Chapter 9 - sovereignty and the nation state Flashcards
what is methodological nationalism?
the naturalization of the nation-state by social sciences
what does methodological nationalism assume?
3
- countries are the natural units for comparative studies
- equate society with the nation-state
- conflate national interests with the purposes of social science
what does the main argument of Wimmer and Glick Schiller focus on
what they perceive as the major, dominant trends in social science thinking of the past century that have shaped migration studies
What do Wimmer and Glick Schiller not focus on?
and why
- coterminous currents that contradicted the hegemonic strands (e.g. don’t look at marxism that doesn’t look at nationalism but at capitalism as global system)
- methodological individualism (studies/theories that only focus on small entities
because they don’t shape the social science program
what is the connection between social sciences and modern nation-state formation?
epistemic structures and programs of mainstream social sciences have been closely attached to and shaped by the emergence of nation-state formation
*nation-state and social sciences formed in the same time
what are the 3 variants of methodological nationalism within social sciences?
+ in what traditions can they mostly be found
- ignoring or disregarding the fundamental importance of nationalism for modern societies (socialist tradition)
- naturalization, i.e. taking for granted that the boundaries of the nation-state delimit and define the unit of analysis (empirically oriented tradition)
- territorial limitation which confines the study of social processes to the political and geographical boundaries of a particular nation-state
what does the ‘ignoring’ variant of methodological nationalism entail?
+why?
- ignoring or disregarding the fundamental importance of nationalism for modern societies
- nationalism and nation-state model were taken so routinely as foundational assumptions of theory that they vanished from sight, they weren’t problematized or studied in their own right
why?
partially because of disciplinary division of labor within social science, where the modern condition was accepted as a given that nationalist forms of inclusion and exclusion bind modern societies together
mostly seen in the sociological tradition of social theory
Marx, Durkheim, Weber and Parsons
growing/reduced importance of ethnic and national sentiments?
!!!!!!!!!
- differentiation
- rationalization
- modernization
of society gradually reduced the importance of ethnic and national sentiments
!!!!!! is this an example of ignoring variant of methodological nationalism, or how else does it relate to this?
what does the ‘naturalization’ variant of methodological nationalism entail?
+why?
- taking for granted that the boundaries of the nation-state delimit and define the unit of analysis
- naturalization produced the container model of society that encompasses a culture, a polity, an economy and a bounded social group (everything that didn’t fit this container model was cut of analytically)
social sciences left no room for transnational and global processes that connected national territories
why?
compartmentalization of the social science project: research was focused on national problems and national data due to connections with national ministries and funding
IR assumed that nation-states are the adequate entities for studying the world, this only changed when non-state institutions emerged
what does the ‘territorial limitation’ variant of methodological nationalism entail?
+ what are its effects
- study of social processes is confined to political and geographical boundaries of a particular nation-state
- paradigm of national/internal and international affairs (as state-to-state relation) -> invisibility of transborder and transnational nation-state building: historically state and nation-building was a transborder development rather than of a territorially limited national space
effects:
- theories and histories of democracy have looked at the inner dynamics of evolving democratic polities and lost sight of nationalist principles that historically defined its boundaries
- state building and nation building have become two separate objects of inquiry + state is seen as neutral, excluding that modern state itself has entered into a relationship with the nationalist political project
what are the main questions of this article
- What types of methodological nationalism are there?
- How has nation-state formation influenced the states’ attitude towards migration and how migration has been conceptualized by the social science?
- How can/does the transnational view arise?
what is the main objective of Wimmer and Nina Glick Schiller
to clarify the nature of the barriers of methodological nationalism which have stood in the path leading to a revised social theory that is more transnational
What phases of nation building and discourse of immigration are there?
phase 1: prewar era (1870-1918)
phase 2: from WW 1 to the cold war (1918-1945)
phase 3: the cold war (1945-1989)
1990-present
nation-building and discourse on immigration in the prewar era
two trends simultaneously:
- nation-state building (industries, tariffs to protect national economy)
- intensive globalization (colonialism, imperialism)
! migration was relatively easy: almost no significant barriers (US exception: 1882 Chinese exclusion act) + no passports or documents required + easy to gain citizenship
- all this due to ‘‘the people’’ defined in terms of shared citizenship rights
migration was mostly for labor/economic reasons
- Ravenstein: international migration and internal migration followed the same laws (therefor he made no distinction between the two): poor to rich + country to town
in this time: ethnic + racial concept began to replace the civic approach to peoplehood (civic approach = shared citizen rights -> easy to gain citizenship after migrating)
- why? to justify colonialism
- effect: nation-state builders systematic effort to erase, deny or homogenize internal cultural and national diversity
migrants began to be conceptualized as continuing to have memberships to their ancestral homelands -> seen as threat to national sovereignty and security
- emigrants also became nationalist: believed that they would get more respect when their motherland gained more prestige
social science in the prewar era
social sciences emerged as distinct intellectual enterprises in this era
- social sciences contributed to + was heavily shaped by the transformation of concepts of nation and immigrant
nations were seen as organic holes, nourished by their citizens + nation as races based on blood was popularized globally
sociology: grand schemes of proces (tradition->modernity, community->society)
this made the national framing of these transformations invisible
nation-building and discourse on immigration WW1-cold war
WW1 + Great Depression -> reduced degree of global economic integration -> nation-state building + emergence of the container model of social order contained within the nation-state
WW1 -> refugees + distinction friend/foe based on nationality
Great Depression -> less contact between migrants and mother-countries (e.g. less remittances)
an entire central state apparatus of overseeing, limiting and controlling immigration was institutionalized between the wars
- reasons: idea of national community from fighting together against others in WW1
- e.g. clear divide foreigners and nationals within a country: foreigners needed permits, nationals didn’t
influence of social sciences concepts + views on immigration WW1-cold war
mainstream idea of immigration developed
influenced by social sciences: immigration was understood through national values and norms
- state with own, stable population + migrants living in liminal state
- advocating assimilation (integration over multiple generations) -> transnational relations (between immigrants and home-country) were defined as transitory phenomena in the natural process of assimilation
nation-building and discourse on immigration WW1-cold war
UN + formalized independence -> world as divided into equal significant and sovereign states
+ idea that everyone must belong somewhere
social welfare capitalism/state -> nation as a group of solidarity (membership of this group as privilege, restricted by state borders)
Cold war tensions -> tighter policing borders
new demands for labor were handled with two approaches (both minimizing challenge to the practice of national closure naturalized by social science)
1. England, France, NL: turned to own colonial populations (educated as to having colonial power as motherland)
2. Germany: restrict and control influxes of workers by labor contracts that recruited guestworkers
(3. US combined both)
'’progress’’: US effort for assimilation failed, people kept nationalities -> US politicians developed strategies to help the homelands (in order to get votes)
1960s: US civil rights movement exposed American identity as related to whiteness -> other groups/projects began to elaborate ideologies of cultural pluralism
social sciences + nationalism and immigration in the cold war era
people were envisioned as each having only one nation-state
belonging to humanity was thought to require national identity
social sciences didn’t investigate or problematize these assumptions
- almost complete erasure of the historical memories of transnational and global processes in which nation-states were formed and the role of migration within that formation
- national identities and modern states were seen as developed within territory rather than in relationship to global economy and flows of ideas
how have social sciences influenced/naturalized mainstream migration studies
describing immigrants
- as political security risks
- as culturally others
- as socially marginal
- as an exception to the rule of territorial confinement
social sciences (migration studies) have faithfully mirrored the nationalist image of normal live
new understanding of past and contemporary migration?
- requires moving beyond methodological nationalism (requires concepts and tools outside of the nation-state)
- will always be influenced by social and political forces around us
- many that attempt to escape methodological nationalism drift towards Scylla methodological fluidism (transnational life of migrants as the prototype of human condition) or cosmopolitanism, challenge remains to develop a set of concepts that opens up horizons, as neither of these makes considerable more sense than methodological nationalism
authors
Andreas Wimmer (nationalism studies)
Nina Glick Schiller (anthropology)
class notes
definition of methodological nationalism
the naturalization of the nation-state by the social science
seeing it as something natural rather than something that needs to be explained
assume that:
- countries are the natural units for comparative studies
- equate society with the nation-state
- conflate national interests with the purpose of social science
three variants of methodological nationalism
- ignoring or disregarding importance of nationalism (e.g. studying UK history by looking at what happened on the territory of the British Isles)
- naturalization: taking for granted the boundaries of the nation-state define the units of analysis
- territorial limitation: confine the study of social processes to the political and geo boundaries of nation-states
!! if research takes nationalism into account, than it isn’t methodological nationalism
why have social sciences ignored the role of nationalism for modern societies?
lecture
- Marx, Durkheim, Weber believed in power of modernization in reducing nationalism (they thought it was gonna disappear)
- there started to be a division of labour between disciplines, relegating nationalism to history (we looked at what was occuring rather than looking how to determine what to look at)
only the discipline of history started to be interested in nations
leading to ‘‘naturalization’’: belief in a container model
methodological nationalism pre-war era
lecture
2 trends:
- nation-state building
- intensive globalization
imperialism
emergence of racial notions of ‘‘the people’’: nationalism and racism
long-distance nationalism
racism grounded in scientific theories
Phase 2: from WW1 to cold war
- lecture
- end of the free movement of labour
- closing of borders, inability to migrate
- WW1 created and exacerbated national sentiment
- more border policing
- social science: Migration as assimilation (Chicago school), migrant identities as a security threat
social science between the two wars:
- lecture
Social science was mainly focused on measuring how societies could better fit” into the nation-state container”
phase 3: the cold war
- lecture
- erasure of historical memory of transnationalism
- decolonization: growth of nationalism
- development of welfare capitalism
- cold war: tighter policing of borders and migration (refugees/guest workers)
conclusion of the article
- lecture
- we should recover the history of transnationalism
- we should not fall into …
- all theories highlight some aspects and hide others
