Vol.10 No.2 ---- Spring 1996

Contents

SPECIAL ISSUE ON NATIONALISM

Introduction

Nationalism in Theory and Reality
Jeffrey Friedman

Articles

The Modern Religion?
Liah Greenfeld

The Myth of the Civic Nation
Bernard Yack

Civic Nationalism: Oxymoron?
Nicholas Xenos

Nation-States and States of Mind:
Nationalism as Psychology
Martin Tyrrell

Explaining Monoculturalism: Beyond
Gelner's Theory of Nationalism
Damian Tambini

The Multiculturalism of Fear
Jacob T. Levy

Review Essays

What Rough Beast?
Nations and Nationalism since 1780
by E. J. Hobsbawm
Eugen Weber

The State of Nationalism
Nationalism and the State
by John Breuilly
Charles Tilly

Nationalism is an essentially secular form of consciousness, one that, indeed, sacralizes the secular. This renders the tempation to treat it as a religion preblematic. The framewok of individual and collective identities in modern societies, nationalism both obscures the importance of the transcental concerns that lie at te core of great religions and undermines their authority. Though instrumental in the devlopment of nationalism, religion now exists on its sufferance, and serves mainly as a tool for the promotion of nationalist ends, not vice versa.

The idea of a purely civic nationalism has attracted Western scholars, most of whom rightly disdain the myths that sustain ethnonationalist theories of political community. Civic nationalism is particularly attractive to many Americans, whose peculiar national heritage encourages the delusion that their mutual association os based solely on consciously chosen principles. But this idea misrepresents political reality as surely as the ethnonationalist myths it is designed to combat. And propogating a new political myth is an especially inappropriate way of defending the legacy of Enlightenment liberalism from the dangers posed by the growth of nationalist political passions.

Recent attempts to distinguish a normatively acceptable "civic nationalism" -- as distinct from an irrationally tainted "ethnic nationalism" -- have failed to take seriosly the implications of the transition from the city as the immediate spatial unit of the patria to the more abstract national state that replaced it. The nation-state has required a mythologizing naturalism to legitimize it, thus blurring the distinction between "civic" and "ethnic." The urban political experience of the patria is lost to us; cosmopolitan intellectuals should resist the comforting temptation to recover it in the nation, and should recognize civic nationalism for the oxymoron it is.

The rise of nationalism parallels that of the state, suggesting that the relationship between the two is symbiotic and that nations are neither natural nor spontaneous but rather are political constructions. Ernest Gellner's economically determinist account of the rise of the nation state, however, understates the emotive and psychological appeal of nationalist ideology. The Social Identity Theory of Henri Taifel, by contrast, suggests that nationalism benefits from possibly innate human tendancies to affiliate in social groups and to act in furtherance of these groups, while Serge Moscovici's social psychology of popular belief elucidates the means by which tendencies can take the shape of nationalism in mass publics.

For Ernest Gellner, nationalism occurs in the modern period because industrial societies, unlike agrarian ones, need homogenous languages and cultures in order to work efficiently. Thus, states and intelectuals mobilize capaigns of asimilation through public education and the culture industries. Gellner's theory, however, fails to explain all forms of nationalism, is overly materialistic, and at times relies on dubious functionalist explanations. A more satisfactory theory would take into account the cultural content of nationalism -- not only myths, but political culture -- as well as phenomena of identity and collective action.

The liberalism of fear urged by Judith Shklar emphasizes the dangers of political violence, cruelty, and humiliation. those dangers clearly mark ethnic and cultural conflicts, so the liberalism of fear is an especially appropriate political ethic for an age marked by such conflicts. A multiculturalism of fear keeps its attention on those central political dangers while also noting that some kinds of cruelty and humiliation might not be appreciated without reference to the larger ethnic and cultural context, and that treating ethnicity and culture as completely outside of politics is not the best way to prevent cruelty.

Eric Hobsbawm's Nations and Nationalism since 1780 effectively describes the novelty and artificiality of the modern nation and nation-state, emphasizing the role that cultural and political elites have played in constructing nations, especially through nationally homegenous schools and partly invented national traditions and histories. By defining traditionalism as the congruence between nation and state, however, Hobsbawm gives insufficient attention to the sense in which nationalism goes beyond national patriotism to express chauvinsim, xenophobia, and paranois. He is also too sanguie about the ethnic conflicts that will inevitably arise in the multilingual societies he endorses.

John Breuilly's Nationalism and the State provides an indispensable guide to the history of nationalist doctrines and practices since 1800. Yet it misses a crucial dynamic. Top-down nationalizing efforts by European rulers generated bottom-up demands for autonomy or independence by political entrepreneurs claiming to represent distinct nations. Those demands gained credibility and strength when third parties such as great powers and international organizations validated them. This process established an evolving internationall procedure and an incentive structure that promote top-down suppression of minorities, bottom-up bids for recognition, and violent struggles among the parties.

Return to Home Page