Sources of the nation

About this book

Nationalism is an elusive phenomenon. Elusive, because of its Janus-faced nature—it is a movement of collective emancipation in certain contexts, and an exclusive and xenophobic ideology par excellence in others. Elusive, because of the nation’s patently contingent character on the one hand, and the fact that it is experienced as an absolute necessity by its most rational and enlightened members, on the other. Elusive, because of its polymorphous aspect: nationalism has been alternately described as, to only name a few, an ethnic, ideological, political, sociological, cultural, anthropological, class, and psychological phenomenon. Elusive, because of its origins in time—a definitely modern phenomenon according to some scholars, a phenomenon as old as humanity for others. Elusive, in that its image changed over time. Associated to liberalism, it was connotated positively in the early nineteenth century; this original image faded away and became clearly negative in the first half of the twentieth century. Regarded again as an emancipatory force during the decolonisation, the concept has been once more vehemently denounced since the end of the Cold War. Elusive, because of its linguistically ambiguous usage, the term “nation” itself having changed meaning several times, from its Latin usage to the contemporary debates regarding its application. Elusive, finally, in that there is still today no consensual theory of nationalism and the nation. It would be tempting to ascribe to the concept’s inherent viscous and polysemous character the absence of a consensual theory of nationalism—unless this seemingly shifty, polymorphous nature derives directly from the very way in which nationalism and the nation have been thus far approached by scholars. We can detect indeed three methodological biases or flaws shared by most theories of nationalism. First, students of nationalism may be accused of having defined and shaped their concepts of nationalism and the nation in order to serve their own normative objectives, turning the nation and nationalism into Procrustean beds. Indeed, one can hardly find another social phenomenon whose very definition varied so considerably according to the observer’s own perspective, however scientific the latter may be in his analysis. Much more than, say, the state, democracy, socialism, or political parties, the very definition of nationalism has not only varied according to the student’s field of knowledge, but also to his school of thought—not to mention his own personal experience of the nation. Sociologists have reduced nationalism to a sociological transformation, psychoanalysts to a problem of the psyche. Marxists have interpreted it as a class phenomenon, while rational-choice thinkers reduced it to a problem of individual self-interest. Kedourie, horrified by the Nazi murderous mania, was induced to confine nationalism among the illiberal ideological inventions; and, more recently, Tamir admitted that her theory of the nation attempted to reconcile her own Zionist and liberal convictions. In many cases, this general tendency resulted in an a priori reification of the nation—be it considered an ontologically given substantial community or a figment of the imagination—and teleological explanations corroborating the scholars’ preconceived notions of nationalism. This tendency was amplified by a second methodological peculiarity of many studies of nationalism. The tendency of these studies has been to be either too general or too specific in their reliance on cases. While, on the one hand, some authors, willing to construct transhistorical invariant models, neglected empiria for the sake of theoretical elegance, sprinkling the latter with examples often too rapidly analysed, others too narrowly focused on a single case and fell thereby into the trap of historical particularism. In both cases, this resulted in the general difficulty for the existing theories of nationalism to “travel,” once applied to a particular case. A last general methodological problem lies in the insufficient concern of theoreticians of nationalism to verify whether the constellation of factors they identified as determining in the emergence of nationalism is not to be found in contexts where precisely no nation and nationalism arose. If nationalism was indeed, as has been argued, a combination of class interests and ethnicity, a movement aiming at modifying the structure of individual life-chances, an ideological invention, an ethnocultural movement, a functional adaptation to the demands of industrialisation, or yet a communications community, one is entitled to wonder why respectively, in many cases—and maybe in most cases—the combination of class interests and ethnicity, the pressure to modify the structure of individual life-chances, the diffusion of the nationalist ideology, the presence of territorially established ethnic groups, the need to accelerate industrialisation, or yet the existence of established communication networks precisely did not give rise to nations or national movements. The present thesis wants to face up to this series of methodological problems and thereby try to reduce the general ambiguity of nationalism. It will join authors like Anderson, Mann, or Taylor in their effort to build a theory of nationalism and the nation which, if it cannot completely avoid, is at least aware of the above-mentioned problems encountered by many of their predecessors and colleagues. To sum up, a “good theory” of nationalism should, in our opinion, combine the following five qualities. First, so as to avoid the risk of a priori misconceptions, it should approach both nationalism and the nation as—as recommended by Bourdieu—categories of practices rather than as categories of analysis. According to Brubaker, who tried to adapt Bourdieu’s precepts, conceiving the nation and nationalism as categories of analysis, as most authors did, leads to both the reification of the nation and an a priori conceptualisation of nationalism before the very investigation of these phenomena. Treating instead these two notions as “categories of practice” or “practical categories” enables the observer to approach the phenomena with less risk of exploring the cases teleologically. Accordingly, the nation should not be treated as a substantial entity (be it with ancient roots or the result of a pure construction) but as a contingent, institutionalised form. Second, this theory should be multidisciplinary. Third, it should certainly aim at theoretical generalisation, yet not at the expense of a thorough empirical exploration. It should be the result of a synergetic relation between theoretical information and a complex historical description accounting for space, time, and sequence. Fourth, it should be truly comparative so as to avoid either invariant models or idiosyncrasies. Finally, it should not hesitate to use methods of counterfactual history so as to avoid any teleological temptation—a possible strategy being the systematic verification that identified determinants of nationalism are not present in contexts deprived of autonomous national movements. The central question of this thesis as well as the strategy we shall adopt for elucidating it resolutely partake in this agenda aimed at reframing nationalism—to paraphrase the title of Brubaker’s recent book. We shall take, as a point of departure, a remark made by Gellner in Nations and Nationalism: The clue to the understanding of nationalism is its weakness at least as much as its strength. It was the dog that failed to bark who provided the vital clue for Sherlock Holmes. The number of potential nationalisms which failed to bark is far, far larger than those which did, though they have captured our attention. Thus, instead of focusing on the occurrence of nationalism, we shall wonder why some collectivities possessing a certain degree of distinctness—be it ethnic, linguistic, cultural, religious, racial, historical, administrative, or economic—experience subnationalist movements whereas other similarly distinct groups do not and content themselves with participating in the national movement of the larger state to which they belong. In other words, what are the particularities of nationalism and the nation in comparison to other social phenomena? To focus on the western world, why have for instance Catalonia, the Basque Country, Slovenia or Flanders considered themselves nations whereas Bavaria, Brittany, Andalusia, Sicily, Savoy or Newfoundland, despite their real particularism, did not claim this status? Why is there a strong Parti Québécois and no Parti Acadien? Why, finally, has the national unity of France or Switzerland so far remained relatively undisputed whereas democratic and prosperous states like Belgium or Canada experienced strong subnationalist movements?