Nationalism
Definition and Description
Nationalism is an important social and political phenomenon that involves the process of making a nation or nation-state into a definable identity. National identity has evolved into another major identity-based criterion, such as gender, ethnicity or class. In this regard, contemporary conflicts across the global stage are often infused, to some extent, with nationalist agendas, and many of the conflicts today are struggles concerning the formation of new national identities.
Although issues related to the increasingly global economy indicate that national interests and the power of the nation state are compromised, the ongoing potency of nationalism suggests otherwise. Globalization has been often accompanied by increasing democratization over the last two decades. As democracy increases, the revitalization of identities (ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic) has also occurred, leading to what is now called "the politics of difference". From nationalist and ethnic resurgences in east and central Europe (including the former Soviet Union), to the debates over separatism in Canada, and not excluding the profusion of social movements (environmental and anti-corporation) in Western democracies, issues of identity and difference have emerged powerfully today.
Currently, most of the 190+ states in the world are diverse, and encompass minority groups. Although many diverse nation states, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Brazil, tend to have strong national identities, other countries must endure separatist movements, such as the Bloc Quebecois in Canada, and still others, such as the former Yugoslavia, have had to deal with violence and bloodshed in so doing.
Why do people die in the name of nationalism? Possibly, the reason lies in the fact that it is a believable and convenient tenet, which unites people with its emotional appeal. Nationalism, as a concept, is usually merged with other political philosophies (moderate and radical) to create a powerful and believable ideology that is supported by the masses. So despite globalization’s challenge to national sovereignty and the supposed erosion of nation state, nationalism remains a very powerful force.
History
Historically, before the advent of the nation-state, ancient civilizations, such as the Roman Empire and Imperial China, conquered territories in the name of the emperor. Ordinary people, (often referred to as "peasants") held their allegiances not to the State, but rather, to feudal aristocracies. Hence, wars were fought, and borders were erected and eroded, along these lines and warlords held the lion’s share of power. Only in the latter part of the 18th century, when nation-states began to proliferate in North America, Latin America and Western Europe, were the parameters for both allegiances as well as warfare transformed to something resembling the contemporary version. In the 19th century, the ideology of nationalism gained currency, as exemplified by the popularity of "geist" and the homeland in Germany.
Meanwhile, however, as colonialism occurred in the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, a specific model of the nation-state was exported to these places, where the colonizing powers divided territories of the world in ways that sometimes either separated villages and families, or arbitrarily connected disparate cultural groups. By the mid-20th century, many of these places, such as India and the British West Indies, were affected by the fires of nationalism and eventually forged their own independence. Yet even these new nation-states were affected by political and cultural tensions within their own borders, resulting in fragmentation exemplified by India’s partition into India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as the West Indian Federation’s separation into autonomous island nations such as Jamaica, Barbados, and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
These cases, at the political level, are not so different from the balkanization of Yugoslavia in the post-Cold War era, except for the fact that there was far less bloodshed involved. Similarly, in the Baltic states, fragmentation and nationalism have together contributed to stable governance in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Theories: The Conditions That Engender Nationalism
Although nationalism is often viewed as a kind of natural or primordial form of human self-identification, most experts on the subject have maintained that nations and nationalism are a fairly recent phenomenon, despite their call to history and origins.
For many experts, nationalism has emerged out of the shift from agrarian to industrialized society. In agrarian society, there was a complex division of labor, with power located at the top, and an emphasis on informality and intimacy. With modernity, however, agrarian workers (peasants) moved to urban centers and a universalized and impersonal culture replaced that of agrarian culture. Nationalism, according to these experts, occurs when the modernized peoples find their roots in the folk culture (or zeitgeist) of the past, and draw upon the romantic stories of such a past to form the nation. Certainly, 19th century nationalism seems to reflect this model. In its more recent incarnation, nationalism arises in industrialized or modern societies when or where people need a standardized identity to draw upon.
Some thinkers have suggested that the rise of nationalism is sometimes due to some form of political, social or economic crisis (whether real or imagined) and generally provides the impetus for people to respond to nationalistic sentiments. Meanwhile, other analysts surmise that capitalism, the engine of globalization, made democracy more ubiquitous, and the outgrowth of increased democratization has been an increase in the number of micronational movements and episodes of balkanization today. Yet other theorists state that nationalism must be understood as a long term historical process, which may be tied to capitalism, industrialization and modernization.
Conversely, however, dissenting voices argue that nationalism is not simply a by-product of industrialization and capitalism, but the very essence of modernity; it is about creating social cohesion, which then engenders industrialization, societal improvements and economic progress. In this model, nationalism should be championed as an agent of emancipation and development for the less advanced and oppressed peoples of the world. This understanding of nationalism is quite distinct from the view that nationalism is the root of the violent episodes of balkanization and genocide, since it advances a modality of nationalism that is not defined by cultural, ethnic, linguistic or religious identities. Instead, in this civic model, nationalism - as a central feature of contemporary politics - acts as the mechanism that mobilizes the masses, and allows them to effectively deal with the ongoing transition into modernity.
Regardless of which perspective is examined, in a world where national boundaries and notions of identity have taken on increasing importance, nationalism must be understood as it relates to the use of power.
Focus: How Does Nationalism Contribute to the Formation of the Nation?
Over the last several decades, one of the most influential explanations for state (and nation) formation has been the idea of the "invention of the nation state". Described in a number of different ways, this theory states that a nation is by definition "an imagined community", composed of disparate members who are linked together by shared values, interests, and a sense of "belonging". Some experts suggest that this sense of commonality is facilitated through shared language, by the media (printed media in the past, and by electronic media today), leading to the formation of a shared identity. Other mechanisms, such as artifacts of history, exemplified by the map, the census and the museum, all function to create a sense of tradition and a cultural legacy in the imagination of the people. Likewise, education, with a focus on national history, is another device of nation building.
Out of these techniques of nation building arises the national narrative, which further propels the idea of a unique identity that is collectively shared, by resurrecting glories from the past and revitalizing national identities, in order to create new "imagined communities". In this way, although history and other cultural criteria craft a foundation of nationalism, these elements must be reinvented or reconstructed to serve current political agendas and actions.
Nationalism, therefore, rests upon the invention and reinvention of traditions, as a means of inculcating certain norms and values at the cultural level. As such, it is an internalized and invisible phenomenon, which is easy to assume but difficult to demonstrate. The very word, "nation" is derived from the Latin word "birth" and illustrates how the idea of the nation has become so naturalized, despite its synthetic legacy. The power of the nation and nationalism is largely due to the emotion and sentiment that it evokes, precisely because it is so internalized and sublimated. Hence, national identity is often perceived as being akin to other naturalized denominators of humanness, such as ethnicity, culture, language and religion.
-- Denise Youngblood Coleman
Editor in Chief and Executive Vice President
Bibliographic References:
Peter Alter, Nationalism
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
Seyla Benhabib, Democracy and Difference
Craig Calhoun, Nationalism (Concepts in Social Thought Series)
Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism
Ernest Gellner, Nationalism
Adrian, Hastings, The Construction of Nationhooc: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism
Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality
Tom Nairn, Faces of Nationalism: Janus Revisited
Anthony D. Smith, National Identity (Ethnonationalism in Comparative Perspective)
Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism: A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism