Nationalism / National Identity / Language Flashcards
What revived interest in nationalism?
The revival of nationalism in the Western World (e.g. Ulster, Basques, Quebec)
How should we categorise nationalism according to Andersen?
As belonging with kinship, religion etc. Not fascism. No big thinkers of its own
How does Gellner view nationalism?
As “primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and national unit should be cogent”
If the state is the ‘shell’…
Nation is the substance
How does Cobban define a nation?
“Any territorial community, the members of which are conscious of themselves as members of a community”
The people are politically and culturally ‘what’?
The body of citizens, and the Volk (defined by language/race)
How does nation differ from other forms of kinship?
Due to the centrality of the territory
How does the nation differ from other territorial societies?
Uniform culture; provides stability and continuity over time
How has Hobsbawm described the nation?
As a macro-family, a pseudo-religion, a team
How important is ‘territory’?
Nation requires an extensive, bounded territory, or the image of such a territory
What is an example of a nation without a state?
Kurdistan
How has Seton-Watson viewed the attempt to define the nation?
There is no scientific definition, but the phenomena exists and existed
What widely accepted idea is challenged by Hobsbawm?
Not defined by members’ consciousness; suggests that all that is needed is the will to be a nation
How does Hobsbawm define a nation?
As “any sufficiently large body of people whose members regard themselves as a member of a nation”
How did Stalin define a nation in 1912?
As a historically evolved, stable community of language, territory, economic life, and psychological make up manifested in a community of culture
What is a quote from Andersen about what is a nation?
A nation is an imagined political community; and imagined as inherently limited and sovereign
Why does Anderson view the nation as sovereign?
Because it is born after the age when legitimacy of divinely ordained, dynastic realms had been destroyed
Why does Anderson view the nation as a community?
Because the nation is conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship.
How can we define nationalism?
As a set of beliefs about the nation
How has Hobsbawm defined nationalism?
As the concept of the nation, rather than the reality it represents. The principle which holds political and national unit together
What historians have viewed nationalism as an identity, a means of categorising oneself and others, fulfilling the fundamental human need for labelling?
McCrone, Penrose, Hopkins
Who have seen nationalism as an ideological system of morally charged beliefs about the world?
Kedourie, Smith, Greenfield
How does Anderson view nationality and nation-ness?
As cultural artefacts
What is Hastings’ definition of nationalism?
The political theory that each nation should have its own state and the belief that one’s own ethnic/national tradition is especially valuable and needs to be defended at almost any cost. Nationalism the movement that seeks to provide a state for a given nation
