Through a Glass Darkly: Afrocentrism,War, and World Politics

While the two dominant Eurocentric paradigms of world politics, realism and idealism, place greater emphasis on power and regime type, respectively, in their analyses of war, a recently promulgated Afrocentric paradigm of world politics suggests that cultural characteristics of states are significantly associated with the likelihood of interstate war. Drawing on these competing perspectives, I conduct a data analysis of the relationship between cultural homogeneity and interstate conflict in order to determine the extent to which Afrocentric theses on international conflict are borne out empirically. I find that cultural factors are significant correlates of interstate war as Afrocentrists suggest, although realist and idealist factors are more strongly associated with the likelihood of interstate war. In addition, the findings suggest that multiculturalism—especially ethnic diversity—is a more auspicious path for interstate peace.