A Global Culture War? Moral Conflict and Polarization In Turbulent Times

Across many democracies, public life appears riven by moral and cultural conflict—over gender and sexuality, religion and secularism, race and nation, expertise and authority. The “Culture War” has become the dominant shorthand for these divisions. Yet the concept, as originally formulated by Hunter (1991), was attuned to the American national context, and its global circulation raises a sociological question this session takes as its animating puzzle: should we speak of a global Culture War or instead a globally shared vocabulary for nationally (or regionally) distinct conflicts?

Three positions structure current debates. One holds that competing moral visions divide left and right. A second treats the binary as a media artifact that amplifies difference while obscuring common ground. A third locates a shared cultural logic—new struggles for recognition and expressive identity—beneath ideologically opposed movements. Each has been largely theorized within Anglo-American scholarship; whether these frameworks travel is itself open to question.

We invite papers that examine moral conflict comparatively and globally. To what extent do similar symbolic boundaries and fault lines emerge across settings, and where do they diverge? How are transnational cultural frames (recognition, authenticity, rights, anti-feminist mobilization) translated into nationally specific symbols, narratives, and practices? What role do globalization, transnational advocacy networks, and digital publics play in constituting contemporary moral conflicts? We welcome both empirically grounded case studies and theoretical interventions.

By bringing the Culture War thesis into dialogue across national contexts—including the global South—the session asks what, if anything, contemporary moral conflicts share, and what their variation reveals.