The Geo-Civilizational Approach

ABSTRACT This article proposes and develops the concept of the "geo-civilizational approach," an original analytical framework aimed at elucidating the fundamental mechanisms by which the geographical and climatic conditions of a given natural environment generate, across successive generations, a specific "geo-civilizational potential" for each people. This potential — comprising values, knowledge, and beliefs — constitutes the philosophical and cultural foundation upon which a nation's civilizational model is defined and developed. The approach builds critically upon the major theories of civilization — from Ibn Khaldoun and Jared Diamond to Arnold Toynbee and Samuel Huntington — while transcending them through the introduction of an original dual variable: the distinction between the "autonomist attitude" (free geo-civilizational potential), characteristic of peoples from temperate environments who develop a privileged relationship with reason and human law, and the "assisted attitude" (guided geo-civilizational potential), specific to peoples of hostile environments who channel their energy toward spiritual transcendance and divine faith. On the practical level, the article examines the two universally significant nations that have embodied these attitudes respectively during recent historical cycles: the Arab-Islamic nation, whose Golden Age (8th–13th century CE) testifies to the brilliance of a faith-based civilizational model, and the Western humanist nation, whose Enlightenment laid the foundations of a reason- and autonomy-based model. On the strategic level, the article formulates three geo-civilizational conditions governing the process of civilizational succession among leading nations, emphasizing the necessary uniqueness of civilizational leadership within each cycle, the requirement for originality of the initiated model, and the absolute responsibility of the dominant nation in managing human progress and its crises. The article concludes by opening perspectives on the stakes of the new global civilizational era, marked by the convergence of the two founding philosophies of humanity. Keywords: geo-civilizational approach · geo-civilizational potential · geographic determinism · autonomist attitude · assisted attitude · civilizational succession · Islamic civilization · Western civilization · philosophy of history · Ibn Khaldoun · Toynbee · Huntington