Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, (1983)

1 DEFINITIONS
Nationalism is primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be
congruent. It is a theory of political legitimacy.(1)
Gellner works with Webers definition of the state as that agency within society that possesses the
monopoly of legitimate violence. He notes that states only exist where there is division of labour, and the
state is that instit or set of instits specifically concerned with the enforcement of order (whatever else they
may also be concerned with). (4)
Stateless societies cannot, conceptually, experience nationalism. The state is a prior to nationalism. (4)
The concept of nation is more complicated, as it is seen as natural. Having a nation is not an inherent
attribute of humanity, but it has now come to appear as such. (6)
The state has certainly emerged without the help of the nation. Some nations have certainly emerged
without the blessings of their own state. It is more debatable whether the normative idea of the nation, in its
modern sense, did not presuppose the prior existence of the state. (6)
Thus for two men to be in the same nation requires two things: a common culture, understandings,
meanings etc; and the acknowledgement that the other is a fellow national and the recognition of mutual
rights and duties to each other in virtue of shared membership in it. (7)

4 THE TRANSITION TO AN AGE OF NATIONALISM

The modern economy needs substitutable and thus mobile people on a large scale, it needs all people to be
specialised but to move between specialisations. Therefore it is required that all have a common
education, a similar culture. It is not the case, as Elie Kedourie claims, that nationalism imposes
homogeneity; it is rather that a homogeneity imposed by objective, inescapable imperative eventually
appears on the surface in the form of nationalism. (39)
Early industrialism means population explosion, rapid urbanisation, labour migration, and also the
economic and political penetration of previously more or less inward-turned communities, by a global
economy and a centralising polity. (...) a new kind of Babel, with new cultural boundaries that are not
stable but in constant and dramatic movement, and which are seldom hallowed by any kind of custom.
(42)
It is not the case that nationalism imposes homogeneity out of a wilful cultural Machtbedrfniss; it is the
objective need for homogeneity which is reflected in nationalism. If it is the case that a modern industrial
state can only function with a mobile, literate, culturally standardised, interchangeable population, as we
have argued, then the illiterate, half-starved populations sucked from their erstwhile rural cultural ghettoes
into the melting pots of shanty-towns yearn for incorporation into some one of those cultural pools which
already has, or looks as if it might acquire, a state of its own, with the subsequent promise of full cultural
citizenship, access to primary schools, employment, and all. (46) Thus his argument is not functionalist:
this quote reveals the arguments compatibility with incentive compatibility constraints.
Often these people can vacillate btw two or more cultures for a while. Choosing the culture often depends
on whether you (and your children) can assimilate and stop being prejudiced, which makes ostensible
physical traits and deeply engrained religious-cultural habits relevant for national membership. (46)

There are tons of cultures that could potentially become nations, i.e. acquire a state, and one cant tell
beforehand which will succeed. Most die out, or at least dont become national (South Germans, small
Scottish villages, etc.), and some succeed. The concept of the national awakener (awakening a latent
nation) is thus a bad image, for he does not awaken a latent nation, but rather brings one together: Nations
as a natural, God-given way of classifying men, as an inherent though long-delayed political destiny, are a
myth; nationalism, which sometimes takes pre-existing cultures and turns them into nations, sometimes
invents them , and often obliterates pre-existing cultures: that is a reality, for better or worse, and in
general an inescapable one. Those who are its historic agents know not what they do, but that is another
matter. Thus, nationalism is the crystallisation of new cultures, not the awakening of old ones. (49)
The reason we dont have a global state is that industrialisation came unequally and the required critical
masses are sufficient in current states. He mentions in passing that having out-groups allowed nations to
have a token, a name. (52)

5 WHAT IS A NATION?
The two aspects of a definition of nation given before (the voluntary aspect and the cultural aspect) are not
co-extensive with what we mean by nation. The voluntary aspect makes no sense given sub-cultures, gangs,
etc, the cultural aspect makes no sense if we consider previous eras where cultural allegiances were
independent of national ones. (55-)
Nations are thus defined in terms of will and culture, but only in the era of nationalism. Nationalism creates
nations, not the other way around. But this doesnt mean that they are merely thinker-elite driven
constructs: they are necessities of the historical phenomenon which is industrialisation. The thinker-elites
just filled in (incarnated) a(n objective) void that was asking to be filled: we needed a common culture (see
the incentive compatibility comment given above). (56)
Nationalism is, essentially, the general imposition of a high culture on society, where previously low
cultures had taken up the lives of the majority (...) of the population. (57)