Does Nationalism qualify as an ideology? Are there views that all nationalists hold in common whichever nation they are from?

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Sarah Spooner        Page         5/9/2007

Does Nationalism qualify as an ideology? Are there views that all nationalists hold in common whichever nation they are from?

        The question of whether nationalism qualifies as an ideology is often raised by many political thinkers yet it is never truly answered, this is due to the complex nature of topic and so many variables with in it, that it is difficult to agree on the basic values of nationalism or which definition of an ideology to use. For this essay I will briefly outline nationalism and what an ideology actually is before answering whether nationalism can qualify as an ideology. After this I will demonstrate what views nationalists hold in common, if this is possible.

The simplest definition of nationalism is, the belief that all nations have the right to self-government and determine their own destiny. Thus multi-national states are essentially wrong and it is the nation-state therefore that is a legitimate power. Thus the nation is the predominant feature and precedes everything, it is celebrated by national holidays remembering great leaders and battle victories, flags or national anthems.

The term ideology developed in the Marxist tradition, to talk about how cultures are structured in ways that enable the group holding power to have the maximum control with the minimum of conflict. This is not a matter of groups deliberately planning to oppress people or alter their consciousness, but rather a matter of how the dominant institutions in society work through values, conceptions of the world, and symbol systems, in order to legitimise the current order. Briefly, this legitimisation is managed through the widespread teaching (the social adoption) of ideas about the way things are, how the world ‘really’ works and should work. These ideas (often embedded in symbols and cultural practices) orient people's thinking in such a way that they accept the current way of doing things, the current sense of what is ‘natural’, and the current understanding of their roles in society. Furthermore there are two basic ideas of ideological structures they appear to be natural, “according to the order of things” or naturalization and they appear to be the logical conclusion to an historical development or historicization.

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Whether nationalism is an ideology or not is complicated and difficult to clarify. The are many conflicting views on nationalism from Ian Adams who states that nationalism is an ideology however flawed it maybe “ among modern ideologies, nationalism is the clearest and least theoretically sophisticated but it is also the most widespread and has the strongest grip on popular feelings… Nationalism is a political doctrine; an ideology because it insists that one particular political form is natural and therefore right”. Whereas Terence Ball and Richard Dagger claim “nationalism and anarchism take on so many forms and are entwined with ...

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