Nationalism, Ethnicity and the State

Making and Breaking Nations

John Coakley

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781446291511
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política

This exciting new book is the first to offer a truly comprehensive account of the vibrant topic of nationalism.

Packed with a series of rich, illustrative examples, the book examines this powerful and remarkable political force by exploring:

- Definitions of nationalism

- Language and nationalism

- Religion and Nationalism

- Nationalist history

- The social roots of ideologies and the significance of race, gender and class

- Nationalist movements, from dominant majorities to peripheral minorities socio-economic and sociological perspectives

- State responses to nationalism

Supported by a number of helpful illustrations, tables and diagrams, the text is both engaging and highly informative.

Nationalism, Ethnicity and the State: Making and Breaking Nations will prove an insightful read for both undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers in the area of Politics and International Relations.

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1

THE STUDY OF NATIONALISM

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INTRODUCTION

‘Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race’ – this was the verdict attributed to Albert Einstein on the force that had so profound an impact on the Europe of his middle years (Dukas and Hoffman, 1979: 38). This judgement of a theoretical physicist briefly turned political commentator was, if anything, milder than the assessments of later analysts of nationalism, many of whom would have used the metaphor of a much more deadly disease than measles. One distinguished scholar alleged that it has ‘created new conflict, exacerbated tensions, and brought catastrophe to numberless people innocent of all politics’ (Kedourie, 1993: 134). Others have pointed to its potential for generating hatred, civil unrest, violence, war and political instability (Kellas, 1998: 11–12; Poole, 1999: 9; Joireman, 2003: 1). There is, however, agreement on its huge importance in contemporary societies, with Greenfeld (1992: 3) seeing nationalism ‘at the basis’ of the world in which we live, Hechter (2000: 3) taking the view that ‘nationalism and its close cousin, ethnicity, currently are the most potent political forces in the world’, Puri (2004: 3) seeing the crisis of September 11, 2001, in the USA as revealing the force of nationalism in various ways (in particular, through the vigour of the American popular response), and Roshwald (2006: 1) drawing attention to its pervasiveness in the post-Cold War world.

As a political force, nationalism is very broad in its reach, and hard to pin down. It is conventionally seen as finding expression in an extraordinarily wide range of phenomena – war in Afghanistan, rebellion in Chechnya, unrest in Ukraine, instability in Belgium, and many other expressions of dissent at the polling booth or in the streets (for other examples, see Hearn, 2006: 1–3). Together, these examples illustrate the complexity and elusiveness of nationalism, whose very ubiquity makes studying it a huge challenge. It appears to have no borders: we can see nationalism almost everywhere, and the word is used in a bewildering variety of ways, and to convey sharply conflicting judgements. For some it is one of the most progressive forces in history, while for others it is a dangerous stage just short of authoritarianism; for some it liberates people, for others it enslaves them – in short, for some it is a sacred force, and for others a curse.

Analyzing nationalism may not be easy, but it is nevertheless important. The object of this book is to offer an approach to this complex but vibrant topic. In doing so, it aims to strike a balance between two very widely adopted perspectives. The first is the empirical analysis of particular forms of nationalism (to which may be added a small number of comparative studies based on similar cases). The second is the theoretical discussion of nationalism as a distinctive political phenomenon, a discussion which often remains at the level of the general and abstract, using limited illustrative material. Finding a middle ground between these approaches is not easy, but the present chapter indicates how this will be attempted.

There is one important respect in which the study of nationalism diverges from many other subfields of the social sciences: it lacks an agreed terminology. Since there is no escaping this problem, it is addressed in the first main section of this chapter. But there are other respects in which the study of nationalism resembles other subfields: it is possible to make the same kind of distinction between normative and analytical approaches as is made in the study of, say, democracy. One set of questions is evaluative: whether the phenomenon under study is in general a ‘positive’ feature of political life, and whether it is more or less appropriate in particular configurations of circumstances – a set of essentially prescriptive issues. The second addresses the actual nature of this phenomenon: in which circumstances it occurs, what its characteristics are, what its consequences are, and so on – a range of questions implying description and explanation. This book focuses on the second set of questions, but it is rarely possible in social analysis to make a hard-and-fast distinction between analysis and evaluation. In any case, even if we were to succeed in doing so, we would still find that the distinction is ignored in large bodies of research – perhaps for very good reasons. This chapter therefore continues in the second section by outlining briefly the big literature that assesses or passes judgement on nationalism as a force in modern politics, before going on in the third section to outline the manner in which the book will address the core matters of description and explanation that are its central concern.

MATTERS OF DEFINITION

The exceptional difficulty of establishing an agreed terminology in nationalism studies has long been recognized. It is now almost a century since the author of an article on nationalism suggested, in effect, that an international assembly of scholars was needed – ‘a sort of Nicene Council on the terminology used in connection with the social sciences’ (Handman, 1921: 104n). More than 30 years later, Louis Snyder, one of the founding fathers of nationalism studies, concluded that the term ‘nationalism’ had baffled several generations of scholars, who had ‘not been able to achieve unanimity of definition’ (Snyder, 1954: 4). Since then, efforts on the part of various bodies and individuals to plot a path forward have had little impact on everyday usage by scholars. Examples of such worthwhile efforts include the compilation by Unesco of a glossary in the area of ‘ethnic questions’ (Unesco, 1977), a similar initiative by the Research Committee on Conceptual and Terminological Analysis of the International Social Science Council (Riggs, 1985), and parallel efforts by a long-standing student of nationalism, Thomas Spira (1999). The words of one specialist in the 1920s have, unfortunately, been echoed many times since then: scholars recognize there is a problem but have been unable to come up with a solution, and many of them ‘set out by alluding to the embarrassment occasioned by the use of different terms such as “nationality” and “nationalism” in the same sense, and end up by confounding the terms themselves’ (Joseph, 1929: 18).

This confusion over terminology explains why so many texts dealing with nationalism begin with a long discussion of matters of definition. The tradition had already been established in the late nineteenth century, when Julius Neumann (1888: 1–31) engaged on a study of this issue in Germany. But the older literature in other languages displays a similar preoccupation. Thus, we find extended discussions of terminology in Hungarian (Elekes, 1940), Finnish (Kemiläinen, 1964), Czech (Kořalka, 1969) and Russian (Bromley, 1974). In English, the word ‘ethnic’ poses a similar challenge (McKay and Lewins, 1978), and Walker Connor (1978) gave his celebrated article documenting this confusion the paradoxical title ‘a nation is a nation, is a state, is an ethnic group, is a …’.

As well as difficulties within languages, various problems exist between them. Conventional translations may in reality have different meanings in two languages (Polakovič, 1985), and it has long been acknowledged that ‘nation’ in English, the same term in French, Nation in German, nación in Spanish and nazione in Italian all have slightly different meanings (Royal Institute for International Affairs, 1939: xvi–xx). The reality here is that ‘nation’ as understood in English cannot be precisely translated into the languages of central and eastern Europe. As one of the dominant figures in European nationalism studies observed, ‘I have no problems speaking about a Flemish nation in Czech or German, but I understand that English speakers have difficulties doing so’ (Hroch, 2010: 883). This discussion of definition continues in the more recent literature in English (see for example, Kellas, 1998: 2–6; Puri, 2004: 22–37; Hearn, 2006: 3–5), and a full volume in French addresses terminology in this area (Rémi-Giraud and Rétat, 1996). This rest of this section therefore explores the manner in which these terms are used in the existing literature, and continues with an indication of how they will be employed elsewhere in this book.

Terminological confusion

Since the central concern of this book hinges on the relationship between state and nation, it is obviously vital to arrive at a relatively clear understanding of what these terms mean. But the problem does not end there. Other terms in this same area, ranging from ‘ethnic’ to ‘nationalism’ itself, are also lacking in an agreed meaning. A set of terms that illustrate the variety of approaches to definition is reported in Table 1.1. The reader will notice that there is an alarming continuum here that illustrates the great difficulties that impede progress in this area: the definitions overlap, especially on the boundaries between the five sections into which the table is divided. Thus, the first definition of ‘nation’ (by Friedrich) overlaps with the opening definition of ‘state’, and this overlap continues between the other categories.

State. Of the terms that are central in the study of nationalism, ‘state’ presents fewest difficulties. One classical definition is presented in Table 1.1. For Max Weber – though his definition at first sight seems oblique and unnecessarily complex – the state can only be territorially defined, and those within its borders are governed by an agency which exists continuously over time. While these characteristics apply to many different types of administrative district, the crucial defining characteristic is the last one: the governing agency ‘successfully upholds the claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the maintenance of its order’, a feature that might otherwise be described as the possession of sovereignty. As Weber further put it,

Table 1.1 Issues of definition: examples

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STATE

A compulsory political organisation with continuous operations will be called a ‘state’ insofar as its administrative staff successfully upholds the claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the maintenance of its order (Weber, 1968 [1922]: 54).

NATION

[A nation is] any cohesive group possessing ‘independence’ within the confines of the international order as provided by the United Nations, which provides a constituency for a government effectively ruling such a group and receiving from that group the acclamation which legitimizes the government as part of the world order (Friedrich, 1966: 27–32).

A nation [is] a named human population sharing an historic territory, common myths and historical memories, a mass, public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members (A. D. Smith, 1991: 14).

A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life and psychological makeup manifested in a common culture (Stalin, 1953 [1913]: 306).

A nation is a body of men inhabiting a definite territory, who normally are drawn from different races, but possess a common stock of thoughts and feelings acquired and transmitted during the course of a common history; who on the whole and in the main, though more in the past than in the present, include in that stock a common religious belief; who generally and as a rule use a common language as a vehicle for their thoughts and feelings; and who, besides common thoughts and feelings, also cherish a common will, and accordingly form, or tend to form, a separate state for the expression of that will (Barker, 1927).

NATIONALITY

A portion of mankind may be said to constitute a nationality, if they are united among themselves by common sympathies, which do not exist between them and any others – which make them cooperate with each other more willingly than with other people, desire to be under the same government, and desire that it should be government by themselves or a portion of themselves, exclusively (Mill, 1861: 287).

ETHNIC GROUP

Ethnic groups are fundamental units of social organization which consist of members who define themselves, or are defined, by a sense of common historical origins that may also include religious beliefs, a similar language, or a shared culture (Stone and Piya, 2007).

An ethnic group is … a collectivity within a larger society having real or putative common ancestry, memories of a shared historical past, and a cultural focus on one or more symbolic elements defined as the epitome of their peoplehood (Schermerhorn, 1970: 12).

We shall call ‘ethnic groups’ those human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical types or of customs or both, or because of memories of colonisation and migration; this belief must be important for the propagation of group formation; conversely, it does not matter whether or not an objective blood relationship exists (Weber, 1968 [1922]: 389).

RACE

We can define a race … as a human group defined by itself or others as distinct by virtue of perceived characteristics that are held to be inherent. A race is a group of human beings socially defined on the basis of physical characteristics (Cornell and Hartmann, 1998: 24).

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The primary formal characteristics of the modern state are as follows: it possesses an administrative and legal order subject to change by legislation, to which the organised activities of the administrative staff, which are also controlled by regulations, are oriented. This system of order claims binding authority, not only over the members of the state, the citizens, most of whom have obtained membership by birth, but also to a very large extent over all action taking place in the area of its jurisdiction. It is thus a compulsory organisation with a territorial basis. Furthermore, the use of force is regarded as legitimate only so far as it is either permitted by the state or prescribed by it. … The claim of the modern state to monopolise the use of force is as essential to it as its character of compulsory jurisdiction and of continuous operation (Weber, 1968 [1922]: 56).

This feature – the capacity ultimately to ensure that its writ runs, if necessary by force – clearly sets the governing agency of a state apart from other such agencies. It also makes it relatively easy to operationalize this term: we can ask of a particular territory whether it constitutes a ‘state’ in Weber’s sense, and in most cases come up with a clear answer: ‘no’ in the case of Yorkshire, Wales or the European Union (at least, at present); ‘yes’ in the case of the United Kingdom, Norway or Russia. The value of the definition is illustrated by the extent to which it matches conventional usage, at least in Europe. The decision by the international community in 1992 to recognize Bosnia as one of its members rested precisely on an assessment that its government was able, more or less, to exercise jurisdiction over its territory, just as in the mid-nineteenth century it took civil wars in Switzerland (1847) and the USA (1861–65) to determine that these territories were indeed ‘states’ in the sense that Weber meant: it was established beyond doubt that when the centre clashed with the component units its will would prevail. The extent to which – by contrast to the term ‘nation’ – there is agreement on the term ‘state’ will be clear from the many studies in the area which begin by explicitly taking Weber’s definition as a starting point (see for example, Pierson, 2004: 5–9; Hay and Lister, 2006: 4–13).

But the American example draws attention to a major dilemma. The ‘states’ that make up the USA do not match Weber’s definition. Each may have its own police, and even its own military in the shape of the National Guard. However, as the term is used here, American ‘states’ are in fact substate entities, lacking the crucial feature of sovereignty: they may not secede, and do not have the military capacity to rival that which exists at federal level (even the National Guard has an important federal function, in its reserve military role). Because of the ubiquity of this terminology in North America, the term ‘state’ has acquired a much more general meaning, except among specialists: it refers to one of the territorial components of the US federation, one possessing its own institutions of government, but lacking sovereignty. We need, therefore, to be mindful of the confusion generated by this use of a term that in Europe has a decidedly stronger meaning.

This much less demanding use of the term ‘state’ has important consequences. If the United ‘States’ are the entities which have come together as the USA, how is the whole American collectivity to be named? In American usage, there is an agreed term: ‘nation’. The word is thus used in precisely the sense in which Weber used ‘state’ – and in addition to its application to the USA, American political scientists commonly use it to refer to states all over the world. This has extended to general political usage, so that, for example, the terms ‘United Nations’ and ‘League of Nations’ refer in fact to organizations of states. Some researchers have tried to resolve this by moving towards a more general conception of statehood, using the term ‘governance unit’ (defined as the territorial unit responsible for providing the bulk of social order and other collective goods; Hechter, 2000: 9–10), but this term is not widely used. Philip Roeder (2007: 12), similarly, tries to sidestep the distinction between the central state and its component parts (where th...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Preface
• INTRODUCTION
• 1 The study of nationalism
• PART I NATION AND SOCIETY
• PART II NATIONALIST MOBILIZATION
• CONCLUSION
• References
• Index