Bart Tromp

Comments on the Contribution of Paul Dukes

By presenting us with three different stereotypes of Russia in three periods of the 20th century, as to be found in the works of Robert Seton-Watson and his son Hugh Seton­Watson, Paul Dukes has made a connection between an observed phenomenon and the position of the observer.

In his view there must be a link between the decline ofthe British Empire on the one hand , and, on the other hand, the way British intellectuals have looked at the develop­ment ofnationalism in Eastern Europe and the dissolution ofthe multinational empires there. By suggesting such a link, he has made a most interesting point. We should never forget - though we usually do - that when looking at historical and social pro­cesses such as the fall and disintegration ofthe Soviet Union, we bring with us a host of suppositions, based largelyon the way we look at our own state and society.

This being said , I must confess that I am not really persuaded by Dukes' argument. In the first place, there is the issue of empirical generalization. Robert Seton-Watson was undoubtedly an interesting man and his son became one of the most weil known British authorities on the subject of Central and Eastern Europe in the first part of the 20th century. But what incontestable evidence is there that they, in their views of Rus­sia and the Soviet Union, were indeed spokesmen 'for a whole group ofpolitical wri­ters from a particular generation '? Which group or groups are referred to and in which way can they be thought of as representative for a broader, contemporaneous British view of Eastern Europe?

A second set of questions is perhaps more difficult to answer. How can it be shown that these views, national images and stereotypes are indeed dependent on the brand of British nationalism supposedly represented by the Seton-Watsons, and how can it be demonstrated that this, in turn, was the result ofthe decline and fall ofthe British empire? From the sociology of knowledge perspective - and clearly this is the perspec­tive Dukes has, perhaps implicitly, chosen - these are central questions. The history of the sociology of knowledge so far has shown us that these are indeed very complicated questions. I However, th is should not prevent us from posing them, while at the same time recognizing at least the heuristic worth ofthe problem as defined and described in the paper of Dukes.

Taking this perspective, it would be tempting to look for a parallel case in the Netherlands, also a multinational empire in decline during the first part ofthe 20th cen­tury. But then the question ar is es as to whether it is not misleading to use the concept of 'multinational empires' for overseas, colonial empires like Great Britain and the

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Netherlands as weil as continental and contiguous ones, like Russia , Austro-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. Without going into detail , it seems to me that the differences are weightier than the resemblances .

Nationalism

Rather than following th is line of argumentation in terms of the historical and socio­political context in which national images of multinational empires are being made, I would like to make a few tentative remarks on nationalism as it emerged inside those continental empires.

My starting point is the theory of 'social closure ' (SchliesslIng) to be found in Max Weber's Wirtschajt IInd Gesellschaji. With social closure Weber refers to processes in which social groups try to maximize their advantages by excluding others from access to resources in genera!. Weber used th is concept originally for economie groups' , but it can be employed in a broader sense, because it is in a way constitutive for social groups in genera\: by social closure, they define the boundaries between 'us ' and 'them '.3 Weber also claims that any demonstrabie characteristic can be invoked and used to cre­ate social closure: religion , language, culture, ethnicity, class and so on.

In other words, Weber gives us here a dynamic perspective on the creation and mobi­lization of political and social groups in genera!.4 A further distinction can be made between ' exclusionary closure ' - the use of closure to defend the privileged position of a powerful group - and ' usurpatory closure' . 5 In this case, the negatively privileged try to make inroads on the position ofthe elites or at least to defend themselves from the latter. It is also possible for a group to use both strategies with regard to different groups, like the poor white in the South ofthe United States of America , using forms ofusurpatory closure in trying to deal with the white elites and middle classes, and exclusionary closure to keep out the black workers.

Applying these distinctions to the historical multinational empires, it is possible to find and discern the ' exclusionary closure ' strategies ofthe subjugated or low status groups in those empires. Nationalism can then be seen as one such usurpatory strategy, the one in which nationality is invented as a boundary keeping principle, which at the same time is constitutive for the group as such.

Seen from this perspective nationalism is not the outcome of a secular historical pro­cess in which deep-seated communal feelings assert or reassert themselves, but a more or less conscious stratagem , used by political and intellectual entrepreneurs to create some kind of cultural-political monopoly. There is nothing 'natural' in nationalism. It is invented, just as so many traditions turn out to have been invented.ó In the same way that the emergence of protest movements cannot be explained by referring to feelings of deprivation and injustice, the emergence of nationalist ie movements cannot persuasi­vely be explained in terms national feelings, history, tradition and so on. Men have multiple and overlapping social identities, and can define themselves accordingly as members of several groups: family, community, profession , class, region, religion, lan­guage and so on. And for all those collective identities and group memberships one can invoke historical and cultural arguments and considerations. The big question is why, in some times and some circumstances, mostly in crises and wars (but also in sports), national identity takes predominance over all others.

156 Comments on the Contribution of Paul Dukes

Without doubt, this had (and has) to do with the model of France and the French Revolution, which fused nation and state. The model became exemplary in the 19th century, because it not only promised independence, but also self-determination and democracy; although in 'Rousseaunesque' fashion, stressing the collective nature of democracy, with all its hidden implications of suppressing the rights of individuals. 7

This dismal connection between 'nation' and ' state' sounded the death-knell for the multinational empires of Europe. The cause oftheir breakdown, however, was not so much their multinational character, but rather their status as the last representatives of the ancien régime. As people 's sovereignty and self-determination during the 19th cen­tury became progressively the only acceptable principles ofthe legitimaey ofthe state, thereby succeeding the dynastie principle oflegitimaey ofthe old regime, nationalism was irresistibly channelled into the search for a separate nation-state.

There are no longer multinational empires, with the possible exception of China (of which al most 90% ofthe population is Han-Chinese). But the overriding problem in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union now is the viability ofthe multinational state. Following the logic of the identity of state and nation, any multinational state is self-contradictory, the more so when nationhood is not defined in statelike terms (the French model), but in those of a supposed 'ethnic' identity. But with 4,000 potential ' nations ' in the world , which do not inhabit separate territories, it is the homogeneous nat ion-state itselfthat is destined to become obsolete. Or to put it more bluntly: such a state has never existed, apart from peculiar exceptions as lceland.

In this sense, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are not a special case. Only under very exceptional conditions do 'nations ' and 'states' coincide, and th en only as a result of enduring and forceful policies by central authorities. s There are no 'natural' nation-states, just as 'mononational' empires never existed. So the problem of the multinational empire is again echoed as the problem ofthe multinational state. However, in this case 'nationhood' is defined not in political terms - i.e., membership ofa political community = the state - but is perceived as an 'ethnic' concept.9

One possible solution to this problem was proposed al most a century ago, precisely in the context of a multinational empire, in which, as lore would have it, mobilization orders had to be printed in twelve different languages : the Austro-Hungarian Kaiser und König Doppelmonarchie. I refer to the attempt made by the Austrian marxists Otto Bauer and Karl Renner to develop a theory (and political practice) ofnation and nationality within the empire, which made a c1ear distinction between state (i .e. empire) and nation. This did not imply a forced connection between nationality and territory -nationality became a question of free, individual choice. 'o It seems to me that these are excellent principles when looking for a reconciliation between nationality and state, which goes beyond the ethnic closure of the nat ion-state. The legitimacy of the state can nowadays neither be based on the dynast ic principle, nor on that of ethnic homoge-nei~ •

References

1. The problem ofthe ' Seinsverbundenheit des Wissens' was originally formulated in the twenties by Karl Mannheim , and found its classical exposition in his Ideology

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and Utopia. An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowiedge. London, 1936. 2. Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesel/schaft. Glïlndriss der verstehende Soziologie.

(1920), ftinfte revidierte Auflage, Tübingen, 1976, I. Halbband, p. 20 I. 3. See the seminal work by Frank Parkin, Marxism and Class TheOI)'. A Bowgeois

Critique. London, 1979. 4. Bart Tromp, De wetenschap der politiek. Verkenningen. Leiden, 1993, pp. 219-220. 5. Parkin, Mm:--äsm and Class TheOly, pp. 44-89. 6. See Eric Hobsbawn and Terence Ranger(eds.), The Invention ofTradition. Cam­

bridge, 1983. The general not ion of'invented traditions' can be used without com­pletely accepting Hobsbawn 's interpretation of nationalism in his Nations and Nationalism Since 1780. Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge, 1990, revised edi­tion, 1992.

7. Peter AIters' Nationalism (London, second edition, 1994) is still the best short introduction to, and conceptualization of' nationalism'. A parallel and elaborate historical-political analysis of different forms of nationalism is given by Liah Greenfield in her Nationalism. Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge, 1992. On the 'Rousseaunesque' interpretation of democracy, especially in the context of nationa­lism, see J.R. Talmon, The Myth ofthe Nation and the Vision ofRevolution. The Origins of Ideological Polarisation in the T.ventieth Centw)'. London, 1981 .

8. The standard case has been described by Eugene Weber in his Peasants into Frenchmen. The Modernization of Rural France 1870-1914. Stanford, 1976.

9. The wars in former Yugoslavia demonstrate in a grisly way that people who have never before thought ofthemselves in so-called 'ethnic' terms, have been forced to identify themselves as 'Croat' , 'Serb', 'Muslim' and so on.

10. See L. Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism. lts Rise, Growth and Dissolution, vol. II: The Golden Age. Oxford, 1978, pp. 285-290; See also the translations of relevant passages from Bauer and Renner, in T. Bottomore and Patrick Goode (eds. and translators), Austromarxism. Oxford, 1978, pp. 103-125.

158 Comments on the Contribution of Paul Dukes