a lens through which diverse actors reassess the dominance of Western developmental models and envision forms of regional integration that transcend the nation-state. At the same time, civilizationalism has proven particularly attractive to authoritarian regimes and movements: it questions the universality of human rights, foregrounds traditionalist identity politics, and legitimizes great-power recognition claims as well as expansionist ambitions in international relations. In its more conflict-oriented variants, civilizationalism risks turning cultural narratives into self-fulfilling prophecies of rivalry and confrontation.

This workshop explores three key dimensions of civilizationalism:

• it examines the connections between civilizationalism and various forms of illiberal ideology,
  while also considering the possibility of non-authoritarian articulations;
• it situates civilizationalism within broader traditions of geopolitical thought;
• it analyzes how authoritarian regimes deploy civilizationalism - often in conjunction with
  anti-colonial rhetoric - to build strategic partnerships and enhance political appeal across the
  Global South.

The workshop is supported by a conference grant from HUM:Global Seed Money, a cross-faculty initiative dedicated to mapping, connecting, and promoting research at the Faculty of Humanities. It builds on the activities of the research cluster (research initiative) “Civilizationalism in Politics, Ideology, and Conflict” at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies and seeks to consolidate its international network, with the longer-term aim of developing a collaborative grant proposal to establish the cluster as a research center.

For attendance, please register with Sang Pil Jin at sangpil@hum.ku.dk.

Programme