What does nationalism

Nationalism, like nation, is very hard to define clearly and unequivocally. The contention that nationalism is what nationalists make of it is, in fact, an evasion.

There are no two authors, whether sociologists, historians, political scientists, or psychologists, who define nationalism in the same way. This may lead novices in the study of nationalism to infer that, having read a few works on the subject, they are even less knowledgeable than when they began. Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

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Nationalism as a term was mentioned for the first time in at Leipzig University. It was not before the end of the eighteenth century that it began to be used in the sense of national egoism, cf. Hyslop, B. Google Scholar. Many scholars who have dealt with nationalism share the idea that nationalism is but a modern form of the human tendency to congregate and to submit to a social entity that is dominant, that is most important, at a given epoch.

Yet it is nationalism, far more than any other expression of human gregariousness, which has come to the fore in modern times. There is little to suggest that the combination of cultural and political unity in the idea of the nation state is the last, or that is the highest, of those mortal gods to which men have sometimes paid undue adoration.

Nationalism does both; it is a comprehensive doctrine which leads to a distinctive style of politics If confusion exists, it is because nationalist doctrine has annexed these universally held sentiments to the service of a specific anthropology and metaphysic.

It was Nairn who first said that nationalism can be pictured as the old Roman god, Janus. The distinctions do not imply the existence of two brands of nationalism, one healthy and one morbid. The point is, as the most elementary comparative analysis will show, that all nationalism is both healthy and morbid.

Both progress and regress are inscribed in its genetic code from the start. This a structural fact about it. And it is a fact to which there are no exceptions: in this sense, it is an exact not a rhetorical statement about nationalism to say that it is by nature ambivalent. Mazzini was the first to argue for a need to distinguish a good and a bad nationalism Hertz, , and Balibar points out that all the questions concerning the definition of nationalism revolve around the dilemma: a good nationalism or a bad nationalism.

The authors of a report on nationalism, published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs , in a introductory note point to this twofold meaning of nationalism. In short, the term is used in such a sense that Mazzini, Gladstone, and Woodrow Wilson can be described as exponents of nationalism, as well as Herr Hitler. Like the different concepts of nation, there are different understandings of nationalism in these regions.

Nettredaksjonen ved SV. Main navigation jump Main content jump Contact information jump. Main navigation Search our webpages Search. Back to uio. What is nationalism? Christopher R. Fardan and Cathrine Thorleifsson Nationalism is an ideology which holds that the state and the nation should be unified. Published Aug. E-mail this page Share on Facebook Share on Twitter. Key concepts What is right-wing extremism?

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What is a conspiracy theory? In this entry, we shall first present conceptual issues of definition and classification Sections 1 and 2 and then the arguments put forward in the debate Section 3 , dedicating more space to the arguments in favor of nationalism than to those against it in order to give the philosophical nationalist a proper hearing.

In the last part we shall turn to the new constellation and sketch the new issues raised by nationalist and trans-nationalist populisms and the migration crisis. Each of these aspects requires elaboration.

There is a terminological and conceptual question of distinguishing nationalism from patriotism. Another contrast is the one between strong, and somewhat aggressive attachment nationalism and a mild one patriotism , dating back at least to George Orwell see his essay.

Despite these definitional worries, there is a fair amount of agreement about the classical, historically paradigmatic form of nationalism.

Territorial sovereignty has traditionally been seen as a defining element of state power and essential for nationhood. It was extolled in classic modern works by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau and is returning to center stage in the debate, though philosophers are now more skeptical see below.

Issues surrounding the control of the movement of money and people in particular immigration and the resource rights implied in territorial sovereignty make the topic politically central in the age of globalization and philosophically interesting for nationalists and anti-nationalists alike.

Consequences are varied and quite interested for more see below, especially section 2. In breaking down the issue, we have mentioned the importance of the attitude that the members of a nation have when they care about their national identity. This point raises two sorts of questions. First, the descriptive ones:. This section discusses the descriptive questions, starting with 1a and 1b ;the normative questions are addressed in Section 3 on the moral debate.

If one wants to enjoin people to struggle for their national interests, one must have some idea about what a nation is and what it is to belong to a nation. So, in order to formulate and ground their evaluations, claims, and directives for action, pro-nationalist thinkers have expounded theories of ethnicity, culture, nation, and state. Their opponents have in turn challenged these elaborations.

Now, some presuppositions about ethnic groups and nations are essential for the nationalist, while others are theoretical elaborations designed to support the essential ones.

Since nationalism is particularly prominent with groups that do not yet have a state, a definition of nation and nationalism purely in terms of belonging to a state is a non-starter. The first extreme option has been put forward by a small but distinguished band of theorists.

At the other extreme, and more typically, nationalist claims are focused upon the non-voluntary community of common origin, language, tradition, and culture: the classic ethno-nation is a community of origin and culture, including prominently a language and customs.

One cannot choose to be a member; instead, membership depends on the accident of origin and early socialization. However, commonality of origin has become mythical for most contemporary candidate groups: ethnic groups have been mixing for millennia. This is the kind of definition that would be accepted by most parties in the debate today. So defined, the nation is a somewhat mixed category, both ethno-cultural and civic, but still closer to the purely ethno-cultural than to the purely civic extreme.

In social and political science one usually distinguishes two kinds of views, but there is a third group, combining element from both. The first are modernist views that see nationalism as born in modern times, together with nation-states.

The third, quite plausible kind of view, distinct from both primordialism-ethno-symbolism and modernism, has been initiated by W. Connor So, the origins of nationalism predate the modern state, and its emotional content remains up to our times Conversi , but the actual statist organization is, indeed, modern. However, nation-state is a nationalist dream and fiction, never really implemented, due to the inescapable plurality of social groups.

So much for the three dominant perspectives on the origin of nationalism. Indeed, the older authors—from great thinkers like Herder and Otto Bauer to the propagandists who followed their footsteps—took great pains to ground normative claims upon firm ontological realism about nations: nations are real, bona fide entities.

Let us now turn to question 1c about the nature of pro-national attitudes. The explanatory issue that has interested political and social scientists concerns ethno-nationalist sentiment, the paradigm case of a pro-national attitude. Is it as irrational, romantic, and indifferent to self-interest as it might seem on the surface? The issue has divided authors who see nationalism as basically irrational and those who try to explain it as being in some sense rational.

Authors who see it as irrational propose various explanations of why people assent to irrational views. But where does such false consciousness come from? On the opposite side, the famous critic of nationalism Elie Kedourie thinks this irrationality is spontaneous.

A decade and a half ago Liah Greenfeld went as far as linking nationalism to mental illness in her provocative article see also her book. On the opposite side, Michael Walzer has offered a sympathetic account of nationalist passion in his Authors relying upon the Marxist tradition offer various deeper explanations. Some authors claim that it is often rational for individuals to become nationalists Hardin Can one rationally explain the extremes of ethno-national conflict?

Authors like Russell Hardin propose to do so in terms of a general view of when hostile behavior is rational: most typically, if an individual has no reason to trust someone, it is reasonable for that individual to take precautions against the other.

If both sides take precautions, however, each will tend to see the other as increasingly inimical. It then becomes rational to start treating the other as an enemy. Mere suspicion can thus lead by small, individually rational steps to a situation of conflict. It is relatively easy to spot the circumstances in which this general pattern applies to national solidarities and conflicts see also Wimmer We pointed out at the very beginning of the entry that nationalism focuses upon 1 the attitude that the members of a nation have when they care about their national identity, and 2 the actions that the members of a nation take when seeking to achieve or sustain some form of political sovereignty.

The politically central point is 2 : the actions enjoined by the nationalist. To these we now turn, beginning with sovereignty and territory, the usual foci of a national struggle for independence. They raise an important issue:. The classical answer is that a state is required.

A more liberal answer is that some form of political autonomy suffices. Once this has been discussed, we can turn to the related normative issues:. Consider first the classical nationalist answer to 2a. Developments of this line of thought often state or imply specific answers to 2b , and 2c , i.

However, classical nationalism is not only concerned with the creation of a state but also with its maintenance and strengthening. Classical nationalists are usually vigilant about the kind of culture they protect and promote and about the kind of attitude people have to their nation-state. This watchful attitude carries some potential dangers: many elements of a given culture that are universal or simply not recognizably national may fall prey to such nationalist enthusiasms.

Classical nationalism in everyday life puts various additional demands on individuals, from buying more expensive home-produced goods in preference to cheaper imported ones to procreating as many future members of the nation as one can manage see Yuval-Davies , and Yack Besides classical nationalism and its more radical extremist cousins , various moderate views are also now classified as nationalist.

Indeed, the philosophical discussion has shifted to these moderate or even ultra-moderate forms, and most philosophers who describe themselves as nationalists propose very moderate nationalist programs. Nationalism in this wider sense is any complex of attitudes, claims, and directives for action ascribing a fundamental political, moral, and cultural value to nation and nationality and deriving obligations for individual members of the nation, and for any involved third parties, individual or collective from this ascribed value.

The main representative of this group of views is liberal nationalism , proposed by authors like Miller, Tamir, and Gans see below.

Nationalisms in this wider sense can vary somewhat in their conceptions of the nation which are often left implicit in their discourse , in the grounds for and degree of its value, and in the scope of their prescribed obligations. Liberal nationalists see liberal-democratic principles and pro-national attitudes as belonging together. Of course, some things have to be sacrificed: we must acknowledge that either the meaningfulness of a community or its openness must be sacrificed to some extent as we cannot have them both.

How much of each is to give way is left open, and of course, various liberal nationalists take different views of what precisely the right answer is. They both see the feeling of national identity as a feeling that promotes solidarity, and solidarity as means for increased social justice Tamir , in particular ch. Liberal nationalists diverge about the value of multiculturalism.

Kymlicka takes it as basic for his picture of liberalism while Tamir dismisses it without much ado: multicultural, multiethnic democracies have a very poor track record, she claims Tamir lists two kinds of reasons that guarantee special political status to nations. The historical development of liberalism turned it into a universalistic, anti-communitarian principle; this has been a fatal mistake that can be and should be corrected by the liberal nationalist synthesis.

Can we revive the unifying narratives of our nationality without sacrificing the liberal inheritance of freedom and rights? Liberal nationalism answers in the affirmative.

Interestingly, Tamir combines this high regard of nation with an extreme constructivist view of its nature: nations are mental structures that exist in the minds of their members Is liberal nationalism implemented anywhere in the present world, or is it more of an ideal, probably end-state theory, that proposes a picture of a desirable society?

Judging by the writings of liberal nationalists, it is the latter, although presented as a relatively easily reachable ideal, combining two traditions that are already well implemented in political reality. The variations of nationalism most relevant for philosophy are those that influence the moral standing of claims and of recommended nationalist practices.

The central theoretical nationalist evaluative claims can be charted on the map of possible positions within political theory in the following useful but somewhat simplified and schematic way.

Nationalist claims featuring the nation as central to political action must answer two crucial general questions. First, is there one kind of large social group that is of special moral importance? The nationalist answer is that there certainly is one, namely, the nation.

Moreover, when an ultimate choice is to be made, say between ties of family, or friendship, and the nation, the latter has priority. Are they based on voluntary or involuntary membership in the group?

On the philosophical map, pro-nationalist normative tastes fit nicely with the communitarian stance in general: most pro-nationalist philosophers are communitarians who choose the nation as the preferred community in contrast to those of their fellow communitarians who prefer more far-ranging communities, such as those defined by global religious traditions. Before proceeding to moral claims, let us briefly sketch the issues and viewpoints connected to territory and territorial rights that are essential for nationalist political programs.

Its primary importance resides in sovereignty and all the associated possibilities for internal control and external exclusion.

What about the grounds for the demand for territorial rights? Basque nationalism, Kurdish nationalism. The doctrine that national interest, security, etc. Jingoism ; the support of one nation 's interests to the exclusion of others; the hatred of other nations.

Origin of nationalism. Nationalism Sentence Examples.