Discussion: American Empire and Civilizational Practice

Abstract

Mustapha Kamal Pasha, Mark B. Salter, and Catarina Kinnvall each grapple with the political dimensions of civilizational discourse. Pasha reminds us that “civilizational essentialism can be effectively mobilized to consolidate hegemony” (62). Salter focuses on how the “war on terror is portrayed in American policy and public discourse simultaneously as a clash of civilizations and [a] war for Civilization” (81). The ideological architecture of Civilization, with its barbarian “other,” facilitates, among other things, attempts by the Bush administration to withhold rights and legal protections from “illegal combatants.” Kinnvall questions whether postcolonial articulations of civilizational identity— specifically in India—can escape the “essentialist trap” and therefore avoid reproducing aspects of imperial modes of domination (99).