I did it -- I taught "Clash of Civilizations" to my "Intro to IR" students.

How did I do it? How did it go?

[THREAD]
Second, I posed the question: "Should We Study Clash?"
I made them aware of the debate over teaching this piece in the classroom. Specifically, I introduced them to the @HDiplo teaching roundtable headed up by @profmusgrave

https://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/discussions/5273269/h-diploissf-teaching-roundtable-11-6-clash-civilizations-ir">https://networks.h-net.org/node/2844...
I showed the students the beyond ridiculous number of citations for the piece

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C14&q=Clash+of+Civilizations&oq=Clash">https://scholar.google.com/scholar...
In short, I said, "Maybe this is a dangerous idea. But it& #39;s sufficiently prominent that you are likely to hear it at some point. Plus, at @UChicago we don& #39;t shy away from an idea, even if it& #39;s dangerous. We engage it and see if there is any `there, there& #39;".
Third, I posed the question: "What is Clash?"
This meant going through key passages of Huntington& #39;s 1993 piece, namely this paragraph...
...and these paragraphs
Fourth, I posed the question: "How Do We Measure Clash?"
Specifically, I showed Huntington& #39;s map....which immediately raised some skeptical looks https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤨" title="Face with raised eyebrow" aria-label="Emoji: Face with raised eyebrow">
Yep, that included showing them this map by Lothrop Stoddard
I super-imposed Huntington& #39;s map. Students made the connection
Fifth, I posed the question: "How Do We Test Clash?"

Note: I added that while Huntington maybe doesn& #39;t deserve a benefit of a doubt, let& #39;s give him one for the sake of seeing if there is a `there, there& #39;"
This largely entailed walking them through the pieces in this thread from earlier in the year https://twitter.com/ProfPaulPoast/status/1123959166551326722">https://twitter.com/ProfPaulP...
Overall, we had data from 1990 to 2010 -- the post-Cold War time period that Huntington said is appropriate for testing his theory.

What did we find?
We found the following "intercivilizational dyads" had wars between 1990-2010. I& #39;m not sure Persian Gulf 1991, Kosovo 1999, Iraq 2003, Eritrea-Ethiopia, & Armenia-Azerbaijan were driven by "civilizational differences" https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤔" title="Thinking face" aria-label="Emoji: Thinking face">

Same for Afghanistan in 2001, but I could see a debate
In the end, there isn& #39;t much `there, there& #39;...at all.
The students found this all SUPER interesting. I had a lot of questions after class (as did my TAs).

Students weren& #39;t buying the theory, but they agreed that it is "seductively simple". That is likely why it sticks around...and why it should be engaged in IR classrooms.

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