Theories of Nationalism & Ethnicity

Theoretical Debates What is an ethnic group and a nation? Why do ethnic groups and nations exist? When did ethnic groups and nations appear?

Why Did the Ethnic Group Arise?   Instrumentalist Ethno-Symbolist Primordialist Key segment of group Elites, ruling class Romantic Intellectuals, Masses Entire Community or Social Organism Motives Behind Ethnic Groups Elite Wealth, Power, Status Meaning, Security, Belonging + instrumental motives Instinctive Kinship, Maximization of Group Fitness Source of Ethnogenesis Elites in competition with each other Intellectual-driven historicism and consciousness-raising, Warfare, culture contact Evolutionary struggle in prehistory Ethnic Groups Origin Modern period (post-1789) In History (after 6000 BC) Pre-History Process of Ethnogenesis Invention of the modern state or competing sub-state elites, who determine people's identities from above Created by intellectuals (religious or secular-romantic), but informed by traditional culture and mediated by popular sentiment Emerged organically as peoples met through migration and war Why Did the Ethnic Group Arise? Why Did the Ethnic Group Arise?

When Did the Ethnic Group Arise?   Modernist Perennialist Primordialist Ethnic Groups Origin Modern period (post-1789) In History (after 6000 BC) Pre-History Pre-Modern Social Structure Cosmopolitan Elite strata, localized masses (i.e. no imagined &/or integrated communities of territory and genealogy) Great difference: some vertically-integrated ethnic groups, some more loosely integrated units, some un-integrated, Groups rise and fall Ethnic groups ever-present throughout history, in all times and places Process of Ethnogenesis Invention of the modern state or competing sub-state elites Created by intellectuals (religious or secular-romantic), but informed by traditional culture and mediated by popular sentiment Emerged organically as peoples met through migration and war Major Theorists Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm, Anthony Giddens Anthony Smith, John Armstrong, Walker Connor, Adrian Hastings Pierre van den Berghe, Joshua Fishman, Stephen Grosby

Primordialism – Pierre Van den Berghe Collective nepotism – or cooperation Relatedness ‘read’ off cultural markers Evolutionary success of ethnic cooperation

Instrumentalism - Eric Hobsbawm State and national political elites create ethnic groups to divide working class or otherwise advance their own claims for wealth, power, status. Motives are not biological or cultural, but political and economic. Nations were created after 1780

Modernism – Anthony Giddens Nation is a ‘Power-container’ created by the state Nations were created in the modern period through state systems

Modernism – Ernest Gellner Nations created in modern period, post-1789 Prior to 1789- local id, local genealogy, religious/imperial conception, no territorial self-conception

Modernism – Ernest Gellner culture played a stratifying role for elites, no vertical integration Kingdom, principality, empire means of keeping a small elite living off producers elite literacy in international modes

Modernist Theories and the Nation State 'made use of' patriotic sentiment for the first time (P. Anderson) State 'invents' nations where they do not exist State 'creates' a culture and associated sentiment with no real reference to what went before

Classical Modernists Eric Hobsbawm, Benedict Anderson, Ernest Gellner, Karl Deutsch Emphasis on rational interests of capitalists and state bureaucrats Anderson, Gellner and Giddens suggest that pre-modern identities were either local or universal Deutsch: shared culture is functional for the running of a smooth state and economy

Neo-Modernists Giddens: reflexivity Brubaker: institutionalism Breuilly: route to state power Tilly: role of international high politics Mann: role of military in integrating across class

Modernism the leading paradigm among scholars Modernism the leading paradigm among scholars. But is this because it is true or because it is counter-intuitive and more optimistic?

Modernist Theories Have in Common emphasis on state as prior, nation as appendage or functional for state emphasis on processes of modernity, esp. industrialism, capitalism emphasis on role of political or economic elites capitalist, industrialist, institutionalist and warfare models

Modernist Theories Have in Common assume that attachment follows top-down institutionalisation pressures downplay or deny existence of pre-modern ethnic groups, nations deny non-instrumental attachments among movement leaders and intellectuals deny that symbols of nation originate in pre-modern ethnie. (seen as contingent and non-correlative with the latter)

National 'Deepening' and 'Straightening' state processes: education, official language, school texts civic ceremonies, parades, commemorations, monuments, holidays census, maps, records, border checks, passports flags, anthems, insignia, symbols laws, constitution police, conscript army, government institutions common economy, roads, communications

‘Imagined Communities’: The Template Spreads Western model exported from France to the rest of Europe (with Napoleon) and the Americas (Bolivar, San Martin) Colonialism brings the model to the world as ex-colonial borders become the basis for many new states Idea of Nationalism (Rousseau)

Perennialism – Adrian Hastings Nations have a much longer history than even Smith allows England in the time of Bede was already a nation Religion and vernacular languages helped create national identity

Anthony Smith & Ethnosymbolism LSE Sociologist, with background in Classics. Taught by Gellner & Seton-Watson Also a contemporary of Kedourie Anthony Smith writes Theories of Nationalism (1971) and The Ethnic Revival (1981) Mainly examine ethnic nationalism and the role of romantic intellectuals – esp. 19th century

Ethno-Symbolism – Anthony Smith Social facts, moving through history 'Essentials' of culture and lifestyle DO shape self-understandings and constrain invention Culture as a motivating force

Ethnosymbolism – Anthony Smith Nations Created on the Basis of Pre-Modern Ethnic Groups Romantic Intellectuals, not the ‘Ruling Class’ were key

Real landmark work is the Ethnic Origins of Nations (1986) Claims that ethnicity existed somewhere at all times since Antiquity Nations not purely created by the state, but on the basis of pre-modern ethnic cores

Premodern social space more dynamic than in the Gellner-Giddens model Ethnie, States, some ‘ethnic states’ like Israel and Armenia which approximate nations

Nations use the proper name, sense of territory, ‘myths, symbols and memories’ of the antecedent ethnie (even France) Why the need to appeal to an ethnic past if unimportant – why not that of an empire or class? Does this not constrain the freedom of future nationalists?

Role of Non-Instrumental Motives, Class a non-issue Romantic Intellectuals, not the ‘Ruling Class’ were key Bourgeoisie not necessary

John Hutchinson’s Contribution Idea of layering of symbolic resources Different ideological, class and regional fragments of society highlight different aspects of the mytho-symbolic inheritance

Perennialism vs. Modernism Modernists argue that: There is a lack of record of popular sentiment There is a record of discord within ethnies: China, North America, Italy, Georgia We see the rise and fall of groups, the change of peoples' names over time in particular area There is elite competition within groups

Perennialism vs. Modernism Perennialists argue that:   reference to others (natio, ethnos, gens) since antiquity elite writings mention ethnie, nation, from classical, biblical times language vernaculars spread early in Europe regna, myths focused on common customs and myths of descent military clashes could involve whole communities: zulu, mongol, norman, isrealites, swiss regional variants of class strata cultures (orthodox, latin, muslim) existed

Primordiality or Politics? What is happening to ethnic identity as politics ebbs and flows? How are political changes manifested in terms of identity and historical narrative?