Nationalism & Its Varieties

Definitions of Nationalism

Ernest Gellner – Nationalism is the belief that the political and the national units should be congruent

Michael Hechter- “Nationalism is collective action designed to render the boundaries of the nation congruent with those of its governance unit” 

Types of Nationalism: State-Building Nationalism

“Nationalism that attempts to assimilate or incorporate culturally distinctive territories into a given state. It is the result of conscious efforts by rulers to make a multicultural population culturally homogenous.” (Hechter)

Why does state-building nationalism occur?

Geopolitical security models of other strong national states Need to create loyal citizens Need for state legitimation efficient way to extract resources produces more mobile work and military

force

Class Exercise: the (newly independent) Republic of California

How do states promote nation-hood?

public education the military promotion of new images, symbols, and ideals

through the media and public imagery physical unification and linking of territory (i.e.

through new roads) establishment and maintenance of official

language(s) suppression of other sub-national cultures

More ways states promote nation-ness

myth making - creation of past shared history/re-writing of history so as to support idea of the nation

glorification of “national” heroes creation of national currency promotion of certain kinds of dress creation of a common literature

National Dress: Participant in the Glasgow Highland Games

Building Nations: Linking territory- the steam train in India and building roads in Britain

Building Nations: National heroes and national symbols

Britain: Shakespeare

U.S.: Statue of Liberty

The symbols of the nation: Brazilian football

Nation-building through the military: soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces, left; U.S. soldiers on parade, below

Peripheral nationalism

“Occurs when a culturally distinctive territory” (or people) “resists incorporation into an expanding state, or attempts to secede and set up its own government.” (Hechter)

Another (better) definition: peripheral nationalism occurs when a state-less but culturally distinctive people seek to establish autonomy or self-rule in the name of their “nation”.

Examples of Peripheral Nationalisms: Kurds, Quebecois, Welsh, Basques

Kurdish new year celebration.

Why does peripheral nationalism occur?

Imposition of direct rule (Hechter) Competition between local and central

elites Economic and political discrimination?

(sometimes but not always; insufficient cause!)

Irredentist nationalism

Nationalism that seeks to extend the existing boundaries of a state by incorporating territories of an adjacent state occupied principally by co-nationals

Examples: Sudeten Germans (WWII); Serbia under Milosevic calling for integration of all Serb-inhabited areas of former Yugoslavia into a greater Serbia (1990s)

Unification nationalism

Merger of a politically divided but culturally similar territory or territories into one state.

Example: Italy, 19th century

Ethnic and Nationalist Conflict:

How do they differ (if at all)?

Since the end of World War II, 16.5 million people have died in internal conflicts, compared with 3.3 million in interstate wars. There have been about 122 civil wars since 1945, compared with 25 conventional wars. Many are between different ethnic groups.

Youths in Kabul, Afghanistan, sift through rubble.

There are currently about 250 active ethnopolitical movements using various forms of protest and rebellion.

Nationalist conflict occurs in all regions of the world Serious conflicts,

1995-98: 16 Europe 10 Middle East 31 Asia 31 Africa 7 Latin America

Myths of nationalist conflict (#1):

MYTH: “Nationalist conflict occurs because of ancient tribal or ethnic hatreds.” (primordialism)

NO. Nationalist conflicts nearly always occur because of economic and political policies pursued by modern-day states.

In other words, so-called “nationalist conflict” is rarely a conflict over ethnicity, and much more a conflict about politics.

Former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. Photo: BBC.

What are some of the practices that might create nationalist grievances?

Centralization (end of indirect rule) “Ethnocide”

Creation of an “official” language Banning of certain forms of cultural expression

(language, music, dress) Preferential employment opportunities Preferential political opportunities for majority

population

Myths of Nationalist Conflict (#2)

MYTH: “There is more nationalist and ethnic conflict today than in any other time, and the number of such conflicts keeps increasing.”

NO. The rate of nationalist conflict rose steadily from the 1950s to the early 1990s and has since been dropping. Source: Minorities at Risk Project

Source: Minorities at Risk Project

Myths of nationalist conflict (#3):

MYTH: “Nationalist conflict usually occurs between two or more different social groups or ethnic communities.”

NO. Most nationalist conflicts occur between a minority group (or PART OF A MINORITY group, and a state (and its forces).

A Russian tank in Chechnya.

Modes of nationalist conflict

Conventional politics Nonviolent protest and direct action Rebellion

70 ethnic groups have waged armed conflicts for autonomy or independence since the 1950s (not including liberation movements of former European colonies)

Note: the most common form of nationalist conflict is NOT violence

Of 161 groups pursuing self-determination in 1998-2000, only about 41 (a quarter) used violence. The rest used conventional politics and nonviolent protest.

Kurdish-rights activist Osman Baydemir on the campaign trial in Diyarbakir, Turkey, March 2004. Photo: NF Watts

Resolving nationalist conflict

State acknowledgement of collective rights and provision of institutional means for pursuing interests

Federalism (Hechter) independence

Only 5 new states emerged from ethnic conflict in the last 40 years (East Timor, Slovenia, Croatia, Eritrea, Bangladesh)

Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.