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When Is The Nation? Towards an understanding of theories of nationalism
Understanding Nationalism brings together leading scholars of nationalism, including John Breuilly, Walker Connor, Steven Grosby, Eric Hobsbawm, Anthony D Smith and Pierre van den Berghe, to address one of the most contested questions in the study of nationalism "when is the nation?".
The book compares and contrasts the three major approaches to modernism, primordialism and ethno-symbolism, to systematically examine the strengths and weaknesses of each theoretical strand. With an interactive format, readers are able to see how these theorists reflexively respond to their critics and define the differences between them. Part II follows with case studies that address the issues raised by the three schools, examining specific nations and national groups in Greece, America, Fiji, Russia and England.
This unique volume will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of nationalism, ethnicity and global conflict.
The book compares and contrasts the three major approaches to modernism, primordialism and ethno-symbolism, to systematically examine the strengths and weaknesses of each theoretical strand. With an interactive format, readers are able to see how these theorists reflexively respond to their critics and define the differences between them. Part II follows with case studies that address the issues raised by the three schools, examining specific nations and national groups in Greece, America, Fiji, Russia and England.
This unique volume will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of nationalism, ethnicity and global conflict.
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First published August 9, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 3, 2024
This insightful volume, based on earlier conference presentations, offers a look at the three leading paradigms in the study of nationalism (primordialism/perennialism, modernism, and ethnosymbolism) and their respective approaches to dating the emergence of nations in history. With essays from leading scholars in the field - among them, John Breuilly, Eric Hobsbawm, and Anthony Smith - the book begins with brief summaries of the three approaches, then offers reflections on the question of dating nations (and nationalism), each followed by a responding essay from scholar of another paradigms.
There is a lot of worthwhile analysis in the book. Breuilly offers a good case against those who trace English national identity back to the early medieval period, particularly through their misreading of Bede who - as Breuilly points out - used the term 'English' as less of a description with any ethnic or linguistic meaning, and more of a political project pressing the claims of Roman Christian rulers against pagan rulers (p.19). Indeed, even for the slightly later King Alfred, the 'English' (or 'Anglish') label with which he imbued himself was restricted to a small noble elite (p.21), not a sentiment felt or shared widely across the state now known as England. As is typical with some modernists, including Hobsbawm, Breuilly's use of the term 'national' to refer to attempts by the early medieval rulers to unify the kingdoms in the land now known as England is somewhat confusing. He doesn't for a second mean to imply the existence of 'national' identity as we know now it, and a better, more specific term might have been more appropriate.
Unsurprisingly, the primordialist/perennialists are the weakest. Grosby, defending a primordialist view of nationalism as an extension of humankind's tendency to form in-groups, though also admitting the socially constructed nature of national identity (simply arguing it is yet another manifestation of socially constructed identity), misses the mark by some way. His argument neglects (as do those of the ethnosymbolists, and of fellow-primordialist van den Berghe) the vast differences between national identification and pre-modern forms of identity boundary-making (chiefly, but not exclusively, the identification with specifically demarcated territory). Grosby also falsely presents Gellner as positing 'the existence of a culturally homogenous modern society' (p.61) without seeming to realise that Gellner's entire point is that it is the project of nationalists to create and diffuse homogeneity. He isn't saying an homogenous society must pre-suppose nationalism, rather nationalism attempts to fashion one.
Anthony Smith's essay is disappointing, and one does wonder why he has the reputation he does given how a lot of his analysis is superficial and incoherent, arguing against modernism for giving an 'ideal type of the nation that [...] [rules out] [...] any conception of the nation that does not conform to the canonical modern Western nation' (p.97). But how can this charge of Eurocentrism be avoided when the very vocabulary and conceptualisation of "nationhood" derives from Western Europe, as Smith himself identified in his 1991 National Identity? He posits some useful distinguishing markers of nations: self-definition, myth-making, territorialisation, public culture, legal standardisation. But, as critics have pointed out, many of these were indeed present in pre-modern identities to the point where one needs to question what specifically marks out nations as different? Territorialisation goes the farthest to explaining this, but Smith doesn't linger much on the specific process of demarcation that defines national identity and separates (no pun intended) it from pre-modern conceptions of territory.
Van den Berghe's critique of Smith is typically perennialist, but does provide a useful definition of nationhood as "politicised ethnicity" (p.115), although this would also include King Alfred, for instance, as a nationalist. Despite his scientifically inaccurate claims that 'We favour fellow ethnics because [...] we believe that we are more closely biologically related to them' (p.114), which can be disproved by even the simplest anecdotal evidence, and ridiculous assertion that anti-racist policies like Affirmative Action are 'worse than the disease [racism]' (p.121), Van den Berghe's contribution isn't a complete write-off. He does correctly note how most contemporary states 'simply pretend to be nation-states, and their ruling elites have a mutual interest in maintain that fiction' (p.117). However, he takes this as evidence that the nation-state is not the hegemonic model of state formation in the world today. What he evidently fails to realise, then, is that it is state elites who have the power to determine that (needing to pay variable attention to the wishes of the populace over which they rule, depending on the extent to which they possess a monopoly on violence).
The book ends with "Case study" essays, the strongest of which is probably Susan Mary-Grant's "When was the first new nation" about American nationalism, which challenges the arguments that American national identity did not formulate until the mid-19th century. Instead, utilising a hybrid ethnosymbolist-modernist framework and demonstrating evidence of emerging patterns of nationalist ritual in the Revolutionary generations.
The conclusion offers a dynamic analysis of all that has come before. The editors rightfully point to Smith's conflation of the terminology of ethnicity and nationhood, as well as point out the limits of Grosby's definition. As they conclude, there is no definitive paradigm that emerges victorious from this book. Any student of nationalism will be able to extract the good from the bad, and the contributions are exemplary of the prevailing perspectives. Perhaps a little dated now, particularly neglectful of post-nationalism and indeed the "reemergence" of nationalism in the global West (predicted by Billig), it's an important addition to any library.
There is a lot of worthwhile analysis in the book. Breuilly offers a good case against those who trace English national identity back to the early medieval period, particularly through their misreading of Bede who - as Breuilly points out - used the term 'English' as less of a description with any ethnic or linguistic meaning, and more of a political project pressing the claims of Roman Christian rulers against pagan rulers (p.19). Indeed, even for the slightly later King Alfred, the 'English' (or 'Anglish') label with which he imbued himself was restricted to a small noble elite (p.21), not a sentiment felt or shared widely across the state now known as England. As is typical with some modernists, including Hobsbawm, Breuilly's use of the term 'national' to refer to attempts by the early medieval rulers to unify the kingdoms in the land now known as England is somewhat confusing. He doesn't for a second mean to imply the existence of 'national' identity as we know now it, and a better, more specific term might have been more appropriate.
Unsurprisingly, the primordialist/perennialists are the weakest. Grosby, defending a primordialist view of nationalism as an extension of humankind's tendency to form in-groups, though also admitting the socially constructed nature of national identity (simply arguing it is yet another manifestation of socially constructed identity), misses the mark by some way. His argument neglects (as do those of the ethnosymbolists, and of fellow-primordialist van den Berghe) the vast differences between national identification and pre-modern forms of identity boundary-making (chiefly, but not exclusively, the identification with specifically demarcated territory). Grosby also falsely presents Gellner as positing 'the existence of a culturally homogenous modern society' (p.61) without seeming to realise that Gellner's entire point is that it is the project of nationalists to create and diffuse homogeneity. He isn't saying an homogenous society must pre-suppose nationalism, rather nationalism attempts to fashion one.
Anthony Smith's essay is disappointing, and one does wonder why he has the reputation he does given how a lot of his analysis is superficial and incoherent, arguing against modernism for giving an 'ideal type of the nation that [...] [rules out] [...] any conception of the nation that does not conform to the canonical modern Western nation' (p.97). But how can this charge of Eurocentrism be avoided when the very vocabulary and conceptualisation of "nationhood" derives from Western Europe, as Smith himself identified in his 1991 National Identity? He posits some useful distinguishing markers of nations: self-definition, myth-making, territorialisation, public culture, legal standardisation. But, as critics have pointed out, many of these were indeed present in pre-modern identities to the point where one needs to question what specifically marks out nations as different? Territorialisation goes the farthest to explaining this, but Smith doesn't linger much on the specific process of demarcation that defines national identity and separates (no pun intended) it from pre-modern conceptions of territory.
Van den Berghe's critique of Smith is typically perennialist, but does provide a useful definition of nationhood as "politicised ethnicity" (p.115), although this would also include King Alfred, for instance, as a nationalist. Despite his scientifically inaccurate claims that 'We favour fellow ethnics because [...] we believe that we are more closely biologically related to them' (p.114), which can be disproved by even the simplest anecdotal evidence, and ridiculous assertion that anti-racist policies like Affirmative Action are 'worse than the disease [racism]' (p.121), Van den Berghe's contribution isn't a complete write-off. He does correctly note how most contemporary states 'simply pretend to be nation-states, and their ruling elites have a mutual interest in maintain that fiction' (p.117). However, he takes this as evidence that the nation-state is not the hegemonic model of state formation in the world today. What he evidently fails to realise, then, is that it is state elites who have the power to determine that (needing to pay variable attention to the wishes of the populace over which they rule, depending on the extent to which they possess a monopoly on violence).
The book ends with "Case study" essays, the strongest of which is probably Susan Mary-Grant's "When was the first new nation" about American nationalism, which challenges the arguments that American national identity did not formulate until the mid-19th century. Instead, utilising a hybrid ethnosymbolist-modernist framework and demonstrating evidence of emerging patterns of nationalist ritual in the Revolutionary generations.
The conclusion offers a dynamic analysis of all that has come before. The editors rightfully point to Smith's conflation of the terminology of ethnicity and nationhood, as well as point out the limits of Grosby's definition. As they conclude, there is no definitive paradigm that emerges victorious from this book. Any student of nationalism will be able to extract the good from the bad, and the contributions are exemplary of the prevailing perspectives. Perhaps a little dated now, particularly neglectful of post-nationalism and indeed the "reemergence" of nationalism in the global West (predicted by Billig), it's an important addition to any library.
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January 19, 2021Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews