Three key debates about nationalism (in Europe) Instrumental versus - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Three key debates about nationalism (in Europe)

Instrumental versus Intrinsic Binary versus Graduated Teleological versus Reflexive

Instrumental versus Intrinsic (within liberal nationalism)

National belonging and self-determination not just a causal precondition (instrumental) but a constitutive co-condition (Intrinsic) of a

Life lived autonomously

Binary versus Graduated

Self-determination , yes or no (tied up with

attainment of sovereignty) OR

Position on a spectrum (devolution, federalism,

consociationalism, group rights, symbolic recognition, sovereignty-lite)

Teleological versus Reflexive Nationalism

Teleological nationalism involves

 Specification of set and unchanging goal  This ultimate goal typically an ambitious form of legal and political

nationalism (Sovereignty or something similar)

 All lesser goals treated as means to end of ultimate goal rather than

fundamental achievements

 Critical attitude towards failure to achieve or to pursue ultimate goal

Reflexive Nationalism

 Goals non-teleological - provisional rather than final, cumulative rather than

predetermined

 Internal duality – subject (people) as well as object (institutional

attainment), and iterative relationship between the two

 Plural Sensibility - aware of and prepared to factor in other and overlapping

intersubjective constructions of national peoplehood

 Procedural emphasis - no duty to pursue or right to receive any particular

• utcome. Instead a standing entitlement to have aspirations taken seriously

Why reflexive nationalism in Europe?

 Strategic (widens support base)  Reactive ( against statist denial)  Post-Sovereign positioning (reflects more graduated picture of

political authority in ‘3D’ European Union)

 Embedded in political landscape ( increasingly involved in

government and long-term positioning. A more pragmatic attitude towards the uses of political power)

Feasibility and Transferability?

 Most state constitutions (and constitutional actors) remain silent or hostile

as regards the prospect of sub-state nations deciding their own fate

 The EU’s attitude is one of ‘conservative neutrality’  Potentially with very different consequences across different European sub-

state nations

 A transnational procedural constitutional right of non-state nations ‘to be

taken seriously’ as regards secession and other outcomes still in very early stages of development

(Il)legitimacy

On one view, illegitimate, because Redundant (esp. in Western Europe) Contradicts underlying ethos of EU (arguably a more cosmopolitan and ‘postnational’ approach to recognition of non-nationals)

Legitimacy (in favour)

 Why discriminate between old and new European nations in terms of ‘right to decide’?  Rise of new illiberal nationalism in Europe of “old’ nations states’ reinforces claim of new

sub-state liberal nationalism

 Primary Right theory in international law making some headway against ‘Remedial Right’

theory

 The EU, through ideas of subsidiarity and a broader sense of recognition of ‘national

identity’, as well as through broader economic framework of regionalism, can instead be viewed as a champion of sub-state nationalism

 The EU has in any case, for now at least, redesigned the stage, and changed the stakes

• f political nationalism – sovereignty ‘prize’ retains symbolic value but less material

value

Internal consistency and coherence of reflexive nationalism

Sociological - the ‘new normal’ or a failure of momentum? Philosophical – Old ‘Sovereignty of Projection’ versus New

‘Sovereignty of Choice’? Does any group retain such an open-ended right, and, to the extent that they do, does this remain a right of national self-determination?