Nations and Society

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Nations and Society

• Ricardo Rene Laremont

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Ethnicity and National Identity

• What is the difference between an ethnic group
  and a nation?
• Why do ethnic conflicts occur?
• Key Topics
• Ethnicity
• Nationality
• Citizenship
• Ideologies

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Ethnic Identity

• Ethnicity
• A specific set of attributes and societal
  institutions that make one group of people
  different culturally from others
• Markers language, religion, customs, history,
  geography

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Questions

• As these attributes become institutionalized,
  they can create a particular identity that is
  passed down from generation to generation.
• People do not choose their ethnicities they are
  born into them, and their ethnic identities
  remain largely fixed throughout life.
• Is ethnicity fixed or fluid?

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Questions

• Bosnia
• People look alike intermarry
• Croats, Serbs, Muslims live there
• Roman Catholic Eastern Orthodox Muslim divide?
• Rwanda
• Hutu- agriculturalists
• Tutsi- herders
• When and how does ethnicity become politicized?

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National Identity

• More of a political concept
• What is national identity?
• What is nationalism?

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When and how does ethnicity lead to
ethnonationalism?

• Canada/Quebec- 1980, 1995 referenda
• Spain- Basque province Cataluna
• Frances national project
• Englands national project
• Germanys national project

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European experience

• 18th and 19th century Europe transformed
  multi-ethnic societies into uni-ethnic
  nation-states
• Citizenship in Europe tied to uni-ethnic
  nation-state notion
• 21st Century
• Identity and Citizenship
• Cosmopolitanism?

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Ethnic and National Conflict

• What explains coexistence among ethnic groups?
• What explains conflict among ethnic groups?
• Ethnic conflict
• Ethnonationalism
• Sudan
• Chechnya
• Kurdistan

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Origins of Ethnic Conflict

• Top-Down
• Generated by political leaders
• Can be stopped by political leaders
• Example Nigeria
• Bottom-Up
• Generated by long-standing friction between
  groups
• Takes time to end must burn out
• Bosnia An example of Top-Down and Bottom-Up

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Ethnic Conflict

• Still in Europe
• Russia
• Yugoslavia
• Spain
• My Book
• Borders, Nationalism, and the African State
• Colonialism creates and reinforces ethnic
  difference
• Nigeria
• Rwanda- Hutu agriculturalists Tutsi herders
• Belgian policy Tutsis were superior
• 1994 800,000 Tutsis murdered in genocide

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Negative Policies in Ethnic and National Conflict

• Exclusion
• Example Estonians Latvians exclude the
  Russians among them from citizenship
• Example Turks in Germany
• Removal or Ethnic Cleansing
• Muslims in Bosnia
• Native Americans in United States
• Forced Assimilation
• France- foulards- beards
• Genocide
• Germany- Jews
• Turkey- Armenians (1915)
• Rwanda- Tutsis (1994)
• Yugoslavia- Bosnian Muslims and Kosovar Albanians
  (1990s)

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Positive Policies

• Citizenship
• Jus soli vs. Jus sanguinis
• Bilingual language policies
• Devolution/Autonomy
• Spain- Basque Province Cataluna
• Canada- Quebec
• Belgium- Flemish Walloons

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Political Attitudes

• Views of how change should occur
• Radicalism
• Liberalism
• Conservatism
• Reactionaries

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Radicalism

• Radicals do not believe in slow, evolutionary
  change
• Politics cannot be transformed without
  fundamentally transforming state, regime, and
  government

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Liberalism

• Belief in evolutionary transformation
• No need to overthrow system
• Do not believe that state has to be transformed
• Only regime and government have to be changed

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Conservatives

• Change is not necessary
• See state and regime as structures that provide
  order and continuity in politics, economics, and
  society

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Reactionaries

• Want to change status quo and return to something
  older, the status quo ante
• Prefer the restoration of older values return to
  a previous regime or a previous state

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Political Ideologies

• Not concerned with pace of change
• Concerned with the fundamental goals of politics
• Liberalism
• Communism
• Social Democracy (Socialism
• Fascism

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Liberalism (Classical)

• Places a high priority on individual political
  and economic freedom
• Believes that states power should be limited so
  that it does not encroach on individual rights
• Emphasis on free markets, individual rights, and
  a state with low autonomy
• (In U.S. a liberal would be a conservative)

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Communism

• A small group controls the market and the state
  and uses its wealth to exploit the state, the
  economy, and the majority of the people
• Liberal democracy is government of the rich, by
  the rich, for the rich
• Individual rights are meaningless when most
  people are poor
• The working class needs to seize the state and
  the means of production to obtain social justice

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Social Democracy (Socialism)

• Unlike communism, permits private property and
  capital to operate
• Prefer as state that is committed to social
  equality

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Fascism

• Hostile to individual freedoms
• State is an instrument for molding society and
  the economy in the interest of the nation
• State is strong and autonomous of society, guided
  by elite, superior leadership
• Examples
• Nazi Germany
• Fascist Italy (Mussolini)
• Fascist Spain (Franco)
• Chile (Pinochet)

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Anarchism

• Rejects notion of state
• State is not necessary
• Existence of state would eliminate freedom
• Anarchism never realized
• Big topic in
• Russian Revolution of 1917
• Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)

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Political Culture

• Basic norms for political activity in a society
• Is it a useful term?
• Or is it an elusive concept?