Nations and Nationalism

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Nations and Nationalism

• Introduction

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Two Scholarly Definitions

• Benedict Anderson a nation is an imagined
  political community. It is imagined as a) limited
  b) sovereign, and c) a community.  

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Definitions

• Anthony D. Smith a named human population
  sharing a historic territory common myths and
  historical memories a mass, public culture a
  common economy, and common legal rights and
  duties for all members

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Are you part of a nation? If so, what
distinguishes your nation from others?
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Points about nations

• They are modern
• Why did a sense of nationhood and nation arise in
  the 1700s and 1800s?
• print capitalism
• Newly centralized states with firmer borders
• industrial revolution and improvements in
  transportation
• mass public education
• Decline of religious doctrine

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More points about nationalism

• Nations are fluid, adaptable, and changeable.
• Nations are internally diverse.
• Globalization is prompting the ungluing of some
  nations from territory

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From The Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd,
1911.
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Myths about nations

• MYTH The world is naturally ordered into nations
  and national states.
• ACTUALITY
• diversity of states community through history
• within each national state there are often
  sub-nations.

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Who gets recognition as a nation?

• 3 common attributes of the victors
• historic association with a current state or one
  with a recent and lengthy past
• existence of a long-established cultural elite
  that possessed a written literary language and an
  administrative vernacular
• capacity for conquest

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Basic Beliefs of Nationalism as ideology (to be
debated!!)

• Nations together include all humans (There is no
  human who does not belong to a nation).
• Nations are the natural units of humanity.
• Nations exist, therefore they should.
• Nations have a great historical continuity and
  should be continued.
• Because nations have shaped the lives of those
  who now live in them, they should continue to
  exist.
• Migration may be restricted to preserve a pattern
  of location (residence) in nations.
• National cultures have value, therefore nations
  must exist to produce and preserve them.

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More basic tenets of nationalism

• Nations (peoples) have a monopoly of state
  formation.
• No entity which is not a nation (a people) may
  hold territory to form a state.
• No (habitable) territory may be held by states
  other than nation states.

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More basic tenets of nationalism

• Nations are sacred.
• Nations have a status no other group or
  collectivity can have.
• Nations deserve supreme respect, beyond that for
  other groups.
• Antiquity confers special status.
• Nations may not be ended, singly or collectively.