Nations and Nationalism

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Nations and Nationalism

• Introduction

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Three Scholarly Definitions

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

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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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Definitions

• Michael Hechter- Nations are territorially
  concentrated ethnic groups, a relatively large
  group of genetically unrelated people with high
  solidarity.

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Points to note about nations

• They are modern
• Main factors prompting the rise of nations in the
  1700s and 1800s
• print capitalism
• Newly centralized states
• industrial revolution and improvements in
  transportation
• mass public education

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More points about nationalism

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

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Myths about nations, 1

• MYTH The world is naturally ordered into nations
  and national states.
• NOT SO!!
• ACTUALITY 1- diversity of states community
  through history, and 2- 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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Definitions of nationalism

• Ernest Gellner Nationalism is the belief that
  the political and the national units should be
  congruent

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Another definition of nationalism

• Michael Hechter- Nationalism is collective
  action designed to render the boundaries of the
  nation congruent with those of its governance
  unit