The Rise of the Civilizational State: China, Russia and Islamic Caliphate and the challenge to the liberal world order

Culture not ideology is now the primary currency of international politics. As the West struggles to defend the liberal world order (the product of its own cultural norms), China and Russia have reinvented themselves as civilizational states. Huntington has been vindicated but for reasons very different from those he offered. Civilizations don’t clash, civilizational states do. China is seeking to revise the world order; Russia challenges it head on; and Islamic fundamentalists seek to throw away the rule book altogether in pursuit of the Caliphate.

Christopher Coker discusses his new book, The Rise of the Civilizational State: China, Russia and Islamic Caliphate and the challenge to the liberal world order.

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Event recorded 7 March 2019.

Christopher Coker is Professor of International Relations at the LSE, and Director of LSE IDEAS. He is a former NATO Fellow and has been twice serving member of the Council of the Royal United Services Institute. He is a regular lecturer at Defence Colleges in the UK, US, Rome, Singapore, and Tokyo.

Aaron McKeil is a Course Teacher on the MSc International Strategy and Diplomacyprogramme at LSE IDEAS. He gained his PhD in International Relations from the LSE. He also holds an MSc International Relations Specialist with Distinction from Aberystwyth University and a B.A. Political Science from the University of British Columbia. He previously served as Editor for Millennium: Journal of International Studies and as a Research Assistant at the LSE Centre for International Studies.

LSE IDEAS (@lseideas) is LSE's foreign policy think tank. We connect academic knowledge of diplomacy and strategy with the people who use it.