Origins of the State and the Nation Flashcards
Max Weber’s 3 Criteria
1) Human Community
2) Territory
3)Legitimate Use of Physical Force
How does sovereignty ensure Max Weber’s criteria?
- ultimate authority belongs to the state
- social contract theory (Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau): entrusts powers to government as necessary for protection
Social Contract Theory and Authors
- Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau
- a social contract through people entrust powers to a government as may be necessary for common
protection
Pluralistic Theory and Author
- Harold Laski
- sovereignty shifts constantly between groups
Monopolization according to Norbert Elias
Defines the nature of the state. Political entity has enough resources for hegemonic power.
Norbert Elias development of the modern state in 3 steps
1) territorial accumulation
2) creation of the royal monopoly
3) monopolization process
National definition
Group with similarity of birth and sharing the same culture and gods (goy).
Contemporary nation defintion
Politicization of the old meaning
4 main perspectives on the origins of the nation.
- Modernism
- Ethnosymbolism
- Ideology Theory
- Family parties theory
Modernism Perspective
Uniformize heterogenous
populations among states in the purpose of state domination and capitalism development.
Ethnosymbolism Perspective
Emphasizes the role of myths, symbols, memories, values and traditions to
explain the establishment of the nation and its change from ethnicity to nationalism.
Anthony D. Smith on ethnosymbolism
Analyzes the collective cultural identities over centuries.
Ideology Theory
Reaching a third perspective between these grand theories (modernism an d ethnosymbolism) based on
an existentialist or an essentialist standpoint.
Roger Brubaker’s argument
Nation is a category of analysis AND practice. Product of the cultural and political institutionalization of the nation by a political
movement: NATIONALISM.
Family Parties Theory + Authors
(De Winter, Gómez-Reino and Lynch)
Minority nationalist - advocate for national minorities and nations without a state
Majority nationalist - nations with a state versus internal and external threats
Each state has in common identity politics, and the focus on political sovereignty based on the self-determination
principle.
