Nationalism Lecture 2: Key Concepts

1. NationalismLecture 2: Key Concepts Prof. Lars-Erik Cederman Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Center for Comparative and International Studies (CIS) Seilergraben 49, Room G.2 lcederman@ethz.ch http://www.icr.ethz.ch/teaching/nationalism Assistant: Kimberly Sims, CIS, Room E 3, k-sims@northwestern.edu

2. Why nationalism has been ignored and misunderstood in the West • Zeitgeist of post-WWII period • Scientific biases: • State-Centrism • Behaviorism • Materialism • Individualism • “Presentism”

3. Basic Concepts • Essentially contested concepts (W. Gallie): • No generally accepted use • Scholars and politicians talk past each other • Key concepts: • The State • The Nation • Nationalism Also: nation-state, ethnic category etc.

4. 1. Defining the state • Max Weber: A formal organization that enjoys monopoly on legitimate violence within its territory • Corollaries: • Internal sovereignty • External sovereignty • Clear boundary Max Weber

5. 2. Defining the nation • Some alternative definitions: • Ernest Renan: “an everyday plebiscite” • Joseph Stalin: “a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture” Ernest Renan Joseph Stalin

6. 2. Defining the nation, cont’d • Another alternative definitions: • A. D. Smith: “a named human population sharing an historical territory, common myths and historical memories, a mass, public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members”

7. Weber’s definition of the nation • Max Weber: “a community of sentiment which would adequately manifest itself in a state of its own” and thus “tends to produce a state of its own” • Note 1: Imagined community, not objective group • Note 2:Not any conscious group: dependence on state

8. Ethnicity ≠ Nationalism • An ethnic community (or an ethnie) is a cultural community based on a common belief in real or putative descent (Max Weber) • An ethnic category are based on cultural markers that are imposed by outside observers (see Paul Brass)

9. Conceptual Overview

10. 3. Defining Nationalism • A. D. Smith • process of forming and maintaining nations and nation-states • national consciousness • language and symbolism • ideology or cultural doctrine • social and political movement • 4. + 5. = “an ideological movement of attaining and maintaining autonomy, unity and identity on behalf of a population deemed by some of its members to constitute an actual nation or potential ‘nation’”

11. What is that ideology about? A. D. Smith: • World divided into nations • Nation source of all political and social power • Freedom requires national identification • Nations must be free

12. Defining nationalism continued... • Ernest Gellner: “nationalism is primarily a political doctrine, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent” • My modification: “a specific ideology with European origins stating that each nation should possess its own state or at least some degree of territorial self-determination.” Ernest Gellner

13. States and nations

14. Three types of nationalism