Nationalism & Its Varieties

Definitions of Nationalism

Ernest Gellner Nationalism is the belief

that the political and the national units
should be congruent

Michael Hechter- Nationalism is collective

action designed to render the boundaries
of the nation congruent with those of its
governance unit

Types of Nationalism:
State-Building Nationalism

Nationalism that attempts to assimilate or

incorporate culturally distinctive territories
into a given state. It is the result of
conscious efforts by rulers to make a
multicultural population culturally
homogenous. (Hechter)

Why does state-building

nationalism occur?

Geopolitical security
models of other strong national states
Need to create loyal citizens
Need for state legitimation
efficient way to extract resources
produces more mobile work and military
force

Class Exercise:
the (newly independent) Republic of California

How do states promote nationhood?

public education
the military
promotion of new images, symbols, and ideals
through the media and public imagery
physical unification and linking of territory (i.e.
through new roads)
establishment and maintenance of official
language(s)
suppression of other sub-national cultures

More ways states promote nationness

myth making - creation of past shared

history/re-writing of history so as to
support idea of the nation
glorification of national heroes
creation of national currency
promotion of certain kinds of dress
creation of a common literature

National Dress:
Participant in the
Glasgow Highland
Games

Building Nations:
Linking territory- the
steam train in India
and building roads in
Britain

Building Nations: National heroes

and national symbols

Britain: Shakespeare

U.S.: Statue of Liberty

The symbols of the nation: Brazilian football

Nation-building
through the
military: soldiers
in the Israeli
Defense Forces,
left; U.S.
soldiers on
parade, below

Peripheral nationalism

Occurs when a culturally distinctive territory (or

people) resists incorporation into an expanding
state, or attempts to secede and set up its own
government. (Hechter)

Another (better) definition: peripheral nationalism

occurs when a state-less but culturally distinctive
people seek to establish autonomy or self-rule in
the name of their nation.

Examples of Peripheral
Nationalisms: Kurds,
Quebecois, Welsh, Basques

Kurdish new year celebration.

Why does peripheral nationalism

occur?

Imposition of direct rule (Hechter)

Competition between local and central
elites
Economic and political discrimination?
(sometimes but not always; insufficient
cause!)

Irredentist nationalism

Nationalism that seeks to extend the existing

boundaries of a state by incorporating territories
of an adjacent state occupied principally by conationals

Examples: Sudeten Germans (WWII); Serbia

under Milosevic calling for integration of all Serbinhabited areas of former Yugoslavia into a
greater Serbia (1990s)

Unification nationalism

Merger of a politically
divided but culturally
similar territory or
territories into one
state.

Example: Italy, 19th

century

Ethnic and Nationalist Conflict:

How do they differ (if at all)?

Since the end of World

War II, 16.5 million people
have died in internal
conflicts, compared with
3.3 million in interstate
wars. There have been
about 122 civil wars since
1945, compared with 25
conventional wars. Many
are between different
ethnic groups.
Youths in Kabul, Afghanistan, sift
through rubble.

There are currently

about 250 active
ethnopolitical
movements using
various forms of
protest and rebellion.

Nationalist conflict
occurs in all regions
of the world

Serious conflicts,
1995-98:

16 Europe
10 Middle East
31 Asia
31 Africa
7 Latin America

Myths of nationalist conflict (#1):

MYTH: Nationalist conflict

occurs because of ancient
tribal or ethnic hatreds.
(primordialism)
NO. Nationalist conflicts nearly
always occur because of
economic and political policies
pursued by modern-day states.
In other words, so-called
nationalist conflict is rarely a
conflict over ethnicity, and
much more a conflict about
politics.

Former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

Photo: BBC.

What are some of the practices that might

create nationalist grievances?

Centralization (end of indirect rule)

Ethnocide

Creation of an official language

Banning of certain forms of cultural expression
(language, music, dress)

Preferential employment opportunities

Preferential political opportunities for majority
population

Myths of Nationalist Conflict (#2)

MYTH: There is more
nationalist and ethnic
conflict today than in
any other time, and the
number of such
conflicts keeps
increasing.
NO. The rate of nationalist
conflict rose steadily
from the 1950s to the
early 1990s and has
since been dropping.

Source: Minorities at Risk Project

Source: Minorities at Risk Project

Myths of nationalist conflict (#3):

MYTH: Nationalist
conflict usually occurs
between two or more
different social groups
or ethnic communities.
NO. Most nationalist
conflicts occur between
a minority group (or
PART OF A MINORITY
group, and a state (and
its forces).

A Russian tank in Chechnya.

Modes of nationalist conflict

Conventional politics
Nonviolent protest and direct action
Rebellion

70 ethnic groups have waged armed conflicts

for autonomy or independence since the
1950s (not including liberation movements of
former European colonies)

Note: the most common form of

nationalist conflict is NOT violence

Of 161 groups pursuing

self-determination in
1998-2000, only about 41
(a quarter) used violence.
The rest used
conventional politics and
nonviolent protest.

Kurdish-rights activist Osman Baydemir on the campaign trial

in Diyarbakir, Turkey, March 2004. Photo: NF Watts

Resolving nationalist conflict

State acknowledgement of
collective rights and
provision of institutional
means for pursuing
interests
Federalism (Hechter)
independence

Only 5 new states emerged

from ethnic conflict in the
last 40 years (East Timor,
Slovenia, Croatia, Eritrea,
Bangladesh)

Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.