What accounts for the resurgence of nationalism in recent decades? Discuss in relation to at least one contemporary case.

“But when labour migration and bureaucratic employment became prominent features within their social horizon, [the migrants from the countryside] soon learned the difference between dealing with a co-national, one understanding and sympathizing with their culture, and someone hostile to it. This very concrete experience taught them to be aware of their culture, and to love it…”

National identity was almost invisible in agro-literate societies, but with labour migration to the industrial cities it became more apparent. For Gellner, education plays a crucial role in the reification of national identity, by helping to create a homogenous culture amongst the people of the industrial world.

The chief flaw of the modernist theory appears to be that it is unable to explain the hold of nationalism and the power of identity. The role of identity and psychology is ignored in favour of grand sociological forces that ignore individual agency, fail to account for the varying circumstances that have fostered nationalism, and fall victim to many of the flaws of functionalism. Gellner also ignores the cases when nationalism has arisen without a state-controlled education system.

Anderson, also a modernist and contemporary of Gellner, claims to be able to explain nationalism, from a “social constructionist” perspective. A nation, for Anderson, is ‘an imagined political community’ - imagined because the nation exists primarily in the minds of the members of a nation, who imagine but do not know their fellow members. This cultural construct explains its force:

“[The nation] is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings”.

Put simply, Anderson sees nationalism as arising from the ashes of the greater religious communities and the dynastic empires of Europe in the age of enlightenment rationalism. What then was needed was “a secular transformation of fatality into continuity, contingency into meaning”. Nationalism, as the new religion, offered this. This was concurrent with a new non-divine concept of time, which allowed for the idea of progress. This new conception of time also served to link in with the simultaneous development of print capitalism. Print capitalism created print-languages, such as English, French and Spanish. These languages, above rural vernaculars and below Latin, created fixed spheres of discourse and intellectual exchange, which would later become national units. Print capitalism also fixed and standardised language so that the fields of communication developed notions of their own heritage and shared past. The new notion of discrete time within the fiction produced by print capitalism creates a “remarkable confidence of community in anonymity”, “the hallmark of modern nations”. In this context, Anderson argues, a strong cultural base for the force of nationalism was created.

The main criticism of Anderson’s theory is that it is not necessarily a logical progression from the development of the idea of a community to a strong commitment to that community. There is no reason why there should be a fraternity between readers.

Furthermore, the theoretical basis of the causation of nationalism seems weak.  Anderson stresses the importance of the decline of religion as being a key cause of the rise of nationalism. Israel and Ireland are just two examples of the coexistence of religion and nationalism. Anderson’s theory also does not explain why the cultural forces that lead to nationalism would in turn lead to the formation of political nationalism, and hence the “inter-national” order of states seen today. A group may identify itself as a group, but the process of that group becoming important is left unexplained.

Conscious of the flaws of both Gellner’s and Anderson’s theories, Anthony Smith proposed a shift away from “modernism” to “ethno-symbolism”. Smith states that whereas modernists usually fail to address the problem of the “collective passion and attachment” within nationalism, “ethno-symbolists regard it as a key problem for understanding ethnicity and nationalism”. 

Rather than looking primarily at a set of social conditions that instigate nationalism, ethno-symbolists attempt to place nationalism within the context of earlier ethnic and cultural identities that nationalists attempt to rediscover and connect with. Thus ethno-symbolists avoid the main problems that beset those that attempt to relate nationalism to a set of social conditions, particularly when it is so apparent that nationalism has been a force in such a diverse range of sociological and historical conditions, from the pre-industrial to the post-colonial. Neither of the modernists mentioned sought to enter the “inner world of nationalism”, as Smith puts it. Without such a focus, Smith argues, “there is little chance of understanding other peoples’ nationalisms”, and consequently, little chance of “beginning to address the grievances and sentiments that fuel their conflicts”. 

The core of Smith’s theory is that wherever a nation has been built, it commonly draws from a pre-existing ethnic background. This background does not have to be “real”. “Usually there has been some ethnic basis for the construction of modern nations, be it only some dim memories and elements of culture and alleged ancestry, which it is hoped to revive”. This means that any grounding of a particular nationalism has to take into account the historical development and peculiar history of the respective “nation”. These groundings are normally extremely subjective and specific. Nation building, the theory states, depends upon the grouping acquiring shared historical memories, a myth of common ancestry, a differentiating common culture, an attachment to a territory, and a sense of solidarity. Ethno-symbolism acknowledges that these may be fashioned in a variety of ways, and as such encourages a detailed examination of the particular nationalisms that prevail.

Unlike modernists, ethno-symbolists do not take cultural homogenisation as the starting point of nationalism. Smith asserts that “the nationalist does not require that individual members should be alike, only that they should feel an intense bond of solidarity”. This sense of national solidarity and fraternity arises spontaneously from common communal existence, as well as through kinship, neighbourhood and religious networks. Often, in an attempt to hark back to the mythical “roots” of the ethnic community, nationalisms have to be “filled out by all kinds of secondary concepts and particular notions, specific to each national community. That is why nationalism often ‘inhabits’ other ideologies and belief systems”. Nationalism thus borrows from and in some instances creates its surrounding culture, as well as local kinship, neighbourhood and religious networks. Smith does not offer a theoretical account of how nationalism comes about, in the same way that Anderson and Gellner do, but merely offers a way of understanding it as a phenomenon. He thus consistently stresses the fact that ethno-symbolism is an approach, rather than a theory.

Despite what is ultimately a convincing explanation of the force of nationalism, ethno-symbolism has come under attack from a variety of critics. Some say that Smith overestimates the permanence of national identity, and assert that national identity is in fact socially constructed in response to materialist forces. Others question the link between previous ethnic identities and modern national identities, highlighting the fact that in many cases, national identities are simply invented constructions.

Offering perhaps the strongest theory, in his work The Sociology of Nationalism (1998), David McCrone follows on from the standpoint of Smith, and argues that no one theory can account for the myriad forms that nationalism can take. McCrone tackles the fact that there do exist ‘stateless nations’, where groups in certain areas seek greater autonomy or independence from an overarching state. He makes the key observation that stateless nations need not have a strong ethnic identity: Being Scottish, he says, in based upon living in a common area, rather than on a shared culture. McCrone goes on to distinguish four types of nationalism.

According to Hobsbawm, the early types of nationalism have had a unificatory and emancipatory nature, and as a result a direct historical significance. He argued that the first wave of true nationalism was in 19th century Western Europe, and was a result of the formation of nation-states following on from the American and French revolutions, or even as far back as the signing of the treaty of Westphalia in the 15th century. This nascent nationalism was thereafter bolstered by the growth of the industrial economies of countries such as the UK, France, Spain and America. In Eastern Europe, nationalism is seen to have developed as ethnic and linguistic peripherals fought for independence from the decaying empires, particularly those of Austria, the Ottoman’s and the Tzar’s. McCrone argues that the rise of the modern nation state was due to several factors, ethnicity not least among them, but what he emphasises is that, crucially, to instigate change ethnic nationalism and economic change were converted into civic and political nationalism.

The second wave of nationalism is seen by McCrone to be found in the colonial and post-colonial societies of the early to mid 20th century. Often this nationalism would be based on a dialectic, defining itself in opposition to the colonial regime in question. This was the case especially in India, and also in the Arab world.  Many of the resultant states were secular. However, the economic failure of many of these states meant that in some societies the nationalist movement was increasingly linked to concepts of ethnicity and religion. The result of this was a plurality of identity within many nations. Egypt is a classic example, explored by Albert Hourani in his work A History of the Arab Peoples. Post colonial Egyptians can define themselves as Arab, Egyptian or Islamic. While Arab nationalism was precipitated through differences with the European rulers, nationalism was given a more deep-rooted legitimacy through a fabricated ideology developed specifically to justify nationalism.

The rise of nationalism in western society in recent decades, sometimes called neo-nationalism, is difficult to explain in the terms of earlier forms of nationalism. The term refers to the rise of nationalist independence movements in western stateless societies, for example Quebec, the Celtic fringes of Western Europe, in particular Scotland, and the Basque country. McCrone’s thesis is that neo-nationalism is the result of the coincidence of a set of circumstance. As general rules, he argues that neo-nationalism occurs in areas with a strong civil (economic and domestic) society, and where people have multiple national identities. The truth of these observations can be seen by observing the socio-economic context in Scotland. Scots have had economic prosperity in recent decades, especially since the discovery of North Sea oil, and they range from defining themselves as Scottish or British. A similar situation can be seen in Quebec, where there is an abundance of natural resources, and a duality of identity among the French Quebecers, oscillating between Canadian and Quebecois.

McCrone also sees neo-nationalism as being accompanied by relatively new political parties. This is embodied in the SNP in Scotland, and the Partie Quebecois in French Canada. The movement also seems to occur when the overarching nation state in which it develops is a signatory to a larger supra-national organisation. The EU and NAFTA play similar roles in the cases of both Scotland and Quebec respectively. Within the supra-national framework of overarching organisations, seeking independence is less risky than simply being an independent state. This is the key to explaining one of the fundamental paradoxes of modern times – the proliferation of (neo-) nationalism in an increasingly globalised world. The closer links between societies through supra-national organisations alleviates the economic and military/defense pressures on nation-states, and creates a context for regional identities and subsequent independence movements to develop. He is at pains to emphasis that neo-nationalism cannot be reduced to some basic factor, for instance ethnicity. McCrone believes that it must be seen as a ‘multifaceted and adaptable ideology.’

McCrone also tackles the other variant of nationalism which has been prominent in recent decades, namely post-communist nationalism. This will not be discussed here, as it is historically explicable through the historical event which was the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990’s.

McCrone’s approach to nationalism is enlightening. His investigation has been carried out in light of the theories that have gone before, and he has followed on from the theoretical standpoint of Smith, which in itself was an improvement on the modernist approaches. Where McCrone is particularly clear is in distinguishing between different typologies of nationalism, while still recognising the diversity inherent in specific cases of resurgent nationalism. Crucially, he makes the point that in fact the whole notion of ‘resurgence’ is questionable viewpoint to begin with, as it is based on outdated theories that nationalism would run its course and die out. The reality in the contemporary world is that nationalism has never been stronger. Seemingly paradoxically (according to the old arguments), Nationalism today indeed appears to be a significant force for interdependence in the global era. The notion of nationalism is flexible and diverse, and as there are few states which are ethnically or culturally homogeneous, it is likely to have many more ‘resurgence’s’ in the future.

         

Bibliography

• Smith A, Nationalism – Theory, Ideology, History, Polity, Cambridge, 2001
• Smith A, Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2002
• Hutchinson J & Smith A (Ed.,), Nationalism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996
• Anderson B, Imagined Communities – Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, London, 1983
• Gellner E, Nations and Nationalism – New Perspectives on the Past, Blackwell, Oxford, 1983
• Ozkirimli U, Theories of Nationalism, Macmillan, London, 2000.
• Breuilly J, Nationalism and the State, Manchester Univ. Press, 1998
• Haralambos & Holborn, Sociology: Themes and Perspectives, HarperCollins, 2000

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