Nations and Nationalism - Introduction PDF

NATIONS AND NATIONALISM IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE Javier Alcalde, IAU-ACM SECTION 1. WHAT WE KNOW AND WHAT WE STILL NEED TO KNOW IS TRUMP A NATIONALIST?  INTRODUCTION Nationalism is more relevant to the politics of our time than it has been in half a...

NATIONS AND NATIONALISM IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE Javier Alcalde, IAU-ACM SECTION 1. WHAT WE KNOW AND WHAT WE STILL NEED TO KNOW IS TRUMP A NATIONALIST?  INTRODUCTION Nationalism is more relevant to the politics of our time than it has been in half a centur The global reawakening of nationalism has perhaps been most visible in the U President Trump was elected on a campaign to put America first and make America great agai While Trump may be the most visible avatar of this “new nationalism,” analogous movements have swept to power in every corner of the globe y n S BRAZIL ABOVE ALL THE GLOBAL REAWAKENING OF NATIONALISM Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro borrowed Trumpian nationalism, running a campaign to make Brazil great again that handily delivered him the presidency in 2018 Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (since 2010) continually argues that the millions with national feelings are on one side [apart from] the elite ‘citizens of the world India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi decisively swept to power in 2014 and 2019 by proudly proclaiming Hindu nationalism Xi Jinping (since 2013), trumpeting Han-based nationalism, has become the most powerful president of China since Mao Zedong ’ DID HISTORY END IN 1989? Nationalism’s global re-emergence after decades of seeming retreat is seen as a surpris Following the crumbling of the Soviet Union, democracy, capitalism, and globalization seemed universally accepted as the best way to organize economies and govern societies. Global leaders largely accepted that history had ended because there was no longer a robust ideological alternative to this consensus (Fukuyama 1989 The assumption that the march of progress would leave nationalism behind was shown to be mistaken as early as the mid-1990s Nationalism was a crucial driver of regional political developments in the Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Latin America : ) e THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC Paradoxically, a pandemic that started globally and end globally demonstrated the national nature of decision-making levers and citizen loyalty Even within the supranational EU, a long list of countries closed its border Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Poland, Spain… Even France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, the EU’s greatest cheerleaders, closed their countries’ border The response to the pandemic literally took on national colors, as leader after leader addressed their country with backdrops of national flags. As Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage quipped, it seems we are all nationalists now s s WHAT POLITICAL THEORY SAYS I Political scientists largely agree that The nation, etymologically traceable to “birth” in Latin, is an imagined community (Anderson 1983) with an invented tradition (Hobsbawm & Ranger 1983 Individuals qualify for membership by dint of certain practices, beliefs, and/or inheritable attributes : ) WHAT POLITICAL THEORY SAYS II Nationalism is a celebration of the natio It involves a desire for political sovereignty exercised by a nation over a given territory It is thus the political principle which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent (Gellner 1983) n WHAT POLITICAL THEORY SAYS III Nationalism is a collective sentiment or identity bounding and binding together those individuals who share a sense of large-scale political solidarity It is also a sentiment aimed at creating, legitimating or challenging states (A. Marx 2005) WHO SHOULD WE FEEL EMPATHY FOR?  NOT EVERYONE LIKES IT As nationalism gains popularity once again, prominent voices have decried it o French President Macron has argued that nationalism erases moral values o The Guardian columnist George Monbiot has equated nationalism with racism o Celebrated author Arundhati Roy has written that flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrinkwrap people’s minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead IN THE 20TH CENTURY These reactions echo a 20th-century consensus, which included o The measles of mankind (Albert Einstein o The greatest evil (Rabindranath Tagore o Chauvinism (Hannah Arendt o A false god (Martin Luther King, Jr.) ) ) ) : IS NATIONALISM ALWAYS A BAD? THERE ARE MANY NUANCES IN THIS DEBATE I Nationalism is a broad term encompassing many varieties of national attachment (e.g. Spain/Catalonia Trump, Modi, Orbán, and Xi are employing nationalism to gain and maintain power… but: It has not always been a force for destroying democracies, waging wars, or marginalizing minoritie National attachments have inspired great sacrifice for the public good—from fighting in wars and national service to more mundane prosocial behaviors such as wearing face masks in pandemics s ) THERE ARE MANY NUANCES IN THIS DEBATE II It has featured centrally in some of the greatest movements for freedom and justice since the late 18th century, such as the many self-determination movements overthrowing Absolute monarchies in the wake of the American and French Revolution Racially and economically exploitative colonial regime Mahatma Gandhi called himself a fierce nationalist, though not devised to harm any nation or individua Nelson Mandela called himself a nationalist but by no means a racialist l s s NON-ETHNIC NATIONALISM? Today, most government leaders invoke historical narratives of national belonging to legitimate their power and policies Some of them do so through a values-based narrative Indonesian President Jokowi exhorting others to learn from Indonesia’s experience of tolerance and building unity in the nation through pancasila [Indonesia’s official national narrative] Canada’s (former) Prime Minister Justin Trudeau extolling a Canadian national identity that is no longer based on ethnic, religious, historical, or geographic grounds… [but] based on shared values US VS. THEM All nationalisms draw distinctions between a country’s obligations to its own citizens and noncitizens Many newly ascendant nationalisms legitimate internal racial, religious, and ethnic hierarchies among citizens of their own countries Donald Trump’s white nationalism that ranks nonwhites as second-class citizen Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalism that ranks Muslims as second-class citizen Xi’s Han nationalism that ranks Tibetans, Mongols, and Uighurs as second-class citizens s s NATIONALISM VS. BAD NATIONALISM It is not nationalism per se, but exclusionary nationalisms (also called ethnic or essentialist nationalisms) that are problematic for outcomes such as democracy, the prevention of genocide, and the provision of public goods RESEARCH QUESTIONS How and when are dominant national narratives formed? Does the invocation of national solidarity invariably presage the denigration of other nations, minority suppression, and external aggression? Under what circumstances does the rise of nationalism pose a problem for outcomes such as democracy, economic development, migration policy, human rights, or global peace? A GAP IN THE LITERATURE Research illuminating the comparative modalities of nationalism has been historically sparse. Why Scholars have long argued that a common national identity is an essential mediator of at least one outcome of interest—democracy Niccolò Machiavelli wrote that a spirit of clear equality pervaded unified republics (1517 Alexis de Tocqueville declared, there is nothing in the world but patriotism and religion that can make the universality of citizens advance for long toward the same goal (1835 John Stuart Mill argued that [f]ree institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities (1861 Influential political scientists such as Rustow (1970) and Dahl (1989) also suggested that the only absolute prerequisite to democracy was a sense of national unity ) ) ) ? COMPARATIVE POLITICAL SCIENCE Single-country case studies of nationalism abound in political science While each country’s national narrative is unique, a fundamental assumption of comparative political science is that trading away historical nuance for parsimony reaps insights and allow for generalization (E.g. Catalonia vs. Basque Country o Some of our most foundational understandings of nationalism have come from sociologists explicitly engaging in comparison The historical neglect of nationalism in political science (which is just beginning to change), arises out of historic and normative grounds Where research has been comparative, it has sought to describe the historic origins and spread of nationalism, rather than to explain nationalism’s impacts upon other outcomes of interes Western/Euro-centrism The empirical lens of this work has privileged the European and American experiences s ) t NEXT CLASSES Critically assess the classic debates in nationalism scholarship and identify the origins of the current consensus that nations are socially constructed and historically contingent phenomen Identify three trends in contemporary scholarship: o (a) comparative historical scholarship that treats nationalism as a macropolitical force and excavates the relationships between nations, states, constitutive stories, and political conflict o (b) behavioral scholarship that uses survey and experimental research to gauge the causes and effects of attachment to nation o (c) observational and ethnographic scholarship that describes the everyday processes and practices that perpetuate national belongin Summarize insights from other disciplines and identify gaps in empirical knowledge s a g