Individual cultural groups are resistant to creating comprehensive, engaging structures because they fear that a new culture will involve sacrificing the uniqueness of their own traditions. They tend to stress the uniqueness of their own culture to the exclusion of all others.
With the end of the Cold War, large areas of the world are engulfed by the awakening of the forces of religion, nationalism and ethnicity. The post-Cold War will be one where cultural factors and territorial disputes will be in the forefront; all are factors related to identity. Nation-states, especially well-established ones, will remain powerful actors on the world stage, but their internal cohesion and politics will be influenced, and sometimes determined, by groups belonging to different civilizations. Allegiances transcending nation-states will shake their societies and their boundaries.