Hossein S. Seifzadeh
H. S. Seifzadeh is currently Professor of Political Science at Tehran University. He holds a Masters Degree in Political Science from Tehran University, and a Masters Degree in Public Administration from California State University. He also works as the Director of a study group at the Center for Strategic Research, and is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Political and International Studies. He is also a former Fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University. He has published 11 books and 76 articles.
After the controversy over Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" Khatami's "Dialogue of Civilization" was welcomed across the world. Against Huntington's academic analysis, Khatami's proposition is taken as a foreign policy doctrine of Iran. In both of these scholarly views, civilization and culture are used interchangeably, though with contradictory connotations. According to Huntington's pessimism, policition of various, ethnic and sectarian groups will make the international scene conflicutual. Khatami opposed this argument optimistically. Accordingly, the various cultural groups do not necessarily clash. Thanks to the human wisdom and love, they can substitute dialogue for the clash.
As it appears then, the above counter-argument is not only the difference in tone. Rather, the two phrases point to two contradictory philosophical orientation - pessimism VS. optimism, and two opposing description and interpretations of human relations at the global level. This difference led to the four research questions of this paper.
The first question refers to the descriptive and interpretive power of these views. The second questions point to the reason behind these various account. An extension to this question is to assess the validity of either of these approaches to the objective reality. The third question refers to the possibility of the ways in which these contradictory views could become complementary. It is hypothesized here that Huntington's analysis describes and interprets the emerging relations, and Khatami's version is a prescription for future international relations. Last, but not the least it refers to the differentional cultural context of these two propositions. In this article, an attempt is made to elaborate on these questions.