Nations and Nationalism

Question 1

Ethnic group

Answer 1

Community claiming common language, religion, ancestry

Question 2

Nation

Answer 2

• Categorization
• Comradeship
• Commitment to political autonomy, usually statehood

Question 3

Patriotism

Answer 3

Commitment to the nation

Question 4

Nationalism

Answer 4

• Sense of integrity and value of national community

- Deeply committed to nation’s political aspirations

Question 5

National identity

Answer 5

Based on group characteristics and political aspirations

Question 6

Nation-state

Answer 6

State territory matches boundaries of national community

• This is rare
• Most states are multi-national

Question 7

National self-determination

Answer 7

The principle supporting the creation of nation-states

Question 8

Cultural nationalism

Answer 8

• Nation builds on ethnic foundations
• JG Herder: Nation building ‘natural’ and durable
• Anthony Smith adopted to modernity: ethnicity on its own does not make a nation
• Common justification for national liberation struggle
• Exclusive nationalism = can tell who is inside and outside of the nation

Question 9

Why “cultural” and not “ethnic”?

Answer 9

• Ethnicity is not a substitute for race
• Key subjective component – beliefs-culture
• Selective – which culture? Which parts? Religion, history? Etc.

Question 10

Political nationalism

Answer 10

• Nation constructed on foundations of the state
• Borders create the foundation for the state
• States grant citizenship rights
• Social contract – deliberation and democracy
• Nationalism can emerge as an expression of social unity (Rousseau)
• Political principles – set of political principles bound by the national community
• Common in established states
• Inclusive, assimilationist -nationalism
• Eric Hobsbawm: States have ‘invented traditions’
• Benedict Anderson: A nation is an ‘imagined community’

Question 11

Varieties of nationalism

Answer 11

1) Which community?

2) How many?

Question 12

Liberal nationalism

Answer 12

• Pursuit of individual and collective freedom

- Creates a world of equal nation-states

Question 13

Conservative nationalism

Answer 13

• Existing national community made natural, cohesive

- Defends own nation against internal and external threats

Question 14

Expansionist nationalism

Answer 14

• Culturally or racially defined national community

- Strives to complete national integration by incorporating other territories

Question 15

Anti and post-colonial nationalism

Answer 15

• Communities defined by colonial boundaries

- Pursues imperfect national self-determination

Question 16

Brief history of nationalism - effects of the french revolution

Answer 16

• National sovereignty – Nation as the seat of all power (transformed politics)
• Declaration of the Rights of Man #3: ‘The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation’
• Mass conscription – Built comradeship (normal people could be in the military)
• Spurred nationalist reaction of rivals

Question 17

Brief history of nationalism - effects of WWI

Answer 17

• Collapse of major empires – Released national energies (new nation-states created)
• New Soviet empire was created
• National self-determination as the path to peace and freedom
• But, problems with nations – Who is in and who is out? How can you sort / separate them, many require force / ethnic cleansing

Question 18

Brief history of nationalism - effects of WWII

Answer 18

• European states weakened from the war – Led to decolonization
• European integration