Nationalism Lecture 3: Theories I Prof. Lars-Erik Cederman Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Center for Comparative and International Studies (CIS) Seilergraben 49, Room G.2 lcederman@ethz.ch http://www.icr.ethz.ch/teaching/nationalism Assistant: Kimberly Sims , CIS, Room E 3, k-sims@northwestern.edu
Theories of nationalism: Main Debates Nationalist Anti-nationalist primordialism ideology Essentialism Constructivism Perennialism Modernism
Essentialism Cultural Political Raw Material Articulation, Identities Rediscovery 1 : 1 Ethnic cores See Cederman, “Nationalism and Bounded Integration”
Essentialism • Essentialism claims that nations are based on ancient cultural “raw material” and that there is a one-to-one correspondence between ethnic cores and national identities. • Variations: – Primordialism holds that the nation is natural – Perennialism contends that the nation is pre-modern – Methodological essentialism reifies the nation for analytical reasons
Constructivism Cultural Political Raw Material Selection & Identities Mobilization Ethnic boundaries
Constructivism • Constructivism argues that national identities are actively invented and modified by nationalist entrepreneurs selecting and mobilizing cultural traits for political purposes. • Variations: – Instrumentalism – Bounded-institutionalist theories
Bounded Institutionalism Cultural Political Raw Material Institutional Identities “lock-in”
Gellner’s constructivism • Targets: – Nationalist primordialism: “Sleeping Beauty” – Perennialism: “Dark Gods Theory” – Anti-nationalist ideologies (Marxism & Liberalism): “Wrong-Address Theory” • Gellner’s response: – Nations are not natural – Nations are not old – Nationalism is an integrated part of modernity and cannot be wished away Ernest Gellner
Gellner’s philosophy of history Industrial Pre-Agrarian Agrarian Society Society Society “Agro-literate” polity Vertically integrated large- with horizontal elite scale society unified by Stateless society on top and insulated culture peasant communities at the bottom
The logic of nationalism • High culture replaces structure ( Thought and Change , 1964) • Key to high culture: educational system • “Not the guillotine, but the doctorat d’état is the main tool and symbol of state power. The monopoly of legitimate education is more important, more central than the monopoly of legitimate violence.”
Gellner’s typology Center No education Education Periphery Pre-nationalist Ethnic No situation nationalism education Diaspora Classical liberal Education nationalism nationalism
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