Emely Medina-Rodrguez

Political Science 643

Zvi Gintelmen

The roles of ethnicity, religion and institutions in the formation

of nations
The literature for our class has identifies different many factors
that contributed to the formation of nations. In this paper I will explore
these factors separately and how they interact with each other in the
process of forming nations. The main topics I identify in the literature
are: the ethnic composition and heritage of a national community, the
religious components of a nation and the institutions that compose the
state. My intention in this essay is to construct a better understanding
of how institutions interplay with ethnicity and religion, as well as how
ethnics and religion interact with each other in the formation of
national identity and the process of creating a nation.
Ethnic community is identify by Smith (1991) as a community
distinguishable by very specific aspects, some of them being,
collective name, myth of common ancestry, share historical
memories, elements of common culture, association with a specific
homeland and a sense of solidarity for significant sectors of the
population. He has also explained that ethnicity can be seen in three
different ways; as a primordial quality, as a situational tool or as

instrumentally. As a primordial, ethnicity is seen as natural, timeless or

as an extension of human biology. In the other hand ethnicity can be
seen as situational, where being part of a group is a matter of choice,
perceptions, attitudes and sentiments. Looking at ethnicity as
situational also suggest it is mutable, individual and contextual. But
Smith also explains ethnicity can be use instrumentally, meaning that
it can be used for ulterior motives. Ethnicity is not seen as an essential
good in its self, but as a means to an end.
By this third definition of ethnicity we can start making
connections with parts of the literature on ethnicity and the formation
of national identity. Ernest Gellner argues that culture, national myths
and the overall sense of nationalism is essentially the general
imposition of high culture on society. Thus using culture, myths and
symbols instrumentally for the retention or gaining of power in society.
Even thought Smith explains ethnicity is derivate from common culture
Gellner understands common culture to be an invention put together
instrumentally for the benefit of the dominant classes seeking to
legitimized their power in society. The literature identified how the
dominant group used institutions for the creation and legitimization of
national identities.
Both Anderson and Smith identified particular ways ethnic
identity is reproduced among the national society. Anderson explains in

more detail how dominant classes and the bourgeoisie have used
capitalist economy for the maintenance of an ethnic identity. He argues
that print-capitalism and the used of vernacular language in printed
materials helped evening the local customs creating thus an mew
imagined community. He further explicates the interactions between
system of production and the productive relations (capitalism) and
technology of communications (print) gave birth to the bases for
national consciousness and helped to build the image of antiquity
ethnics and national identity are based.
In the other hand Smith explains the state apparatus helped the
dominant class create a new and broader cultural identity for the
population (55). State institutions such as the legal system, economic
system, the educational system and the militia helped in the formation
of an ethnic community. This institutions maintained the symbols,
myths, values, traditions and memories which ethnic and nationality is
embedded. He explains this institutions are not the creators of an
ethnic identity but it does maintains the culture and helps maintain a
unify polity. A good example of how this institutions have done this can
be seen in Andersons discussion of print-capitalism. Education is
another institution helping to socialize future generations to be
citizens of the new nation (Smith 1991). These institutions provide
uniformity between members of an ethnic or national community, thus
helping in the formation of nations.

But this discussion cannot be treated as including the total

complexity of the interplay between state institutions with ethnicity.
Verdery gives us excellent examples of the power the state has to
determining who is included as part of the nation and who is excluded.
He explains how the state treats the multi-ethnical problem is his
exploration of the USSR. In his exploration of German minorities in
Rumania we can see how socialist policies undertone the ethnic
identification of German minorities. Institutional policies working in
excluding and undermining the German minorities made changes
within the group, how they identify and their solidarity to the German
communities in Rumania.
Brubaker explains a different role on institutions in the formation
of nations. Here the institutions use ethnicity in a more practical
manner, and not in its more spiritual manner. He explicates that the
soviet institutions of territorial nationhood and personal nationality
constituted a pervasive system of social classification, principle of
vision and division of the social world, a standardized scheme of social
accounting, a interpretative grid for public discussion, a set of
boundary- markers, a legitimate form for public and private identities
(48). With these examples we can see how permissive or restrictive
state institutions can be in the topic of ethnicity. We can see that
ethnicity in these cases is contextual and instrumental.

The literature also identifies religion as another important factor

in the creation of nations. We can see religion intertwined with
ethnicity in the creation of myths, memories and traditions of a nation.
Also, we can see tradition being used as an instrument to unify a polity
even in ethnically diverse communities. The state has also used
religion instrumentally by acquiring an official religion or even using
national identity as a worshipable icon in itself. The interplays between
religion, ethnicity and state institutions are diverse and historically
contextual, but nevertheless they are used constantly in the creation
and maintenance of a nation.
Religious icons and religious myths have been used by nations to
set the bases of their national and ethnic identity. Religious institutions
have function as keepers of traditions, they record, preserves and
transmit ethnic myths, memories and symbols through the cultural
communities. This religions task intertwines with ethnicity and
national identity in some cases to the extent of near fusion. In
countries like Malaysia there is nearly no distinction between being
Malay and being Islamic (Nagata). But religion can be particular to an
ethnic group as in the case of Jews, or as in the Malay case religion
merges with ethnicity as a consequence of history and migration. In
some cases this two factors are hard to separate because one feeds
the other.

The literature identifies two important ways the state has used
religion for the creation and maintenance of nations. First, religion is
used by the state when is included as an organized state religion.
Secondly, the state uses of religious sense in the formation of the
national sentiment. Hayes argues that nationalism has been used in a
religious sense in times where popular religiosity has been tone-down
by the state or by the historical context. The socialist regimes in the
USSR or the modern industrial and post-industrial era are good
examples. Ethnical and national identity replaced peoples necessity to
belief, gave people myths and a destiny or collective faith in their
nations (Hayes 165). In the other hand the state has used organized
religion to help ensure the survival of certain ethnic communities
across the centuries, despite many changes in their social composition
and cultural content (Smith 1991). An organized religion holds
together the traditions, customs, symbols and artifacts that can get
lost through generations or migratory fluxes. Together with the judicial
and educational institutions, religion helps to give continuity to
nationality and helps maintain communal solidarity in the nation.
Although the literature for our class is a great compilation of
examples and theories about ethnicity, religion and the formation of
nations, there is one particular topic I did not saw being discuss in
deep. That is how ethnicity and religion manifests in cultures that have
been colonized. What are the consequences of the overlapping of

indigenous cultures and fully formed nationalities. The literature

focuses mostly in the development of nations in Euro-Asia, even
thought there is discussion about ethnics and religion, I think it will be
a good exercise to also see how pre-Columbian societies in their
process of forming a nation.