Nationalism

Nationalism is variously defined as political doctrine, a sentiment or sense of identity, a political or social movement, and a form of power. In the context of this encyclopedia, this entry defines nationalism as movements seeking or exercising state power on the basis of nationalist ideology. The core claims of that ideology are: there is a nation; the nation provides the principal focus of identity and loyalty; the nation should be self-determining. Self-determination usually means sovereignty over national territory and government by fellow nationals.

If one distinguishes three kinds of social power— coercive, economic, and ideological—nationalism, like other “isms,” is ideological. Ideological power persuades people to act in conformity with beliefs expressed by the ideology, or more specifically by its interpreters, such as intellectuals or priests. However, although this distinction between kinds of power is necessary for analysis, in every case the kinds overlap and interact. Let us first outline why and how nationalism acquires persuasive appeal and then consider ways in which, as a political movement, it combines beliefs with violence and material interests to achieve social power.

There are debates about the origins and nature of nationalism. The most important difference is between those who consider the nation as prior to nationalism and those who do not. The first position begins by tracing the formation of nations, whether regarded as a long-run historical process or a modern development. The long-run approach usually links national sentiment to ethnicity, constructed internally as belief in common descent and externally in conflict with enemies, reproduced culturally through such mechanisms as story telling and ritual, and reinforced by territorial organization. The modernist view considers processes like industrialization and urbanization, growth of a print media and mass literacy, and formation of a modern bureaucratic and interventionist state as underpinning nation formation. Nationalism is an ideological and political expression of nation formation. Thus, nationalism is not really a significant form of power but rather a derivative of national power.

The second position argues that nation formation, even where it can be traced and analyzed, does not correlate closely with nationalism. Nationalism is not significant in modern England, although nation formation has a long and continuous history. Conversely, significant nationalism operates in countries with little prior national identity or institutions, for example, many colonial states. Indeed, nationalists see nation formation as their most important task.

If one takes this position, wherein lie the ideological origins and the appeal of nationalism? Some suggest that it is in the emergence of mass politics within the territorial state. Mass politics—which can be linked to mass literacy and increased social mobility due to industrial and urban growth—is accompanied by political forms such as political parties contesting elections to sovereign parliaments, and professional politicians exploiting new methods of mass communication. Appeals to “the people” figure centrally in their rhetoric. The modern territorial state, which appropriates a growing proportion of gross domestic product for military, infrastructural, and welfare purposes, becomes an object of enhanced importance for its subjects. These subjects, represented in political rhetoric as the people, now are turned into a particular set of people, those inhabiting a sharply defined territory. To this set of people is applied the term nation.

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