Nation-States and Nationalisms E-Book

Sinisa Malesevic

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: PPSS - Polity Political Sociology series
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 407

Beschreibung

Despite many predictions made over the last two hundred years that nation-states and nationalism are transient phenomena that will eventually fade away, the historical record and contemporary events show otherwise. Nationalism still remains the most popular, potent and resilient ideological discourse and the nation-state the only legitimate mode of territorial rule. This innovative and concise book provides an in-depth analysis of the processes involved in the emergence, formation, expansion and transformation of Nation-States and Nationalisms as they are understood today. Sinisa Malesevic examines the historical predecessors of nation-states (from hunting and gathering bands, through city-states, to modernizing empires) and explores the historical rise of organizational and ideological powers that eventually gave birth to the modern nation-state. The book also investigates the ways in which nationalist ideologies were able to envelop the microcosm of family, kin, residential and friendship networks. Other important topics covered along the way include: the relationships between nationalism and violence; the routine character of nationalist experience; and the impacts of globalization and religious revivals on the transformation of nationalisms and nation-states. This insightful analysis of nationalisms and nation-states through time and space will appeal to scholars and students in sociology, politics, history, anthropology, international relations and geography.

Leseprobe

Nation-States and Nationalisms

Political Sociology series

Daniel Béland, What is Social Policy?

Understanding the Welfare State

Cedric de Leon, Party & Society

Nina Eliasoph, The Politics of Volunteering

Hank Johnston, States & Social Movements

Richard Lachmann, States and Power

Siniša Maleševi, Nation-States and Nationalisms

Nation-States and Nationalisms:Organization, Ideology andSolidarity

Siniša Maleševi

polity

Copyright © Siniša Maleševi 2013

The right of Siniša Maleševi to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2013 by Polity Press

Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press350 Main StreetMalden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-7456-7206-9

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Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website:www.politybooks.com

For my friend, Goga Uzelac

Contents

Acknowledgements

1.  The Salience of Nationalism

2.  Group Solidarities before the Nation-State

3.  The Birth and Expansion of Nationalisms

4.  Nationalist Ideologies and Violence

5.  The Omnipotence of Triviality

6.  Beyond National Identity

7.  The Future of Nationalisms

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

While working on this book I have greatly benefited from the comments of and discussions with numerous colleagues and friends. In particular I would like to thank: Benedict Anderson, Michael Banton, John Breuilly, Rogers Brubaker, Miguel Centeno, John Coakley, Randall Collins, Katy Hayward, Jonathan Hearn, John Hutchinson, Richard Jenkins, Stathis Kalyvas, Krishan Kumar, Michael Mann, Lisa Moran, Niall O’Dochartaigh, Liam O’Dowd, Brendan O’Leary, Umut Özkırımlı, Kevin Ryan, Stacey Scriver, Martin Shaw, Anthony D. Smith, Gordana Uzelac and Andreas Wimmer. I am especially grateful to John A. Hall and the two anonymous reviewers for their extensive and insightful comments on the entire manuscript, and to Jonathan Skerrett at Polity, who has been an excellent editor throughout this project. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the UCD School of Sociology who were so welcoming and helpful in my transition to a new university. Most importantly this book, as is the case with all my previous works, would not have seen the light of day without the love, patience and sacrifices of my wife and colleague, Vesna, and the stimulating, affectionate and welcome distractions provided by my two boys, Luka and Alex.

1

The Salience of Nationalism

Introduction

Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon in 1969 was a momentous occasion in human history. This event signified the exceptional ingenuity and determination of humankind, whose representatives were now able to develop such advanced science, technology and organization to reach, and eventually conquer, outer space. The historic landing was seen as a tremendous success for all of humanity, and Armstrong’s utterance about the ‘giant leap for mankind’ reflected this well. Despite intense cold war animosities, the event became a source of pride throughout the world.

Such universally shared feelings were just as evident in 2010 when thirty-three miners in Copiapo, Chile, became trapped 700 metres below the surface. Their ordeal and the struggles to save their lives quickly developed into a global event where billions around the world watched the unfolding of this potential tragedy on their TV screens and sincerely empathized with the miners’ suffering and the emotional turmoil that their families went through. The eventual successful rescue of all the miners resulted in globally shared joy and pride, with human resolve and ingenuity as well as technological and organizational supremacy again celebrated all over the world.

There is no doubt that these two events had strong universalist appeal; they both symbolized the power of human perseverance and inventiveness and they both provided an emotional drama with which most human beings could easily identify. Yet behind this veil of universalism, the two events were also firmly couched in the images and language of nationalism. Once on the moon Neil Armstrong did not plant the flag of the UN or of his home town of Wapakoneta, Ohio. There was no discussion of whether it would be appropriate to erect the family crests of the Armstrongs or Aldrins, the symbols of the Apollo programme team or the flag of NASA, Armstrong’s employers. Instead it was beyond any question that the only flag that must be raised was the flag of a specific nation-state: the USA. In addition, it was not accidental that the lunar landing module that took the astronauts to the moon was named Eagle, the American national symbol, whereas the command spacecraft that was waiting in orbit to take the astronauts back to Earth was called Columbia, an American symbol of liberty and justice.

Although the world’s public shared Armstrong’s joy, there was no doubt that the conquest of the moon was first and foremost an American victory: a sign of the technological, political, economic and ultimately cultural superiority of the American nation-state. This was obvious in the newspaper, radio and TV reports of the event in the USA and abroad. Since then the moon landing is commemorated in school textbooks and public ceremonies as a victory of the American people and its state: ‘the US textbooks of the time never failed to depict the moon landing without [sic] noting that it was an American achievement’ (Drori et al. 2003: 142).

For all its global human appeal, the rescue of Chilean miners was thoroughly framed in nationalist discourses. ‘When the miners were discovered alive, their first spoken message to the world was the Chilean national anthem sung in unison. From that day onward, there were scantly few images of the site and the rescue process that did not include a Chilean flag’ (Centeno et al. 2013: 279). The tents of miners’ families in the makeshift tent city that sprang up around the site of the accident, Campamento Esperanza (Camp Hope), were all decorated with the Chilean flag. The families erected individual shrines for all thirty-three stranded miners that displayed thirty-two Chilean flags and one Bolivian flag, one to represent each miner. The rescue capsule was also painted in the colours of the Chilean flag. After the successful rescue, the informal leader of the miners, Luis Urzua, greeted his son and then hugged the president of Chile, Sebastian Piñera, saying: ‘I’ve delivered to you this shift of workers, as we agreed I would.’ The president replied ‘I gladly receive your shift, because you completed your duty, leaving last like a good captain … You are not the same after this, and Chile won’t be the same either’ (Padget 2010). Urzua brought up the large Chilean flag that was displayed in the mine chamber during the rescue, and after all thirty-three miners were evacuated from the mine the rescuers put up a large banner reading ‘Misión cumplida Chile’ (‘Mission accomplished Chile’). President Piñera gave a speech at the rescue site in which he praised Chile and depicted the rescue as a heroic victory of all Chileans, emphasizing that he was ‘proud to be the president of all Chileans’. He also referred to the recent bicentennial celebration of Chile’s sovereignty and praised the national unity of Chileans as displayed during the miners’ accident.

What one can see here is how something that initially was understood to be a deeply personal, and thus universal, experience suddenly became a nationally framed and nationally experienced event. The private tragedies and joys of families, friends and neighbours were gradually infused with nation-centric discourses, and what at one point was only a local, micro-incident was eventually transformed into a nationalist project with global resonance. Once the accident was reframed as a national calamity it became a litmus test of Chilean national endurance. As clearly stated on the banner, the event was articulated as a national mission of Chile and for Chile, which had to be accomplished successfully. To rescue miners meant not only to save thirty-three lives but also to show to the world that the Chilean nation-state was sovereign, ordered and technologically and organizationally superior, while its citizens were unified and full of solidarity and compassion for each other. In this context, the mass media emphasized the internal solidarity of the trapped miners, who, reflecting the democratic and national character of the Chilean state, had prevented conflicts by helping each other and by adopting majority-vote decision making during their ordeal. In Urzua’s own words: ‘You just have to speak the truth and believe in democracy … everything was voted on … we were 33 men, so 16 plus one was a majority’ (Carroll and Franklin 2010). The imagery, the rhetoric and the ritualism that accompanied the entire event successfully, and apparently unproblematically, fused the sentiments and emotions of those who were directly affected by unfolding adversity, such as miners and their families and friends, with those from the rest of Chile who had never been to Copiapo and who were unlikely ever to meet anyone from this small, remote mining outpost. This constant interplay between the personal and universal on the one hand and the national/nationalist on the other was clearly visible in Luis Urzua’s affectionate embrace of a man, President Sebastian Piñera, he had never met before and who received more attention from Urzua than did some of Urzua’s closest family members and friends. Furthermore, instead of first contacting his employers, the San Esteban Mining Company which owned the mine, it was the president of Chile who was addressed. The brief verbal exchange between Urzua and the president reflected the understanding that since the rescue of the miners was conceived as a national mission it was the president of the nation-state who had the ultimate authority over this operation. It is no accident that this highly hierarchical, ritual exchange of greetings between the two civilians closely resembled military discourse, as the speakers utilized soldierly and bureaucratic terms such as ‘captain’, ‘duty’ and ‘delivery of tasks’. In the nation-centric articulation of the event the rescue of the miners became a heroic, national event that acquired recognizable features of a military action: a courageous, superhuman struggle against unprecedented adversity with expressed willingness to make sacrifices and perform one’s duty in the name of a specific nation-state.

Although the successful rescue of so many miners and the landing on the moon are unique events, there is nothing unique in the way these events were ideologically and organizationally articulated. Despite their global and personal significance and appeal, they were quickly transformed into national events. Armstrong’s moon landing was a global occasion but it stayed first and foremost an American affair. The rescue of the miners was a local incident with global ramifications, yet the event always remained a matter of the responsibility, sentiment and prestige of the Chilean nation-state. In both of these cases, as in so many others all over the world today, the personal, the local and even the global are often subsumed into the national. In the contemporary world, many tragic, heroic, dramatic or joyous happenings that affect larger groups of people tend to be framed in nation-centric or nationalist terms. Every time there is a plane crash, the first thing expected to be reported is how many of ‘our co-nationals’ have been killed. Olympic gold medals are won by specific, named individuals and small teams but they are habitually celebrated as national victories. Hurricanes, earthquakes and floods do not stop at the borders of nation-states, yet long-term relief efforts, long-lasting popular sympathies and protracted commitment to years of rebuilding and recovering often do. Even though the scientific discoveries, artistic accomplishments and heroic achievements of exceptional individuals are recognized all over the world, these individual successes are typically interpreted as enhancing the national prestige of specific nation-states. Why are we inclined to mourn the deaths of our ‘co-nationals’ much more than those of inhabitants of other nation-states? Why do we celebrate the victories of ‘our’ Olympians, scientists and artists and remain indifferent or hostile to the victories of others?

Despite some prevalent views that see the contemporary world as an interdependent global hub where advanced technology, communications and transport have apparently made human beings much more individualized and globalized (Bauman 2006; Beck 2006; 2002; 2000), it seems that the nation-state still remains the key organizing principle of our age. Rather than being a relic of past eras, nationalism has demonstrated a vibrancy and strength that very few, if any, contemporary ideologies could match. Although the waning, and even ultimate death, of nation-states and nationalisms has been proclaimed on numerous occasions over the past century or so, there are more nation-states in the world today than ever before and, as surveys show, more people identify in national terms at present than at any time in the past (Medrano 2009; Antonsich 2009; Smith and Kim 2006). As Antonsich’s (2009: 285) analysis of the Eurobarometer and other longitudinal surveys demonstrates, European citizens have become more not less nationalist; since the early 1980s a sense of national attachment and pride in one’s nation-state ‘has increased by ten percentage points’.

As our two cases show, the ascendency of nation-states and nationalisms does not stop on the surface of the globe, as the symbols of nationhood have now reached the extraterrestrial sphere and the deep interior of the Earth.

Why is nationalism such a potent and resilient ideology? How, why and when has the nation-state became the pre-eminent organizing mode of social and political life? Why do nationalist discourses still appeal to so many individuals all over the world? Why and how are nation-states often conceptualized in intimate, familial terms?

Once it becomes clear that the nation-state is, in many respects, an odd and unusual form of social organization that has been in existence for, historically speaking, a very short period of time, such questions gain in pertinence. Furthermore, once we realize that there is nothing natural and self-explanatory in feeling a strong sense of attachment to a specific nation-state, and that for 99.99 per cent of our history on this planet no individual was capable of developing such sentiments, then the present-day dominance of nationalism is even more puzzling. Where did nation-states and nationalism come from?

This book aims to provide answers to these questions. More specifically, the intention is to explore the sociological underpinnings of the historical processes involved in the formation and institutionalization of nation-states and nationalisms. To understand fully how and why the nation-state has emerged as the dominant model of polity, and nationalism as the principal source of political legitimacy in the modern era, it is necessary to take a longue durée view of these developments. To trace the origins of nation-states, one has to look at their organizational and ideological predecessors: hunting and gathering bands, chiefdoms, tribal confederacies, city-states and city-leagues, composite kingdoms, the early ‘capstone’ imperial orders and the latter-day modernizing empires. Similarly, to comprehend how nationalism came to be so ubiquitous in the modern age, it is crucial to engage with the pre-nationalist ideological doctrines and value systems that underlined the pre-modern social orders – from kinship-based descent, aristocratic myths of lineage, religious canons and the divine rights of monarchs to imperial creeds and civilizing mis-sions. Hence, although both nation-states and nationalisms are profoundly modern phenomena, they could not have emerged without the organizational and (proto-)ideological scaffolding created by their pre-modern precursors. The fact that modern-day nation-states are nothing like ‘capstone’ empires, city-states or composite kingdoms, and that contemporary nationalisms bear no resemblance to the imperial, mythological and religious doctrines of yesteryear, does not mean that there is no organizational or ideological continuity here. On the contrary, one of the key arguments of this book is that the appearance of the nation-state as a pre-eminent institutional form and of nationalism as a dominant (operative) ideology of the modern era owes much to the elements of continuity. However, this is not the supposed biological continuity so dear to most nationalists, socio-biologists, evolutionary psychologists and other primordialists. Moreover, as argued in chapter 3, the link between the pre-modern and modern world is not cultural either. The arguments of more sophisticated approaches such as those of ethno-symbolists (Smith 2009; 1986; Hutchinson 2005; 1994) or perennialists (Armstrong 1982; Hastings 1997) that insist on the deep cultural foundations of modern nationhood and on the ‘ethnic origins of nations’ are just as unconvincing. There is a substantial degree of continuity between the pre-modern and modern world but this is neither biological nor cultural continuity. Instead it is organizational and indirectly ideological continuity that is at the heart of this historical process. More specifically in this book, I focus on the three long-term historical processes which I consider decisive in shaping the character of nation-states and nationalisms as we know them today: (1) the cumulative bureaucratization of coercion, (2) centrifugal ideologization and (3) the way these two processes envelop the hubs of micro-solidarity. The book charts in detail how these three processes have helped create and maintain the world of nation-states and nationalisms.

Bureaucratization

There is no doubt that social organizations are the principal and most effective vehicles for social action.1 Although human beings might be governed by strong and uncompromising beliefs, values and ideas, as Mann (2006a: 346–7) emphasizes, ‘ideas can’t do anything unless they are organized’. There is no social development, economic growth or political transformation without the existence of robust social organizations. It is organizational power that is at the heart of any significant social change. However, there are substantial differences between social organizations: they vary in size, organizational reach and capacity, in ability to control their members, territory, resources and ideology, and in many other ways. Since Weber (1968 [1921]) it has become apparent that, despite its popular association with inefficiency and heartlessness, bureaucracy has proved to be the most efficient mechanism for managing large numbers of individuals. In contrast to patrimonialism, gerontocracy, sultanism and other traditional forms of rule, the bureaucratic model of administration privileges knowledge, division of labour, merit, professionalism, consistency and transparency of rules, and the impersonality of hierarchical order. Once a version of this organizational model became a historical reality, it soon proved exceptionally potent in fulfilling specific organizational tasks. In terms of instrumental efficiency the traditional patrimonial or sultanic modes of rule could never match the capability of the bureaucratic administration. The direct consequence of this was an attempt to imitate and replicate this organizational model throughout the world. As Meyer and his collaborators (1997; 1992) have demonstrated, the isomorphic features of the bureaucratic form of organization can now be encountered all over the globe as the standardized models of governance are replicated at the level of polities, social movements and non-governmental organizations. More specifically, this includes such practices as rationalized demographic record keeping, uniformization of the constitutional forms that emphasize individual rights and state power, mass schooling developed around a standardized curriculum, development-oriented economic policies, standardized welfare provisions and population control policies, the formal equalization of the rights of citizens, and so on (Meyer et al. 1997: 152–3).

However, what is regularly overlooked by Meyer, and many others working in this research tradition, is that organizational power in general, and its bureaucratic form in particular, have a deep coercive underpinning (Maleševi 2010). Since their inception some 12,000 years ago, large-scale social organizations such as chiefdoms, city-states or pristine empires have emerged largely through coercive and violent means: wars, religious persecutions, massacres, slavery or corvée labour, to name a few. With the emergence of nation-states, able and willing to claim and establish legitimately a monopoly on the use of violence over their territories, this coercive organizational power has only increased. Modern nation-states have unprecedented organizational capacity to fight prolonged and devastating wars that no pre-modern polity could possibly match. This external capacity is firmly rooted in a state’s ability to pacify coercively the domestic realm, which remains heavily policed through a combination of direct surveillance, strict legislation and normative control. Since the bureaucratic mode of administration is popularly considered to be more legitimate and more efficient, it generally encounters little resistance. A particular political or economic system might be challenged or even successfully replaced by another, but there is no ambition to revert to the pre-organizational world of foragers. The political and economic colouring of a particular nation-state can change (e.g. liberal democracy, state socialism, military dictatorship etc.), but once established the nation-state acquires an organizational form that few would be willing to dismantle or change. The consequence of this is the continuous proliferation of complex social organizations in the modern era. These processes have particularly intensified since 1945 with the dramatic expansion in number of both governmental and non-governmental organizations (Boli and Thomas 1997; Feld 1972). This is especially visible on the global scale as there are more nation-states today than ever before in history.

Hence, as a nation-state is a particular form of bureaucratic social organization, to understand its origin, development and the impact it has in the contemporary world it is of paramount importance to understand the organizational processes that underpin the nation-state. A key feature of this process is the cumulative character of organizational power and its coercive reach. Although the form of the dominant social organizations changes through time, as chiefdoms, city-states, empires and nation-states among others replace one another, the general tendency has been a gradual and cumulative increase in organizational power. Despite occasional historical reversals and stagnation, the best examples of which were the feudal fiefdoms and Ständestaat of medieval Europe or state failure in modern-day Africa, the trajectory of state development, viewed sub specie aeternitatis, is characterized by the relatively continuous increase in states’ organizational capacity. The cumulative potential that has characterized organizational power since its inception has substantially intensified with the emergence of nation-states. The increasing size of populations and the corresponding demand for goods, services and resources have further reinforced the significance of social organizations and have made individuals more dependent on the workings of organizational power. Thus nation-states are a by-product of the long-term contingent historical process that I call the cumulative bureaucratization of coercion (Maleševi 2010: 5–7, 92–130). This open-ended historical process, which involves ever-increasing coercive organizational capacity and a simultaneous attempt at the internal pacification of a polity’s social order, has been in operation for centuries. However, with the gradual ascent of the nation-state – a polity that has unparalleled infrastructural reach, territorial monopoly and societal penetration – over the last two hundred years, this process has dramatically accelerated and intensified.

Ideologization

Stating the fact that social organizations are generally built around a coercive core does not mean to suggest that they are always imposed on individuals against their will. Obviously some organizations, such as prisons, psychiatric secure units, concentration camps and the Atlantic slave trade ships, relied almost exclusively on coercive control and violence. However, most social organizations combine coercive power with normative justification. Even rudimentary forms of organizations were usually built around particular belief systems which were meant to supply a degree of legitimation. Thus social organizations in the pre-modern world generally relied on mythology, religion or imperial doctrines to justify their existence and mobilize a degree of popular support. These proto-ideologies involved such discursive frameworks as mythologies of non-human descent, doctrines of the divine origins of monarchs and nobility, or imperial civilizing missions, among others. In this sense the cumulative bureaucratization of coercion was often accompanied by the proto-ideological doctrines that helped legitimize its coercive edge. The traditional rulers had to provide some kind of justification for their military conquests, for the violent suppression of the domestic population and for their right to govern. However, since most of these political orders had pronounced ‘capstone’ features (see chapter 2), where there was little interaction between the rulers and the rest of the population, the legitimacy was beneficial but not an indispensable prerequisite for political action.

The arrival of modernity and the formation of nation-states have brought about a profound change. The nation-states were the first polities whose legitimacy was derived from the ideas of popular sovereignty and the equal moral worth of all their citizens. In this context, the actions of social organizations and the entire process of coercive bureaucratization became heavily dependent on the ideological justification. Whereas the Egyptian pharaohs and ancient Chinese emperors could easily start wars or order their subjects to be killed over trivial issues, the presidents and prime ministers of present-day nation-states require a great deal of public support to initiate even a small change in fiscal policy or diplomacy. These structural transformations have made modern-day citizens much more receptive to ideological bifurcations. The gradual expansion of the public sphere, together with the skyrocketing of literacy rates, the proliferation of secularized ideological discourses, mass education, an affordable press, pamphlets and books, the democratization of political life, and the expansion of civil society networks, has also fostered the greater politicization of ordinary individuals. In this cacophony of ideas and practices, ideologies have become not only the key social vehicles for the articulation of blueprints and vistas for a better social order but also powerful devices for the legitimization of social action. Moreover, once despondent peasants and the urban poor found themselves on the road to becoming full citizens of their respective nation-states they also became more amenable to accepting the key tenets of particular ideological doctrines. The organizational changes which saw empires, composite kingdoms and city-states turning gradually into nation-states were rooted not only in the cumulative bureaucratization of coercion but also in the process I term centrifugal ideologization (Maleševi 2010: 8–11). This historical process involved a gradual ideological penetration of entire societies whereby, over time, different social strata became highly receptive not only to ideological justification of particular social and political actions, but also to ideological mobilization in the pursuit of such collective action. What in early modernity was a prerogative of a small number of cultural and political elites had developed by the twentieth century into a mass phenomenon: organized individuals and groups aware of their rights, responsibilities and armed with the shared blueprints of a better future. In this sense, the steady spread of organizational power was paralleled by the expansion of ideological power: the mass educational systems created literate and ideological citizens; the burgeoning of mass media and publishing fostered the emergence of politically aware individuals; and the democratization of the public realm was highly conducive to mass ideological mobilization.

Since nation-states are large, bureaucratic units composed of highly disparate individuals and groups with different interests and values, the central issue is how to forge a degree of cultural and political unity out of this immense diversity. All major ideologies, such as liberalism, socialism, conservatism, religious fundamentalism, anarchism or republicanism, offer potent visions of a desirable social universe and recipes to achieve ideological unity. However, instead of achieving this unity, their sharp ideological differences stimulate profound disagreements and ideological polarization. Hence, such internal discords can best be circumvented through the ideological doctrine that encompasses the entire social order: nationalism. Although, like any other ideology, nationalism is deeply grounded in utopian visions that promise to transcend social conflicts and ideological polarities, its central message of all-national unity has proved appealing to rulers and ruled alike. Once the nation-state was established as the principal unit of governance in modernity, nationalism trumped other ideological doctrines to become the dominant operative ideology of this era (Maleševi 2006; and see chapter 3 below). This prevalence of nationalist ideology over its rivals was deeply rooted in the long-term historical processes that are the cumulative bureaucratization of coercion and centrifugal ideologization. These two processes were responsible for enhancing the organizational and ideological powers which initially gave birth to the nation-state and then helped reinforce its dominance. Once the nation-state was established as the pre-eminent power vessel of the modern era it provided the institutional contours for nationalism. In other words, the dominance and proliferation of nationalism in modernity stems in large part from the organizational prevalence of the nation-state, which has become the near-universal model of governance in the world today. The nation-state supplies an organizational skeleton for nationalism and nationalism remains dependent on this organizational scaffolding.

Solidarity

To argue that nation-states and nationalisms are the product of continuous bureaucratization and ideologization does not mean to suggest that they are imposed against the will of the individuals involved. As I have emphasized in previous studies (Maleševi 2011a; 2011b; 2010; 2006), nationalism is not a form of false consciousness. Although its origins, expansion and present-day dominance are rooted in the longue durée processes of coercive bureaucratization and centrifugal ideologization, one’s sense of attachment to a particular nation-state is not an artefact produced by some kind of gargantuan brainwashing. On the contrary, ‘being national’ today is a near-universal norm, and for an overwhelming majority of inhabitants of this planet, nationhood is understood to be the principal form of human solidarity. Although all national-isms depend on the workings of social organizations and entail a substantial degree of ideological know-how, the ultimate success of this ideology2 has always been dependent on its ability to penetrate the grassroots. Although nationalist ideologies address millions of individuals and articulate visions for entire countries, the resonance of their message remains dependent on their ability to permeate the micro-universe of family, friends, lovers, neighbours, peers and one’s locality. Since most human beings find a sense of comfort, security and fulfilment in small, face-to-face groups rather than in anonymous, large-scale organizations, the central goal for any nationalist discourse is to blend the national successfully with the local, the macro with the micro, and the organizational with the personal.

However, the relationship between the micro- and the macro-universe is filled with tension. As the nation-state is essentially a bureaucratic unit, it is not easy to make it lovable. The nation-state like any organization is built on principles that foster the ethics of professional detachment, instrumental rationality, formality, legality and hierarchy, whereas the realm of family and friendship belongs to the world that stimulates the exact opposite: informality, emotional commitment, deep involvement, non-hierarchical relationships and love. Hence nationalism develops as an ideology which attempts to transcend the public/private dichotomy by casting social organizations in the image of kinship and friendship networks.

As Weber (1968 [1921]) demonstrated convincingly, all bureaucratic social organizations, and the nation-state is no exception, eventually start to resemble each other. As they embrace the principles of rational calculation, control and teleological efficiency, there is a constant pull towards sameness, towards what Weber called the iron cage and ‘the polar night of icy darkness’. In contrast, family life, kinship networks, friendships, peer groups and other forms of micro-solidarity stimulate difference, the unique shared experiences and the spontaneous expressions of mutual commitment. Thus, nationalism emerges as an ideological surrogate that aims to link the two contrasting realms. In this context, ideologization remains crucial, as when it is able to justify the very existence of the social organization that is the nation-state. Nationalism reconciles the deep tension between the rationality and coldness of the social organizations on the one hand, and the emotionality and warmth that are created in the hubs of micro-solidarity on the other. In other words, nationalist ideology attempts to bridge the ongoing division between the ‘state’ part and the ‘nation’ part of the nation-state by depicting the nation as a community of close friends or a giant extended family. For example, the Japanese nationalist project was particularly successful in blending the familial and the national in the imaginary of the family-state (kazoku kokka) and the ‘conservation of the national essence’ (kokusui hozon) interpreted through the prism of shared, family-centred ethics (Surak 2012).

Solidarity is at the heart of any nationalist project, and the nationalist ideology can only work properly when able to achieve full ideological penetration and tie the pockets of micro-solidarity around the existing bureaucratic scaffolding. In contrast to Durkheim, who differentiates between the mechanical solidarity of the pre-modern world and the organic solidarity of the modern era, it is crucial to emphasize that in some important respects all genuine solidarity is ‘mechanical’. Genuine solidarity entails protracted emotional commitment and face-to-face interaction, which large-scale social organizations simply cannot provide. One can never love the bureaucratic unit that is the nation-state in the same way one loves one’s children or parents. Yet when successful, nationalism is capable of projecting parental and other forms of love onto the contours of the nation-state. By invoking the images of our brothers, who are sacrificing their lives so that we can live, and our mothers and daughters who need to be protected from the merciless enemy, nationalist ideology can tap into the micro-universes of families, lovers and friends, and, in the process, make a nation-state resemble those most dear to us.

The Structure of the Book

This book offers a comparative historical and sociological analysis of the processes involved in the emergence, formation, expansion and transformation of nation-states and nationalisms. The approach articulated emphasizes the central role that the organizational and ideological powers play in this process. More precisely, I explore how the cumulative bureaucratization of coercion and centrifugal ideologization have stimulated the development of nation-states and nationalisms. Furthermore, I chart the key historical organizational and ideological transformations which fostered the ever-closer links between the intimacy of the micro-world and the cold rationalities of the bureaucratic macro-universe. I explore when, how and why nationalist macro-ideologies were able to envelop the microcosm of family, kin, residential and friendship networks. In particular, I look at the processes through which bonds of micro-solidarity have been successfully transformed into believable nationalist narratives with strong emotional resonance.

The second chapter focuses on pre-modern social organizations and group attachments. It records the changes in human collectivities by looking at the relationships between dominant forms of social organizations, the principal proto-ideological discourses and one’s personal sense of belonging and solidarity during different historical epochs. The chapter explores the role of mythology, religion and imperial doctrines as sources of proto-ideological power and their congruence with specific social organizations, such as nomadic bands, complex sedentary hunting and gathering ‘tribes’, chiefdoms, city-states, agrarian ‘capstone’ empires and the latter-day modernizing empires. My analysis emphasizes the inherent lack of social solidarity and group attachments beyond one’s social strata and kinship. Pre-modern social orders had neither the means to foster cultural homogeneity nor an interest in doing so, and until the early modern era there was little, if any, overlap between existing polities and cultural identities. However, this analysis also indicates that there is a significant element of organizational and, indirectly, ideological continuity between the pre-modern and modern worlds which has proved decisive for the latter-day emergence of nation-states and nationalisms.

The third chapter explores the key structural transformations that were decisive for the development and expansion of nationalist ideals and the establishment of the first nation-states. I analyse the existing theoretical accounts of these developments and engage in a brief debate with the leading theorists of nationalism. Although highly sympathetic to the modernist interpretations of nation-state formation, I contest both the rigid emphasis on historical discontinuity present in some modernist positions and the ethno-symbolic approaches that insist on the cultural continuity of the pre-modern and modern worlds. Instead, my analysis focuses on the steady increase in the organizational and ideological powers of new polities and the inherent tensions that emerge between the personal realm of micro-solidarity (family, kin, neighbourhood, friendships) and the macro-public realm (the state, the military, business corporations etc.). In particular, the chapter deals with the ideological legacies of the Enlightenment and Romanticism, the geo-political competition between European ‘Great Powers’, the outcomes of the French and American revolutions, and the social impact of dramatic changes in economy, science and technology. More specifically, the chapter charts how transformations in industry, capitalist economies, colonial expansion and inter-state rivalries shaped the character of modern nation-states by fostering greater cultural and linguistic homogeneity, standardized educational systems, the spread of universal literacy, mass military conscription, citizenship rights, urbanization and secularity. The chapter analyses when and why nationalist ideologies become appealing to different social strata and how different forms of nationalisms emerged in different parts of the world.

The fourth chapter analyses the relationship between nationalisms and organized violence. It aims to show how complex and contradictory this relationship is. I contest the views that see nationalism as being causally linked with violence and show that nationalist ideology is seldom a principal source of violent acts. The chapter situates such violent events as wars, revolutions, terrorism, insurgency, ethnic cleansing and genocide in the broader historical context. In contrast to approaches that see influential individuals or groups as the principal cause of violent nationalism, I highlight the role played by social organizations and ideologies. The key argument is that in most instances the mutation of nationalist ideas into violent acts is mediated by coercive bureau-cratization, centrifugal ideologization and their link with the networks of micro-solidarity.

The focal point of the fifth chapter is the everyday, habitual nationalism expressed in international sporting contests, tourism, public ceremonies, cinematography, national cuisine, song contests and similar occasions. The chapter disputes the well-established dichotomy between ‘hot’ and ‘banal’ nationalisms, the prevalent orthodoxy that views the ordinary, everyday, expressions of nationalism as feeble, and the general perception that banal nationalism is largely a post-World War II Western phenomenon. Instead the chapter makes an argument that the triviality and banality associated with the routine, everyday expressions of nationalist experience have been a dominant feature of most nationalisms since the inception of this ideology in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this sense, the ordinary and the trivial have been at the heart of organizational and ideological powers and their ability to penetrate successfully into the intimacies and solidarities of families, friends and locality. It is the habitual, takenfor-granted practices and actions that have helped establish and reinforce the organizational and ideological strengths of nation-states. Hence, rather than signalling weakness and the gradual disappearance of nationalist ideology, the expansion of the trivial forms of nationalist experience reveals its ever-increasing strength.

The sixth chapter challenges the popular and academic understandings of ‘national identity’, a notion which is often embraced as given and unproblematic. Although there are pronounced disagreements on whether national identities are modern or primordial, and on how best to gauge the intensity of identification with a particular nation, there is near-unanimity on the view that national identities are real and perceptible entities. In contrast to such a view, this chapter argues that not only was there no national identity before modernity but also that there is little empirical evidence for the existence of national identities in the modern age either. While it is obvious that many individuals show great affinity for their nation-states and often express sincere devotion to the ‘national cause’, these are not reliable indicators of the existence of a durable, continuous, stable and monolithic entity called ‘national identity’. To understand fully the character of popular mobilization in modernity, it is of paramount importance to refocus our attention from the slippery and non-analytical idiom of ‘identity’ towards well-established sociological concepts such as ‘social organizations’, ‘ideology’ and ‘solidarity’. In particular, the central object of this research becomes the processes through which large-scale social organizations successfully transform earnest micro-solidarity into an all-encompassing nationalist ideology. To illustrate this argument the chapter provides a critical analysis of representative quantitative and qualitative studies of ‘national identity’.

The final chapter summarizes the key arguments developed and presented in the book and briefly engages with the state of nationalisms and nation-states in the contemporary world. It assesses the debates on the impact of globalization, new technologies, religious radicalism, neo-liberalism and terrorism on nation-states and nationalist ideologies. I argue that, ultimately, none of these social forces is likely to weaken substantially the power of the nation-state, which in most respects remains the most important organizational vehicle of modernity. In a similar vein, instead of weakening nationalism these new social developments are interpreted as contributing to the transformation and renewal of nationalist ideologies, which remain highly adaptable and resilient. Nationalism has always been, and continues to be, a protean doctrine and practice able to adjust, metamorphose and survive, no matter what.

2

Group Solidarities before the Nation-State

Introduction

The absolute dominance of the nation-state model as an organizing principle of the world order today might imply that this is a normal and natural way to categorize human societies and order social and political life. However, despite the popular, and some scholarly, tendency to project the concept of the nation-state into the past, for 99.99 per cent of our existence on this planet human beings did not live in such polities. Instead we inhabited a variety of social and political orders which were either much smaller, less centralized and less stratified or substantially bigger, more hierarchical and typified by a greater cultural diversity. In other words our predecessors populated such diverse entities as simple bands of foragers, complex sedentary hunting and gathering tribes, chiefdoms, city-states, city-leagues, composite kingdoms and empires, among others. These social and political orders were characterized by weaker organizational and ideological penetration of the micro-world. Before the age of the nation-state, rulers lacked the organizational means to break deeply into the microcosm of family, kinship, friendships or locality. Undeveloped transport, communication, division of labour and technology, with rampant illiteracy, were the key stumbling blocks to the expansion of the coercive reach of political power. In addition, unlike the nation-state, where the principal source of legitimacy is derived from nationalist principles of sovereignty, cultural homogeneity and the equal moral worth of all citizens, the pre-modern social orders tended to justify their existence through mythology, religion, imperial creeds or some kind of combination of these.

However, to understand the origins and present dominance of the nation-state model it is crucial to look far into the past and engage with the variety of pre-modern polities. Although a nation-state is a qualitatively different type of social and political order, it did not spring out of nowhere. Instead it emerged as a profoundly contingent outcome of different social processes. Among these processes the most important were the gradual and cumulative increase in organizational and ideological powers and the eventual ability of large-scale organizations to fuse pockets of micro-solidarities into a secularized system of shared beliefs and practices. This is not to say that the historical developments can be read back as a simple evolutionary tale from hunter-gatherers, chiefdoms, city-states and early kingdoms to empires and finally nation-states. The historical record is full of reversible processes, parallel existences of different types of polity and hybrid formations. Hunter-gatherers, chiefdoms and composite kingdoms are very much still in existence, although largely at the margins of the contemporary world.

This is also not to say that the nation-state is the ultimate and optimal unit for organizing social and political life or that empires, city-states or city-leagues can be confined to the dustbin of history. This chapter explores the organizational, ideological and micro-sociological underpinnings of the pre-modern social and political orders, with the aim of identifying the historical trajectories that gave birth to the nation-state.

From Nomadic to Sedentary Solidarities

Despite the popular perception, reinforced by much of traditional social science, of human beings as intrinsically gregarious creatures, as a number of recent studies show (Turner 2007; Turner and Maryanski 2005), intensive social bonding does not come naturally to humans. Evolutionary processes worked towards making monkeys much more social creatures than apes.1 In contrast to monkeys that lived on trees with abundant food that could sustain sizeable troops, the walking apes could not survive in large groupings. The large open areas of the African savannah, filled with shrinking forests, deadly predators and no place to hide, meant that the only way to survive was to avoid large congregations and move in very small packs.

Even this strategy could not guarantee survival and most species of apes eventually became extinct. In this context, as Turner (2007: 23) explains, natural selection provided a solution for limiting the group size of walking apes ‘by wiring apes for the female transfer pattern that, in essence, breaks the group apart at puberty and by weakening ties among all adults so that they could move alone in temporary and small foraging parties in the forest canopy. Weak ties, mobility, individualism, and fluid groups were fitness enhancing in the marginal niches of the arboreal habitat.’ While describing early humans as ‘individualists’ is certainly an overstatement, the available archaeological evidence points in the direction of weak and highly flexible social ties among archaic Homo sapiens. Consequently, the presence of constant external threats fostered the emergence of very small, hunting and gathering bands of early humans. Furthermore, this insecure and vastly challenging habitat had a profound impact on the cognitive and emotional capacities of hominids. The lack of sharp teeth, claws, horns, a strong sense of smell or speed meant that early humans had to develop alternative sources for long-term survival: social organization, eventually accompanied by a degree of shared practices and creeds, and, most importantly, intensive bonds of micro-solidarity.

The emergence of rudimentary social organizations and relatively coherent beliefs requires substantial cognitive abilities which gradually developed over millions of years. Hence it was most probable that all species of walking apes would have become extinct before any durable social organizations could appear. The fact that this did not happen2 indicates that some walking apes adopted another social mechanism for long-term preservation: social solidarity. As recent psychological and sociological studies demonstrate (Collins 2008; 2004; Damasio 2003; 1994), rather than being opposites, cognition and emotion often develop together and reinforce each other. Moreover, the rise in cognitive abilities often entails a substantial degree of emotional development. Since emotions are the essential ingredient of solidarity it seems plausible to argue, as Turner (2007: 41) does, that the very survival of our species is grounded in our ability to become emotionally attuned to each other: ‘It is emotions – once controlled, channeled and expanded – that allowed our ancestors to survive, even with small brains that could not produce any more culture than the limited cultural repertoire of present-day chimpanzees.’

The central feature of emotional interaction is the ability to interpret the meanings behind expressed emotions in face-to-face contact. As Collins (2004: 78) puts it, ‘face-to-face social interaction takes place among physiological systems, not merely among individuals as cognitive systems or bodily actors’. Close proximity is important for emotional interaction as humans recognize and understand emotions through visual cues. Hence the direct, face-to-face encounter is the most important source of emotional energy. Goffman (1961: 17–18) identified the encounter (or focused gathering) as a central micro-process of interaction involving the immediate physical presence of human beings. Although he distinguishes between face-to-face and group-interaction-based encounters, in both instances the encounter involves participants’ continuous focus of attention and provides ‘the communication basis for a circular flow of feeling among the participants’. The fact that early humans lived in very small groupings rarely exceeding a handful of individuals, who would often move from one micro-group to another, meant that they had to develop superior cognitive and emotional capacities to read the emotional cues of (changing) others. This long-term evolutionary process fostered the creation of a very complex and extensive range of emotions which now characterize human interaction, and these complex emotions and feelings such as shame, guilt, disgust, envy, pride etc. proved decisive for forging a strong sense of solidarity among early hunters and gatherers. Bearing in mind that for more than 99 per cent of our history as a species on this planet we have lived in very small and highly flexible collectivities often comprised of no more than thirty to fifty individuals (Service 1978; Fry 2005), the early forms of group solidarity could not expand much beyond immediate kin groups and extended families.

These very small hunting and gathering bands were the dominant form of social life for close to 1.8 million years, and until the end of the Mesolithic there were no significant alternatives to this rudimentary form of collective existence.3