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Session 5. Nationalism. 19 September 2023
Session 5. Nationalism. 19 September 2023
Comparative Politics
NATIONALISM AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
Ethnicity, nation and citizenship- the foundational concepts of modern politics
Are conflicts natural or constructions of political elites?
The origins of identities: biological or social?
The evolutionary biological approach to identities: Primordialism, The social
construction approach to identities: Instrumentalism and constructivism
Culture as cause or an intervening variable
Defining ethnicity (‘set of institutions that bind people through culture’, 66)
Connection through language, culture, religion etc.
Different types of ascriptive identities (ethnicity, religion, language, common
ancestry, geography, appearance)
Shared sense of community and belonging
Identities- Social or political?
Ethnicity as the basis of group mobilization; outcome of individual
acknowledgement
From ethnicity to nation-inevitable?
Nation -> Nationalism?
Nationalism: pride in one’s nation and belief in its sovereign rights
Nation <- Nationalism <- Nation-building
Citizenship: individual and the state- the rights and responsibilities connecting
citizen with the state
Nation and citizenship?
Nation a political concept
Tied together through politial aspirations of self-government and sovereignty
Nation: political idea; desire for self-rule usually in the form of independent state
National identity may or may not be rooted in ethnic identity
The case of American nation
States and pursuit of homogenous nationhood
The fluidity and flexibility of citizenship
Citizenship and ethnicity
Pride in one’s state: patriotism (national anthem; holidays, memorials)
Modern identities and nation-states
Macro-historical changes and national cohesiveness (modernization)
Nation-states and nation-building processes
The instruments of nation-building
French Revolution and rallying around the nation-state (rise of volunteer army)
Rise of ethnic identities
Globalization of ethnic- nartional identities
Ethnic and nationalist conflict: (conflict over resources versus conflict over
political goals like sovereignty)
Causes of conflicts:
A) Societal: ethnic diversity and heterogeinty
B) Economic: struggle for resources
C) Political: nature of regime
Making sense of these categories
Creating inclusive political institutions
Mapping ethnic conflict-post Cold war dynamics
Political attitudes and Ideologies
The secular religion and privatization of faith
Radicals and revolutionary change
Liberals and evolutionary change
Conservatives and the notion of change
Reactionaries and ‘envisioned past’
Radicals, reactionaries and change
Political ideologies as ‘science of ideas’ – post-French Revolutions
Liberalism, conservatism and Communism (table on p. 89)
From secular to religious ideologies: fundamentalism and religious extremism
Return of God in political science and politics at large
Modernity and nationalism:
Modern technologies, states, modernization and nationalism
Anderson: print capitalism