Description
“Culture wars” are typically studied as a problem of domestic politics. Less attention, however, has been paid to how political polarisation and so-called “identity politics” in the West are shaping global order. This paper is motivated by a desire to understand the link between three instances of culture wars going global: (1) neo-conservative Patrick Buchanan’s 1992 speech to the Republican National Convention that identified culture war as the successor to the Cold War; (2) recent discussions amongst Chinese intellectuals on the destabilising effects of “white liberals” (baizuo 白左) and Black Lives Matter in the West; and (3) The rhetoric of “woke” in making sense of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including the US conservative frame of “Woke War III” and Vladimir Putin’s anti-LGBT ideology. The paper aims to situate these three instances in the historical context of the current global disorder, where some scholars predict the bifurcation of international relations into competing blocs characterised by contrasting and competing values (e.g. liberal vs. authoritarian). In doing so, the paper aims to outline a research agenda for the study of “global culture wars”.
