An Introduction to

Ethno-Nationalism
Dr Rashid Ahmed
 Lecture 01
Introduction and History of the Study of Nationalism
 To have clarity on
To understand the
learning goals to
Learning Objectives rationale for studying
achieve through the
ethno-nationalism
course

To study the historical

To get familiar with
development of the
key discourse and
academic study of
debates on
ethno-nationalism as a
Nationalism
discipline
IS NATIONALISM SEEING A SURGE?
• Most recent texts on nationalism start by pointing to the ‘rediscovery’ of nationalism as a subject of
academic inquiry
• “nationalism has seemingly returned with renewed vigor in recent decades”(Delanty & Kumar, 2006: 1)
• “a sudden explosion of nationalism” (Spencer & Wollman, 2001: 1)
• “a phenomenal growth in the practice and study of nationalism” (Smith, 1998: xi)
• Yet this picture of the worldwide proliferation of ethnic and nationalist conflicts needs to be seriously
qualified.
• A sustained decline in total number of armed self-determination conflict
• Why this gap between perception and data?
• More attention is given to violent cases than peaceful ones in the literature.
• The tendency to take the accounts of combatants at their face value
 Can we conclude on the basis of this
that nationalism does not matter?
No. Nationalism matters - as the fundamental organizing
principle of the interstate order, as the ultimate source of political
legitimacy, as a readily available cognitive and discursive frame,
as the taken-for granted context of everyday life.
THE IMPORTANCE OF NATIONALISM

Nationalism
• forms the horizon of international and domestic political
discourse
• serves as the natural framework for all political interaction
• structures our daily lives and the way we perceive and interpret
the reality
• impinges on our analytical perspectives
 STUDY OF NATIONALISM – A BRIEF
HISTORY
Some pioneering work by historians like Carleton Hayes, Hans
Kohn, Louis Snyder and E.H. Carr.

In 1960s and 1970s, the academic debate on nationalism

started

1974, first academic journals was published

At present, a flood of publication on nationalism and its

recognition as a discipline.
REASONS FOR THE BELATED DEVELOPMENT OF
STUDY OF NATIONALISM

Indifference in academic thinking Reduction to its extreme manifestation

• The rigidity and conservatism of • Viewing nationalism as separatist
established disciplines, which movements that threaten the stability
regarded nationalism either as passé of existing states, or aggressive
or as a lesser, marginal right-wing politics
preoccupation • Treating nationalism as property of
• Assumption that “society” - a “others” while “our” nationalism is
universal feature of human existence repackaged as “patriotism”.
– is synonymous to nation
 WHY STUDY THIS COURSE?
• To provide a systematic overview of some of the key theoretical
approaches to nationalism and to consider the main criticisms raised
against them in a comparative perspective
• To point to the limitations of the classical debate and to identify the
theoretical problems we are still facing
• To propose an alternative theoretical framework that can be used in the
study of nationalism.
Discourses and Debates on
Nationalism
A Historical Overview
Four Historical Stages in the Study of Idea of
Nationalism
18th and 19th centuries
• When the idea of nationalism was born

1918-1945
• When nationalism a subject of academic inquiry

1945-1989
• When the theoretical debate on nationalism became more intense and diversified

1989-Present
• when attempts to transcend the classical debate have been made.
 Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
• The academic study of nationalism may have taken off in the twentieth century,
but nationalism itself, as an ideology and a social and political movement, has
been very much in evidence since at least the end of the eighteenth century.
• Key thinkers:
• Philosophers like Kant, Rousseau, Herder, Fichte, Mill, Lord Acton, Marx, Engels, Lenin,
Luxemburg, Bauer, Stalin
• Historians like Michelet, von Treitschke, Renan
• Social theorists like Durkheim and Weber
Thinkers View of Nationalism

Immanual Kant His work on individualism and self determination provided foundation for
(1724–1804) political movements in the next centuries
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712– A political association makes sense, only if it can protect men from
1778) “tyranny of will by his fellowmen.”
Johann Gottfried Herder (1744– Language “bears the stamp of the mind and
1803) character of a national group”
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762– Germans are the Urvolk – the original people. Language is a natural
1814) invisible bond that give rise to nation
Kal Marx (1818–83) and Engels In Communist Menifesto, the position is internationalist. In later works,
(1820–95) nationalism was described as the building block of capitalism
Rosa Luxemburg Rejects the idea of “the nation as a homogenous
(1871–1919) sociopolitical entity” in line with Marxist’s internationalism
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870– The proletariat should support national movements in the first phase of
1924) capitalism – the period of collapse of feudalism – and reject those in the
second phase of capitalist state formation
Thinkers View of Nationalism

Otto Bauer (1881–1938) and Karl Stressed the need to separate nation from state and proposed a model of
Renner (1870–1950) national autonomy
John Stuart Mill The identity of political antecedents cause the feeling of nationality.
(1806–73) Countries should be built on nationalities to ensure free institutions.
Lord Acton Rights of nationalities is a novel phenomenon and individual freedom is
(1834–1902) better maintained in a multinational state.
Émile Durkheim Nationality is a a group of human beings, who for ethnical or perhaps
(1858–1917) merely for historical reasons desire to live under the same laws, and to form
a single state.’ Nationalism as a constructed phenomenon.
Max Weber A nation is a community which normally tends to produce a state of its own
(1864–1920)
Heinrich von Treitschke (1834–96) Promoted their own nationalism as the “true” nationalism while debunked
and Jules Michelet’s (1798–1874) others.
Ernest Renan Nation is a historical creation brought about by the convergence of many
(1823–92) facts. Rejects the role of race, language or religion in defining a nation
 1918-1945
• At the start of the 20th century, amidst the detritus of the First World War,
nationalism became a subject of academic inquiry.
• Key thinkers: Carleton Hayes, Hans Kohn, E.H. Carr and Louis Snyder
• The early writings of these historians were pioneering in that they treated nationalism as
something to be explained, not merely defended or criticized.
• They were the first to stress the historical novelty of nationalism and to explore the
structural conditions that gave birth to it.
• But like their predecessors, they adopted a moralistic tone
• It is ‘nationalism’ that is problematic, not the ‘nation’ or ‘nationality.’
 1918-1945: Carleton J. H. Hayes
• Nationalism is “the paramount devotion of human beings to fairly large
nationalities and the conscious founding of a political nation on linguistic
and cultural nationality” (1931: 6)
Five Forms of
Modern
Nationalism

Humanitarian Jacobian Traditional Liberal Integral

nationalism Nationalism Nationalism Nationalism Nationalism
 1918-1945: Carleton J. H. Hayes (cont.)
• Hayes’ typology is chronological and evolutionary.
• Democratic Nationalism > Jacobian Nationalism
• Aristocratic Nationalism > Traditional Nationalism
• Jacobian and Traditional Nationalism > Liberal and Integral Nationalism
• Hayes’ work suffers from taking “nationality” for granted
• Nationalism may be novel and historically contingent, but not nationalities.
• This limits the analytical value of Hayes’ formulations as he tends to ‘assume’ rather
than ‘explain’ the nation and nationalism
 1918-1945: Hans Kohn
• Nationalism is the end product of the process of integration of the masses
of people into a common political form. It is a modern phenomenon

Two types of Nationalism

Western Non-Western
• Political • Cultural
• Individual Liberty and rationality • Romanticism with “our”
nationalism as superior to
“others”
 1918-1945:Hans Kohn (cont.)
• Criticism on Kohn’s typology
• Arbitrary
• Spain, Belgium and Ireland were put in Non-Western categories
• Moralistic
• Emphasize that western nationalism as superior to non-Western nationalism
• Unreal
• False belief that purely political nationalism is possible
 1918-1945: E.H. Carr
• Carr was more interested in delineating the various stages of European
nationalism than the ethical value of it.
• Nation is not a “natural” or “biological” group but nationalism claim to
make it “the sole rightful sovereign repository of political power”
• Divided the history of international relations into three overlapping
periods with respect to the views on nation as a political entity
 Marked by gradual dissolution of
empire and church, and the
establishment of the national
state.
First period

Three overlapping periods in

the history of international
Nation was identified with the
person of the sovereign

Product of French Revolution.

relations
Continued till 1914

Second Period

A balance between nationalism

and internationalism

Started at the end of nineteenth

century and reached its
culmination by two world wars
Third Period
The catastrophic growth of
nationalism and the bankruptcy
of internationalism.
 1918-1945: E.H. Carr (cont.)
• Carr believes that the modern nation-state is under attack and its future
depends on the strength of attacking forces and on the nature of the
balance that may be struck between them
• Criticism on Carr’s typology
• Moralistic and Euro-centralist
• By rejecting the possibility of a community of nations, he failed to allow for the
possibility of a wave of anti-colonial nationalisms or renewed European and Third World
secession nationalisms.
 1945-1989
• Due to the experience of decolonization, coupled with general developments in
social sciences, this period is the most intensive and prolific period of research on
nationalism.
• Key thinkers: Daniel Lerner, Karl W. Deutsch and Elie Kedourie
• Scholars of this period posited three different stages in the modernization process:
• Tradition
• Transition
• Modernity
 1945-1989: Daniel Lerner
• Lerner presented a functionalist account of nationalism
• It can provide identity in a time of rapid change
• It can motivate people to work for further change
• It can provide guidelines in such fields as the creation of a modern educational system
and of a standard ‘national’ culture
• The Passing of a Traditional Society (1958) – a story of three characters from
Balgat, a little town in Turkey, representing three stages of modernization
• What they are today is a passage from what they once were to what they are becoming.
 Criticism on Lerner’s functionalism

Reversed Holistic Low explanatory power Eurocentric

• Consequences • Modernization is • Cannot explain the • Simplify and reify the
precede causes – such a large term that variety of historical ideal types of
Individuals are effects one can hardly responses to ‘tradition’ and
of social conditions connect something as modernization ‘modernity’, deriving
• Most goals that are specific as • Why Pakistan’s them from Western
thought to be served nationalism to them nationalism is experiences.
by nationalism are • Modernization have traditional but • The reality is much
logically and taken place without Trukey’s was secular? more complex than
historically posterior accompanying Lerner would have us
to the emergence of a nationalist feelings believe.
nationalist movement
 1945-1989: Karl W. Deutsch
• Developed a “communication approach” whereby nationality “consists in the ability to
communicate more effectively, and over a wider range of subjects, with members of one large
group than with outsiders”
• Criticism on Deutsch communication appraoch
• Omission of the particular context of beliefs, interpretations and interests within which the mass media
operate.
• Unidimensional conception which overlooked the variety of ideas communicated and perceived by the
individuals
• Intensified communications between individuals and groups can as often lead to an increase in internal
conflict as to an increase in solidarity
• does not work if the level of analysis shifts outside the nation-state.
 1945-1989: Elie Kedourie
• Critical view of nationalism as a problem in the history of ideas - a doctrine invented in Europe
• National movement were outcome of a breakdown in the transmission of political habits and religious
beliefs from one generation to the next.
• “nationalist movements are children’s crusades”
• Aimed to satisfy the need to belong to a coherent community, traditionally satisfied by family
• Criticism on Kedourie’ theory
• Many critics disagree with Kedourie on the question of Kant’s contribution to the doctrine of nationalism.
• Intellectual determinism - The social and political factors in Kedourie’s account are overshadowed by the
developments in the intellectual arena
• No clear answer to why only at certain times and places it was the nation which replaced traditional communities
• It is not clear how ideas have contributed to the breakdown of existing structures.
 1945-1989: Neo-Marxists, Ethnosymbolists
and Modernists
• Neo-Marxist scholars like Micheal Hechter and Tom Nairn focused on the
role of economic factors in the genesis of nationalism
• Ethnosymoblists like John Armstrong and Anthony D. Smith’s presented a
new critique of modernist approaches
• A new wave of modernism led by Ernest Gellner, Eric J. Hobsbawm and
Terence Ranger set the scene for the ardent, sometimes highly polemical,
debates of the last decade
 1989-Present
• We have entered a new stage in the theoretical debate on nationalism since
the end of the 1980s.
• New studies transcend the ‘classical’ debate and add new dimensions to the analysis
of nations and nationalism.
• The tide is turning and the new approaches are occupying a more and more central
position within the theoretical debate on nationalism
• We may be entering in a “post-classist” age