Nationalism Flashcards
What is primordialist nationalism?
Nations are natural
Nations result of long historical processes
National identity is (or is perceived as) given
Herder main thinker
Fascinated by richness of cultures
Not linked to exclusivist ideology
An umbrella term used to describe te belief that nationalism is a “natural” part of human beings
This is the idea that nations or ethnic identities are fixed, natural and ancient. Primordialists argue that each individual has a single inborn ethnic identity independent of historical processes.
Primordial ties are very exclusive an immutable because no one can come from the side.
Attributes to the tie of blood.
Not a changeable social construction.
Kinship is tied to deep emotion that is uncontrollable rather than rational.
Name four types of primordialst theories
Sociobiological, Perennial, Culturalist and Nationalist
Nationalist approach to primordialism
Nationality is inherent.
Nationalist believe that humanity is divided into distinct, objectifiable identifiable nations. Human beings can only fulfil themselves and flourish if they belong to a national community, the membership of which overrides all other forms of belonging. The nation os the sole depository of sovereignty and the only source of political power and legitimacy. This comes with the host of temporal and spacial claims - to a unique history and destiny and a history homeland
Sociobiological approach to primordialism
Kin selection - Groups are socially constructed and changeable. We cooperate because it is mutually beneficial. The kin selection or mating with relatives is a powerful cement of sociality in humans. Ethnicity and race are extensions of kin selection.
How do you separate the us from them? Language in particular.
Culturalist approach to primordialism
Primordial attachments are given or natural rather than sociobiological. Primordial attachment have no social source.
The general strength of a primordial bond differ from person to person. Primordialism is essentially a question of emotion and affect.
Perennialist approach to primordialism
Refer to those who believe in the historical antiquity of the ‘nation’ and its immemorial and perennial character. Perennialist do not treat the nation as a ‘fact of nature’ but they see it as a constant and fundamental feature of human life throughout recorded history. Ethnicity is a group of people with a shared cultural identity and spoken language. The nation is a more self conscious community than ethnicity - formed from more than one ethnicities.
Social/cultural perspective in modernism
Social/cultural (Gellner, Anderson, Hroch)
Nationalism becomes a necessity only in the modern world - in pre-modern times, no need nor interest from the rulers to promote cultural homogenisation;
In industrial societies, culture plays crucial role:
industrialisation creates a need for social mobility and cohesion;
This requires a common culture expanded education system and a state administration (the census, the map, the museum)
Nationalism = to impose homogenous high cultures on the entire population
Nationalism = invention, fabrication, falsity (Gellner)
Political perspective in modernism
Political (Breuilly, Brass, Hobsbawm)
Political need to create a national unity
Nationalism’s emergence requires a political elite that can use nationalism as a resource in its own power
Political rulers “use history as a legitimator of action and cement of group cohesion”
Adaption of old traditions and institutions to new situation
Invention of tradition (Hobsbawm)
1870 – 1914: invention of tradition main strategy to counter threat of mass democracy
Transmitted through primary education, public ceremonies, historical monuments
Nationalism – new “secular religion”
Describe instrumentalism
Use nationalism as an instrument for the political elite to strengthen their power. A way to take control over territory and resources.
Economic perspective in modernism
Versions of modernism:
Economic (Nairn, Hechter)
Based on neo-Marxist and rational choice theories
Nationalism is a reaction to the unequal distribution of resources between the centre and periphery. A periphery reaction to the development and exploitation by the centre
‘Internal colonialism’ (Michael Hechter): a process of uneven exchange between territories of a given state
Describe modernist nationalism
Starting points:
Nationalism is a product of modernisation and industrialisation in the 1800s; it is not meaningful to speak of either nationalism or nations before this time.
Nationalism is about politics and power
Describe invention of tradition
Hobshawn
Both nations and national identity are products of social engineering . Invented traditions is practices that become rules.
Who are the biggest names in the modernist theory
Nairn, Hechter (Economic)
Breuilly, Brass, Hobshawn (Political)
Gellner, Anderson, Hroch (Social / cultural)
Describe ethnosymbolism
Existence of ethnies, pre-existing ethnic communities - ‘cores’, long before modern nations.
La longue durée of collective identities and memories: ideas about golden ages, myths about national heroes and ancestors, ties to a ‘homeland’ in the creation and preservation of national identities.
Emphasizes the role of myths, symbols, memories, values and traditions in the formation, persistence and change of ethnicity and nationalism (Smith 2001).
Important thinkers: Anthony D. Smith, John Armstrong
First nation, then state
The nation defines the territory
Roots in romanticism
Blood and belonging
Particularities of cultures
Ethnosymbolism is a school of thought in the study of nationalism that stresses the importance of symbols, myths, values and traditions in the formation and persistence of the modern nation state.
As a critique of modernist theories of nationalism, ethnosymbolism defends the antiquity and la longue durée of nations while modernists believe nations are a purely modern phenomenon.
Exclusion of identities that do not fit into the official national identity.
Ethnic cleansing, genocide
Basis for claims for autonomy/independence for minorities and indigenous peoples
Who are the biggest names in the primordialist theory
Hastings, Geertz, Shils
Who are the biggest names in the ethnosymbolist theory
Anthony D. Smith, John Armstrong
Describe banal nationalism
Banal nationalism refers to the everyday representations of the nation which build a shared sense of national belonging amongst humans, a sense of tribalism through national identity. The term is derived from English academic, Michael Billig.
Examples of banal nationalism include the use of flags in everyday contexts, sporting events, national songs, symbols on money, popular expressions and turns of phrase, patriotic clubs, the use of implied togetherness in the national press, for example, the use of terms such as the prime minister, the weather, our team, and divisions into “domestic” and “international” news. Many of these symbols are most effective because of their constant repetition, and almost subliminal nature. Banal nationalism is often created via state institutions such as schools. It can contribute to bottom-up processes of nation-building.
Describe imagined communities
Benedict Anderson claim that Imagined Communities came about due to the printing press. After this people could read about their nation and its values daily. While members of a nation will never come to know one another there is a strong sense of community and solidarity among themselves.
They imagine a solidarity among themselves born out of a sense of shared past and present, as well as a perceived shared future.
People within a specific social context feel affinity, although they have no personal connections to each other
The reduced importance of the major religious communities left a spiritual void that nationalism could fill
The invention of the printing press (‘print-capitalism’)
Gender and nation
Gender and nationalism cannot be separated
It is through gendered production of power that nations come into being
The nation is a heteronormative project
Nations a natural extension of the family and kinship relations. The nation is our home (with traditional gender roles)
Gender perspective - Cultural / Ideological reproduction
Women are symbolic border guards - who to dress and behave, language, religion customs.
Main socializers of children
Signifiers of ethnonational difference through e.g. dress, teaching lullabies, folklore, food.
#Donottouchmyclothes
Gender perspective - Biological reproduction
Have more children - produce new members
Have less children – to ensure prosperity of future nation (infanticide, abortion of female foetus)
Control of women’s sexuality (do not cross boundaries)
Deny some women the right to reproduce
War rape as a weapon of war
Two discourses of the feminist approach
People as power - The Future of the nation is dependent on the continuous growth
The eugenics - Concerned about the quality of its members, immigration control or physical expulsion such as the holocaust.
Describe the feminist approach
Yuval Davis is saying that women are never absent from the nationalist discourse.
Wartime victims, mistresses and military prostitutes.
Nationalism is a male phenomenon and women are only a tool for reproduction.
Limiting the number of members of ‘undesirable’ groups take form of migration control or physical expulsion.
Changing nature of warfare by incorporating women in the military
What is globalisation
Globalization is the word used to describe the growing interdependence of the world’s economies, cultures, and populations, brought about by cross-border trade in goods and services, technology, and flows of investment, people, and information.
The engines
Technics – technological change, modern communications
Economics – Capitalism’s need for new markets
Politics – ideas, interests, power. Political leaders normative drivers
Actors of globalisation
States
TNCs
Media
Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs)
Nongovernmental organization (INGOs)
Experts and epistemic communities
Multinational corporations (MNCs)
High-profile individuals or activists (e.g. Bill Gates, Putin, Greta Thunberg)
Theoretical approaches to globalisation
Realist: still an anarchic system of states
Liberals: states no longer such central actors as they once were, cooperation central
Marxists: the latest stage in the development of capitalism
Constructivists, post-structuralists: the consequences for the international system depends on how the development interpreted, increased interactions change of norms, knowledge structures
Our globalised world today
States are not closed units anymore
The world economy is more interdependent than ever
Electronic communication has deeply changed social relations
A global culture creates similar urban areas, and a cosmopolitan culture
A global polity is emerging with transnational social and political movements
Global risks such as contagion of diseases, climate change and pollution are globalizing
Terrorism, trafficking, drug cartels are thriving
Characteristics of globalisation
Stretching
Social, political and economic activities impact directly or indirectly on other parts of the world
Intensification
An increase in interconnectedness
Acceleration
An increase in the pace of global flows and circulations
Deepening
The local and the global are more and more enmeshed
New world order
The Global South and the Global North
A new Global South?
Decrease in poverty
Before ca 2020, decrease in war and violence
Migration from global South to prosperous North.
Fragile states - dealing with legacies of colonialism and Cold War
What is cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism is the idea that all human beings are members of a single community. Its adherents are known as cosmopolitan or cosmopolite. Cosmopolitanism is both prescriptive and aspirational, believing humans can and should be “world citizens” in a “universal community”. The idea encompasses different dimensions and avenues of community, such as promoting universal moral standards, establishing global political structures, or developing a platform for mutual cultural expression and tolerance.
Cosmopolitanism comes from the Greekkosmos, ‘world’ andpolis, ‘city’. A cosmopolitan means a ‘citizen of the world’.
What is civic nationalism
Constructed : Civic nationalism, also known as liberal nationalism, is a form of nationalism that adheres to traditional liberal values of freedom, tolerance, equality, individual rights and is not based on ethnocentrism.
Roots in enlightenment – “all power emanates from the people”
Citizenship defines national identity
Universalist
Territory defines the nation
Consequences
Hierarchisation of identities - state is above ethnic and other identities
Assimilation
Culturecide
The pushing out of the non-citizen
Define state, nation-state and nation
State - a centralized political organization that imposes and enforces rules over a population within a territory. Max Weber :”state” is a polity that maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence
Nation State - A nation-state would be a sovereign territory with one group of individuals who share a common history. Today, a true nation-state in the academic sense of the world does not exist. Nearly every state (country) in the world contains more than one national group.
Nation - A nation is a community of people composed of one or more ethnicities and possessing a more or less defined territory and government, usually formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. Some nations are equated with ethnic groups (see ethnic nationalism) and some are equated with affiliation to a social and political constitution (see civic nationalism and multiculturalism). A nation is generally more overtly political than an ethnic group. A nation has also been defined as a cultural-political community that has become conscious of its autonomy, unity and particular interests.
What is nationalism?
The political principle which holds the political and the national unit should work in unison.
It is a political movement who work for the maintenance and autonomy, unity on behalf of the population
sentiments: of elite and of masses;
form of politics: state-strengthening vs. state-subverting;
ideology/political worldview: civic (state membership) and ethnic (group commitment);
What is globalisation?
Instantaneous communication and human interdependence made possible by the technological revolution. Shrinking world
Explain three relationships between globalisation and nationalism
- Globalisation has undermined the nationstate
- Nationalism is an enduring political force
- There is a complex web of links and connectedness between nationalism and globalisation
Decolonialisations and new nationalism
Based on liberation ideology developed in the colonies
Calls for democracy connected with nationalism
Decolonisation in Africa and Asia: wave of national independence movements. Ghana first out in 1957
Regional ethnonationalist wave in the West: Northern Ireland, Quebec, Basque Country
Number of independent states increases
Post colonialism perspectives on nationalism
Pratha Chaterjee , Homi Babha
The globalization of nationalism
Tension - accept modernism, at the same time breaking out from domination.
The west has claimed material superiority so need to take over, develop materially in new directions
Focus on spiritual and cultural aspects – no external force
Focus on the future – as the past of a nation on this specific territory may not have a history before colonialism – many of the African nations were artificially constructed.
Postcolonial approach to nationalism is a theoretical framework that analyzes the complex relationship between nationalism and colonialism. It argues that nationalism in the postcolonial world is deeply influenced by the legacy of colonialism and the ongoing struggle for decolonization.
They also highlight the importance of recognizing and celebrating the diversity of cultures and identities within postcolonial nations, rather than trying to impose a singular, homogenous national identity. Overall, the postcolonial approach to nationalism calls for a more inclusive, pluralistic, and equitable understanding of national identity and belonging.
Females as symbols of the nation
The physical land itself may be gendered female (i.e. “Motherland”, Svea, Marianne),
Considered to be a body in constant danger of violation by foreign males
National pride and protectiveness of “her” borders is gendered as masculine
Nationalism as discourse
Brubaker, Calhourn, Özkirimli, Babha
Discourse refers not only to ideas but to institutions and structures, everyday practices as well as specialized rituals, all of which constitute social relationships.
Cannot be reduced to analysing powerful institutions or actors. ‘Power relations are rooted in the whole network of the social’ (Foucault 2002: 345).
‘A way of speaking that shapes our consciousness’ a way that is ‘problematic enough to generate further questions, propelling us into further talk and producing debates over how to think about it’ (Calhourn 1997: 3)
Nations are constituted largely by the claims themselves
Brubaker:
Race/ethnicity/nation: ’Exist only in and through our perceptions and interpretations’
‘Cognitive schemas, discursive frames, organizational routines, institutional forms, political projects and contingent events’
We should think about ethnicity, race and nation
in terms such as
Relational
Processual
Dynamic
Eventful
Historical aspect of nationalism
1800’s The idea of nations developed – Marxist and liberal thoughts
1918-45 becomes a subject of academic inquiry in its own right
1945-1989 – richer and more diversified
1989 - to present - interdisciplinary approaches
Two main approaches outlined - based on historical experiences:
Ethnonationalism
Civic nationalism
Development of war and warfare
1500 - 1945
Decline of empires, rise of nation-state
More wars, greater cost in lives
War over territories, ideologies
The Cold War
East-West division
War over ideologies
Why cold?
Threat of mass destruction
Contemporary developments
More intra-state wars
Less inter-state wars
Hybrid wars
Globalisation of warfare
New meaning of security in a globalised world
What is security?
Neoclassical realism / Neorealism
Anarchy of international system
Militarism
Distrust
Sovereignty and need of survival
Liberal institutionalism
Importance of cooperation
Security through international institutions
Instruments of war
Culturecide
Crimes against humanity
Genocide
Terrorism
Cyber warfare
Low-scale/selective violence
Desinformation, propaganda, ”fake news”
Surveillance
Access to light weapons (875 million small arms in circulation worldwide, 80 million landmines dispersed)
Modern technology (mobiles, internet, hacking)
Drones
Discourse of war
Members of the other group are not really humans at all.
The use of animal terms to describe opponents. The others are cockroaches that need to be exterminated (e.g. Radio Mille Collines, Rwanda)
Dehumanisation a warning signal for genocide. www.genocidewatch.org
We are Safe. They are dangerous
The other is a weed that needs to be removed from the garden (Bauman about Nazism)
The other will kill you first - if you don’t act
Gender and war
Gendered violence part of strategies of violence. Increased levels of violence against women before and after conflict
Rape as a tactic of war
Ideas of women as carriers of honour
First international judgements of rape as a crime against humanity
Times of war and times of peace
No clear line between war and peace
Turning violence on and off
More than half of all conflicts re-ignite
Violence continues for parts of the population (e.g. gender-based violence)
Actors of war
War-lords and other ‘ethnopolitical entrepreneurs:’ provide a non-state, alternative system of economy and security
Governments are not in control of all of the territory
The UN (apathy or gentle giant?)
International alliances of states (threat to the UN system?)
Terrorists (individual passion or instruments?)
Civilians – proponents of peace or violence
Change in the world due to globalisation
Democratization
Gender equality. States that are less gender equal are more likely to engage in violence. Women’s participation increases the likelihood that a peace agreement is kept for two years with 20 percent, and that it will keep for 15 years with 35 percent.
Economic interdependence
Preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peacebuilding.
International law – e.g. the establishment of the ICC
Peace activism
Challenges ahead: climate change, pandemics, authoritarianism
Global political economy and migration
“Age of Migration”; migration becomes truly global in its scope
Voluntary movement of highly-paid professionals
Voluntary movement of low-paid, low-skilled workers
Forced migration
Migrants – passive receivers or drivers of globalisation?
Migration - a driver of globalization re both cultural and economic aspects
Nation-states central for the mobilization and control over workers
Migrants have limited political power on e.g. political life and laws regarding the working conditions of migrants in the hosting countries
Migration patterns in time of Globalisation
Migration is accelerating and globalising.
Globalisation increases migration, not the other way around
Nationalism aims to control migration – both emigration and immigration
The nation-state remains ’in charge’ of migration policies
Two significant types of migration: forced and voluntary
Hierarchies of citizenship
Differences between states
Universal human rights only an aspiration
Hierarchy of citizenship essential for the differentiation of the global labor market. Who has the right to cross a border? Who can get a visa? Who can travel without passport?
Competition over high-skilled migrants; dependence on low-skilled migrants, yet giving them only temporary or irregular status
Differences within states
Depends on both formal citizenship, then on your identity - a specific socially constructed position in society
Differences beyond states
Non-citizens. Sans papiers, irregular migrants
Neo-slavery
Care labour
11,5 million domestic workers around the world
66 % migrants, 75 % women (ILO 2015)
’Global care chains’
’Hierarchies of womanhood’
Philippines
The migration of domestic and care workers major aspect of the economy
Promoted by government
The racialised, ge dered construction of the ’maid’: neo-slavery
Example in Baylis et al, chapter 17).
Violence of welfare nationalism
Welfare nationalism means that immigrants do not deserve social rights
immigrants should never obtain social benefits and services even if they contribute to the labor market and pay taxes or become citizens.
Often combined with discourses of danger
Expression of both civic nationalism and ethnonationalism
Migration as a peace act
Refusing to take part in war and violence
Young men escaping military service and enforced enrolment
A response to international interventions for peace
Destabilising the line between peace as ’here’ and war as ’there’
Common ideas in ethnic nationalism
Mankind divided into nations
The nation has ‘ancient’ roots and is based on ‘ancient’ kinship
Golden Ages are times to be proud of
One’s own culture is superior
National heroes
The nation is a timeless entity and its survival is more important than the people who form it
Nationalisms seven rules (ethnonationalism)
- If a territory belonged to us over the course of 500 years and to you over the course of 50 years, it is ours: you were squatters.
- If a territory belonged to you over the course of 500 years and us over the course of 50 years, it is ours: borders must not be changed.
- If a territory belonged to us 500 years ago but not since then, it is ours: it is the cradle of our civilisation.
- If a majority of our people live there, it is ours: they enjoy the right to self-determination.
- If a minority of our people live there, it is ours: they must be protected against your oppression.
- All the above rules apply to us but not to you.
- Our dream of national greatness
What are foundational myths?
Stories of origin, where did the nation start?
Commemorated though songs, poetry and events.
Open to reinterpretation. Monument and decorative art.
Types of migration
Conflict-induced
Produces the type of refugee protected under the 1951 convention However, do not cover people who flee ‘generalised violence’, also often gender-blind
Environmental or natural disaster-induced – Climate change driven
Environmental degradation, plus hurricanes, droughts, earthquakes… About 20 million people atm – predicted to increase
Development induced
The most common of displacement - urban development, mining, dams, even conservation projects. Development projects often justified in economic terms
Human trafficking
The exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery
Mixed migration
Voluntary and involuntary migrants may take the same routes to the same destination. E.g., migrants arriving from Africa and Asia to Europe
Micro nations
- A smaller scale than a state-nation; forms:
Indigenous people: Saami in Scandinavia
National minorities: Basques, Catalans and Scots
Have been reinforced by globalization through a weakening of the state and its capacity to reproduce a cohesive national community:
Opportunities for international organization and greater influence (e.g. EU, funded from them that you cant get anywhere else
Resistance to perceived international threats to their culture:
But: do not contradict the nationality principle as such (share all features), rather reproduce it
A type of a national identity but on another level, connect to some nation, region and principle is the same
Macro- regional governance
EU law – primacy over the national law, at the same time its unclear how this will turn when it comes to global governance,
Transworld governance
E.g WTO, IMF, OECD, ILO and ICC
Micro nations /sub-national level
A smaller scale than a state-nation; forms:
Indigenous people: Saami in Scandinavia
National minorities: Basques, Catalans and Scots
Have been reinforced by globalization through a weakening of the state and its capacity to reproduce a cohesive national community:
-Opportunities for international organization and greater influence (e.g. EU, funded from them that you cant get anywhere else
Resistance to perceived international threats to their culture:
But: do not contradict the nationality principle as such (share all features), rather reproduce it
A type of a national identity but on another level, connect to some nation, region and principle is the same
Region-nations
Different broader, regional identities can be linked to globalization, justified in a similar way as earlier nationalist movements (common origin, history, language, culture, etc. )
The ideas of nationhood ‘above the state’: pan-arabism, pan-turkism, eurasianism (United by language, culture)
Eg. the EU (COE), AU, League of Arab States, political national identity
Again, the driving forces of weakening the state better communications, and nationalist tendencies in reaction to globalization:
do not contradict, only change the national framework of identity
Short history on nationalism
Before nationalism
Greek city-states
Feudalism
Empires
Political boundaries did not coincide with cultural boundaries. “The people” politically meaningless
Language and culture of the people of no interest to the rulers
Nationalism’s breakthrough
The French revolution 1789
Revolt against the monarchy – “the people” as the legitimate source of political power.
Industrialisation, emergence of a working class
People’s language and identity becomes politically significant
Nation-states’ consolidation
Historical developments
National liberation processes (e.g. Norway, Finland)
Fall of empires
World Wars I and II –> state-strengthening nationalism:
The United Nations (founded 1945) reinforced the ‘nations’ self-determination’;
European first, then global.
Signified by
Mass armies and conscription
Public schools and mass education
Press
Citizenship
Industrialisation
Languages
Borders
Time
Decolonisation and new nationalism
The end of the Cold War – second wave of nationalisms
