Institutional Сompetition and Сollision of Сivilizations in the Process of Modernization

The article is the study of such a phenomenon as institutional competition in the framework of a civilizational approach. An institution is described as a complex, composite category. Various approaches of modern authors to its definition and the divergence of their interpretations are revealed. The author of this article identifies informal institutions with culture, which is defined as rooted mass beliefs about a just social order. Formal institutions are ultimately determined by culture, but are not related to it. Civilizations, or social orders, are divided into two types: lawful and violent. The former is based on protected private property, whereas the latter represents the so-called power-property, when the state is the explicit or implicit supreme owner. Institutional competition between the lawful and violent civilizations implies competition for the replacement of one of the competing parties’ fundamental institutions with alternative institutions of the other. In this respect, it differs radically from institutional competition between countries of the same civilization type, where evolutionary selection of institutions occurs while maintaining a common institutional core. Modernization is a dual concept. On the one hand, it acts as westernization, i.e. the displacement of institutions of the violent civilization by its alternative. Completed westernization would mean, for one country or another, a change in the civilizational paradigm. On the other hand, countries belonging to the violent civilization hold back westernization, and resort to adaptive modernization in the form of organizational and technical improvements as well as controlled market transformations that do not destroy their institutional cores. In the 21st century, no rapprochement of civilizations can be observed: on the contrary, they are being alienated from each other.