Who Owns the Future? The Struggle of Theories, Financial Elites, and the Middle East’s Turning Point
Mohammad Kawrani — 2026.08.23
The Battle of Governing Theories
At a historical moment when the features of the global order are changing at an accelerating pace, it is not enough to ask: Which theory explains the world today? The deeper and more urgent question is:
Who has the power to make their theory the governing theory?
The great theories—from Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” to Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History,” and from S. N. Eisenstadt’s “Multiple Modernities” to the theories of globalization developed by Roland Robertson and Anthony Giddens—are not merely academic reflections. They are political and civilizational programs competing for funding, institutional influence, and the ability to translate ideas into global policies.
What we often fail to notice is that these theories do not prevail through argument alone. They advance through transnational elite networks, philanthropic capitalism that finances research centers, and mechanisms of global governance without a world government that produce standards and rules.
In this context, the central questions become:
Who determines which global problems should be solved? Who defines the acceptable solutions? And who possesses the financial and institutional tools to turn those solutions into an imposed reality?
First: A Map of Theories and Thinkers
To understand the landscape, we need to review the major intellectual waves that have shaped the debate over the future of civilizations and the global order:
1. The Wave of Global Conflict and Civilizational Rivalry
It began with Samuel Huntington’s famous 1993 article and later his book, in which he argued that post-Cold War conflict would take place between major civilizational blocs, including Islamic, Confucian, and Western civilizations.
Many thinkers criticized this vision, yet it remained an influential interpretive framework within Western decision-making circles.
2. The Wave of the “End of History”
Francis Fukuyama launched this thesis in 1992, arguing that the triumph of liberalism and market democracy represented the end point of humanity’s ideological evolution.
Here, a profound critique emerges from thinkers such as Arnold Toynbee, who viewed the history of civilizations as a recurring process of rise and decline, and S. N. Eisenstadt, who developed the theory of “multiple modernities” and rejected the existence of a single modernity model.
3. The Wave of Globalization and the Redefinition of Civilization
This wave emerged with Roland Robertson, who developed the concept of the globalization of civilizations, along with Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck, who discussed global risks and the risk society, arguing that national borders are no longer sufficient for understanding global transformations.
4. The Wave of Dialogue and Coexistence
This was represented by former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami through his project of a “Dialogue Among Civilizations,” and by theologian Hans Küng through his project of a “Global Ethic,” both presenting alternatives to the logic of confrontation.
5. The Wave of a Sustainable Global Order
This is represented by thinkers such as Frank Biermann, particularly through theories of Earth-system governance; Johan Rockström, through the concept of planetary boundaries; and Elinor Ostrom, through theories of the commons and shared-resource governance.
This approach focuses on environmental sustainability as a foundation for any future global order.
Second: The Hidden Mechanisms That Determine the Governing Theory
Here we reach the most important point of this article.
Theories do not enter political reality spontaneously. They are transferred into practice through:
Philanthrocapitalism: Major philanthropic institutions have evolved from being merely donors into actors involved in policy design, as documented by recent scholarship. These institutions finance research centers and universities, develop development and sustainability indicators, and select experts who participate in international conferences.
Transnational elite networks: Political-sociology literature examines how the interests of private capital overlap with states and public institutions.
Global governance without a global government: This is a model described in various academic literatures, whereby states interact with multinational corporations, financial institutions, non-governmental organizations, and expert networks to produce global rules and policies without a single centralized political authority.
The World Economic Forum and “Stakeholder Capitalism”: This is the project promoted by Klaus Schwab, seeking to redefine corporate responsibility toward society and the environment. It represents a contemporary model of the interaction between capital, politics, and ideas.
And here emerges the decisive question:
Do these mechanisms lead toward a more just world, or do they reproduce the dominance of Western and financial elites in new forms?
Third: The Middle East — A Turning Point for Civilizations
Contrary to all these theories and mechanisms, an event is unfolding in the Middle East today that cannot be reduced to any of the frameworks described above.
What is happening today in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen is not merely a regional conflict, nor simply another episode in a clash of civilizations or a philanthropic-capitalist project.
It is an existential struggle over the shape of human civilization in the twenty-first century.
To exist or not to exist.
This region, which once stood at the heart of the old colonial project and which, over the past two decades, became an arena for experimenting with Western theories of state-building, is now presenting an entirely different scene:
It exposes the limits of military and technological power when confronted by the will to resist, and challenges attempts to impose the “Western model” through force.
It raises the question of global justice in its harshest form: Can a global order continue to exist if it is incapable of stopping a genocide broadcast live before the world?
It demonstrates that the new actors in the world are not only states and financial elites, but also peoples, resistance movements, and social media, which are undermining the traditional elites’ monopoly over the production of meaning and politics.
It is creating a new reality on the ground—resistance, steadfastness, regional solidarity, and the exposure of the weakness of international institutions—that is forcing every theory to reconsider itself.
The Middle East today is redefining what is “possible” and “impossible” in global politics.
Gaza is no longer merely a geographical location. It has become a symbol challenging the liberal narrative of human rights, the neoliberal model of markets, and philanthropic-capitalist approaches that treat crises as emergencies requiring management rather than problems requiring fundamental solutions.
Something Great Is Happening
If global elites are racing against time to consolidate their vision of the coming global order, and if funding and research institutions are quietly working to determine which theories become “accepted truths,” then what is happening in the Middle East today is turning the table on everyone.
Something great is indeed happening:
It is a revival of the question of dignity and justice at the heart of the global debate, after these questions had largely been monopolized by elite discourses.
It is exposing the gap between international institutions that claim universality and the actions they actually undertake, thereby undermining their moral legitimacy.
It is the emergence of a model of resistance confronting some of the most formidable military and financial machines, demonstrating that civilization is not created only from above; it is also created from below—from the blood of martyrs and the steadfastness of those under siege.
The question “Who determines the shape of human civilization in the twenty-first century?” is no longer confined to conference halls or the offices of sovereign wealth funds.
The Middle East is writing a radically different answer—an answer that does not appear in World Economic Forum reports, nor in the speeches of research centers financed by philanthropic capitalism.
It is an answer written in blood, stone, voice, and will, telling the entire world:
The future does not belong to those who finance it, but to those who deserve it.
And the people of Gaza and Lebanon, together with the peoples of Iran and Yemen, have demonstrated that they deserve to have a place in the future—and that they are struggling to preserve their place in the civilization of the coming millennium.
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