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INTRODUCTION
For much of the 20
th
Century, the world experienced the clash of ideologies, two
major wars, the Cold War, and the emergence and collapse of authoritarian systems. In
the first half of the century, the world experienced the conflict among capitalist,
communist, and fascist forces. The experience with the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing, hate
politics, crimes against humanity, total wars, and scapegoating of ‘the other’ during the
Second World War had a devastating effect on the ‘Western civilization’ (Hainsworth
2000, 1). Yet the defeat of the Nazi and fascist regimes towards the middle of the century
by and large marked the triumph of liberal democracy, pluralism, multi-partyism,
individual freedoms, egalitarianism, and human rights in Western European countries. By
the end of the 1990s, communism ceased to be a threat against democracy as well. The
collapse of authoritarian communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern-Central Europe,
the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification of Germany, as well as the process of
European Integration signaled a trend towards a new world order. Former communist
countries became ‘new democracies.’ To many, the collapse of communism was another
indicator of the ‘triumph’ of liberal democracy (see Fukuyama 1989, 1992).
The post-Cold War developments in the Western world, however, do not give us a
completely optimistic picture about the fate of liberal democracy. The collapse of
communism was followed by a rising level of ultra-nationalism, ethnic conflicts,
violence, and mass killings in some parts of Europe and Asia. ‘Religious
fundamentalism’ has been something that by and large entered our daily lives and
mainstream politics. The September 11 attacks in the United States and bombings in
European countries not only intensified the concerns in regard to the rise of Islamic
Convention