گفتگوي تمدنها و ارتباطات بين المللي

Dialogue Among Civilizations and International Communication: A study of objective and subjective developments during the last three decades of the twentieth century

This paper surveys the subjective and objective transformations that have happened in the discourses of international relations; it tries to show the relation between international communications and the prevalent order of discourse at the intellectual and cultural shperes. The main claim is that if the world is turning toward the dialogue and has accepted the idea of dialogue among civilizations, it is a result of certain objective and subjective transformations. The paper surveys the ideas of Gadamer, Bakthin, Habermas, McIntyre, and Rawls on dialogue, to show the subjective and intellectual transformations. Also, the unique contribution of each of these philosophers to the promotion of "dialogue" is reviewed. At the objecive level, the discourses produced at United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), using critical discourse analysis method, were analyzed. Three historically distinct discourses were revealed. The prevalent discourse in 1970s was "development and progress". A fair and balanced development with due attention to human aspects and centrality of nation-states as the main players in the field of 1980s, known as the second cold war, shows a discursive shift from development to dialogue. The ideas of Habermas are philosophical examples of this turn. Among the main characteristics of this period is a distance with binary discourses of cold war, a rise of optimism regarding the emergence of a global peaceful community, reliance on people and individuals beside nation-states and countries, and a heavy reliance on cultural aspects of development against the economic aspects. Finally, 1990s marks with the end of bi-polar world. With the multiplication of cultural actors and circulation of the idea of community, a space was prepared for a dialogue among plural cultures. In this historical period, dialogue continues to serve as a backbone to social sturcture. The new manifestation of dialogue, however, has left its liberal bases behind and moves toward new foundations and formulations that are manifested in the communitarianism. A close study of the structure of discourses produced at the three final decades of twentieth century reveals that the discourses has moved from individual formulations to community-based expressions, and from heavy reliance on nation-states to civil and international institutions, a movement and transformation that has prepared the ground for the construction of the theory of dialogue among civilizations.