EuropeanNationalism
Week4:Nationalisminlate18th
and19th centuries
7993918, 5 credits
19.01.2017 - 02.03.2017, U37 sh 3
Juhana Aunesluoma, Research director, Network for
European Studies
[email protected]
Office hours: by appointment
Nationalisminhistory:
questions
• Historical questions
• How, when and where did modern nationalism emerge in
Europe?
• Why did it emerge?
• Can we find common patterns in Europe? Main phases?
• What have been the variations of European nationalisms?
• How should we assess nationalism’s significance?
• Conceptual questions
• When should we use the term nationalism to describe social and
political phenomena?
• Were there nations before nationalism? Or did nationalism create
nations?
• What kind of an ideology is nationalism?
• Does nationalism have concrete forms, or is it only constructed?
The“great”orthe“classical”
debate
1. Modernists
• Economic transformations (T. Nairn)
• Political transformations (J. Breuilly, E. Hobsbawm)
• Social/Cultural transformations (E. Gellner, B. Anderson, M. Hroch)
2. Primordialists and ethnosymbolists
• Culturalist approach (E. Shils, C. Geertz)
• Ethnic origins of nations (A. Smith)
3. Newer theories
•
•
•
•
Banal nationalism (M. Billig)
Feminist approaches (N. Yuval-Davis)
Discourses (C. Calhoun)
Ethnicity and citizenship (R. Brubaker)
Historyofnationalism:
‘modernisttextbookversion’
• First wave
• Nationalism emerged in the last quarter of the 18th century in the decades of
revolution
• From 1800s to 1820s it spread unevenly into other parts of Europe and Latin
America
• The upheavals of 1848 were a culmination of nationalist movements: ‘spring of
peoples’, followed by unification of Germany and Italy
• Second wave
• During the last decades of the 19th century nationalism spread all over Europe and
into Asia, Middle East and also to Africa assuming often a distinct ethnic form
• In the first half of the 20th century this globalization process continued and
deepened. In some cases it lead into extreme forms of nationalism in countries
like Nazi Germany
• After WWII nationalism played a significant role in decolonization
• Third wave
• Earlier histories assumed that nationalism would gradually weaken globally in the
late 20th century
• However, new forms of nationalisms emerged in Europe and various parts of the
world. Ethnic conflicts proliferated after the dissolution of the Soviet Union
Modernistversion:mainideas
• Continuing appeal of a unitary model
• From a ‘romantic’, idealistic phase (18th to 19th centruries) towards a
more political and geopolitical phase (19th to 20th century), followed by a
more diffuse and hard to explain contemporary nationalism
• Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780
• First phase: ‘threshold principle’: large nations first (1830-1870). Civic,
inclusive and unifying nationalism, top-down processes in state-nations
with local ‘proto-nationalisms’ and ‘invention of traditions’.
• Second phase: ethnic and/or linguistic nationalism in Eastern Europe
(1870-1914), breaking up of larger states and nations, ‘right wing
nationalism’, xenophobia, racism, antisemitism
• Mid-twentieth century nazism and genocide were the high point of this
development
• After 1945 this tendency weakened, nationalism overall less important,
not proactive byt reactive. Exceptions in some places: revival of ethnic
nationalism and ‘small-nationality nationalisms’
Nationalism andtheage of
revolutions
• What was the significance of American independence and the
French revolution to the development of modern nationalism?
• What were the new ideas about the relationship between the
individual, state and society? What kinds of responses did
they lead into?
• What were the lasting effects and legacies of the age of
revolutions in the formation and development of modern
nationalism?
Ideas oftheEnlightenment
• Individualism - individual self-interest and rights (human
rights)
• Rationalism - belief in reason and the rationality of action
• Popular sovereignty - legitimacy of power based on the will of
the people and the idea of representative government (social
contract)
• Legal and political equality - in opposition to ’ancient’
permanent social hierarchies
Questions andcontradictions
• Who are the people? How are the political subjects defined?
How is a sovereign nation defined? What are its boundaries?
• How should rational, autonomous individuals pursue their
own self-interests and desires? How should the interests of
the collective be defined and guaranteed?
• What should be the form of self-rule? How is democracy to be
realized? What does liberal democracy mean in practice?
=>Tension between the interests of individuals and the whole (holismindividualism)
=> Tension of how to define the political subject (who are excluded
and who are included)
Ethnicgroups ofAustria-Hungaryin1910
Based on 1910 census
EthnicmajoritiesinEasternEuropebeforeWWI