Jelena Vidojević, Co-Founder and Head of the South-South Dialogues Programme at the New South Institute, published an opinion piece in News24 on 18 June 2026 titled “Africa and the rise of ‘Civilisation-states’: Conversations we are not having.”

The article examines the renewed use of civilisational language in global politics, particularly among states such as Russia, China, India, Turkey and Iran. It considers how the idea of the “civilisation-state” is becoming part of contemporary debates about multipolarity, sovereignty and the future of the international order. Vidojević asks where African states, and South Africa in particular, fit within a global political landscape increasingly shaped by claims of civilisational depth, historical inheritance and cultural stature.

Readers are encouraged to read the article on the original News24 website. For ease of reference, the article is reproduced below.

.

Africa and the rise of ‘Civilisation-states’: Conversations we are not having

Jelena Vidojević

“‘Civilization’ is back at the forefront of global policy debate.”

Amitav Acharya

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in Beijing on 20 May 2026, where they signed multiple cooperation agreements and a joint declaration reaffirming their strategic alignment amid the continued global influence of the United States, and, to a lesser extent, Europe, as well as growing unpredictability in U.S. foreign policy. Both sides expressed their ongoing commitment to reshaping the international order on the basis of ‘multipolarity’. This alignment between China and Russia is a pragmatic one, between countries that are bound together by geography, shared grievances and opposition to Western dominance, and partially overlapping strategic agendas. Interestingly, the meeting came just days after US President Donald Trump completed his own visit to China for a two-day summit with President Xi. The Russia–China declarations and commitments were likely warmly welcomed by many foreign affairs officials, diplomats, and academics in South Africa (and across the African continent).

Multipolarity has, for some time now, been a key buzzword in international relations, particularly among scholars and analysts seeking both to interpret the current global moment and to anticipate the world that is now emerging. These discussions often assume that multipolarity will necessarily lead to greater inclusivity, less hypocrisy, and more equitable institutional arrangements. In 2023, when she was Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Naledi Pandor noted that “Progressive forces around the world need to push for multipolarity and a strengthened, fairer, and more inclusive multilateralism by exerting more influence on global debates. We should not be silent.” [1] 

While such an outcome remains possible, the current trajectory suggests a far more uncertain and potentially unstable transition, that may ultimately produce a different form of hierarchy rather than a genuinely more equal international order. Non-Western actors, long positioned at the margins of a Western-centred order and often characterised (and at times treated) as insufficiently ‘civilised’, ‘modern’, or ‘democratic’, are now asserting themselves with growing confidence. However, it would be naïve to assume that this shift in relative power automatically translates into a more equitable or normatively progressive global order.

The Joint Declaration that was signed during the meeting between Moscow and Beijing, framed against the perceived shortcomings of a fading international order, advances a vision that is, at once familiar and attractive: an “equal and orderly multipolar world”, a “more just and rational system of global governance”, international community based on a “set of guiding principles” namely openness, inclusiveness, and mutually beneficial cooperation, equal security, the democratisation of international relations, and the reform of global governance. There was a final principle that the Russian and Chinese diplomats invoked, however. They called for the respect for the diversity of world civilisations and values. The civilisation-state is a term that has a long history, including in apartheid and colonial imaginaries. 

The rise of the civilisation-state 

Alongside the rise of multipolarity, we are also witnessing a resurgence of civilisational politics, discourses, and practices. Several states, mostly, outside the West, and many of them former empires, are increasingly embracing the notion of the civilisation-state. This idea has proven particularly attractive in states and societies seeking to recall and memorialise a great and glorious past. Such recall is not only about the past. It is also a claim in the present and for the future, that they are symbolically and materially significant regional or global powers. Civilisational politics is grounded in the belief that shared cultural, religious, social, political, and economic norms and practices extend beyond the boundaries of the nation-state and bind broader civilisational communities together.

States in which this narrative has become particularly prominent include Russia, China, India, Turkey, and Iran. This development has given rise to diverse political discourses and imaginaries, including (Neo)Ottomanism, Indic civilisationalism, Slavic civilisationism, and Confucian socialism. Such projects involve not only claims of cultural uniqueness or civilisational distinctiveness, but also broader attempts to redefine the nature of the state, its relationship with the West, and its place within the evolving global order. Various Islamist actors have articulated a civilisational understanding of the Muslim world and civilisational themes are at the front of Xi Jinping’s rhetoric. In Russia, Vladimir Putin and many intellectuals associated with the highly influential Vladai Club, subscribe to a view of world politics defined by inter-civilisational relations, with Russia at the epicentre of a broad Pan-Slavic, Christian Orthodox or Eurasian civilisation. The concept occupies an important place in the country’s Foreign Policy Concept of 2023.

This turn towards civilisationalism can be interpreted as a counter-hegemonic ideological reaction to liberalism and Western globalisation, a response to the ‘ideological entrapment’ produced by the liberal international order. It is grounded in the idea that humanity is divided into distinct civilisations, each with its own historical trajectory, values, and political legitimacy. At the same time, these projects are closely tied to anxieties surrounding civilisational crisis and decline, and the perceived erosion of cultural and political sovereignty.

Public intellectuals and policy experts in South Africa, and more broadly across the African continent, have remained surprisingly silent about these aspects of the new Global South politics. The silence is a sign, perhaps, of embarrassment or awkwardness. Where do Africa and South Africa, in particular, belong in a world organised according to civilisational states? Is South Africa a civilisational state, or perhaps merely a nation-state? Would that be a lower order state in a new world hierarchy? What about small, poor countries and/or those for whom the heterogeneity of their people is an ongoing existential challenge? It remains unclear what precisely qualifies a state as a ‘civilisation-state’. Is this status historically inherited, culturally constructed, or politically claimed? And if it is not already possessed, can it be acquired? African scholars have a long and proud tradition of thinking about precisely these sorts of questions – but mostly in relation to the West. 

Although civilisationalist discourses present themselves as counter-hegemonic and anti-Western, promising a more just and plural global order, the multipolarity they intend might be as exclusionary for African states and for South Africa as current international arrangements, just on slightly different grounds: “civilisational depth, historical inheritance, and cultural stature”. 

Jelena Vidojević is Co-Founder of the New South institute and Head of South-South Dialogues programme.