Seminar notes: Nation-states

Nations and empires

We talked about empires

• empires were “superseded by history”
• and the reason was more than anything nations and nationalism

Broke up all the empires

• the very definition of an empire is that you are not ruled by someone like yourself
• you are ruled by “foreigners”
• once this came to be unacceptable, the empires were doomed

We got into this unbelievably messy game of aligning states with nations

• who should have a nation and who should not
• the rights that a state gave to a community

Cf. state terror vs. private terror

• the Kurds vs. the Turkish state
• the Palestinians vs. Israel

The superiority of the imperial system

• everyone could live in the land of their imagination
• no longer true

Nation states and diversity

• unbelievably repressive
• already the Greek city-states
• you are “with your own”

This is why I’m a great fan of empires

• much better at dealing with diversity
• explains why they lasted so long

I’d much rather live in the cosmopolis than in the polis

• but I realize now everyone thinks this way

Definitions

In some countries “state” and “nation” are regarded as the same

• in other countries as very different

“State”

• the state as a political machine — a set of institutions
• and for a long time run by a small group of people
• cf. Tilly on “organized crime”

“L’État, c’est moi!” said Louis XIV

• and he was not wrong
• people at large had nothing to do with the state
• ordinary people were completely excluded

“Ethnic community”

• nation as an ethnic community with political demands
• totally separate from the state
• ask for a state of their own
• this is how nation-states come into existence

Note that many communities are NOT making political demands

• religious communities
• sexual minorities
• association of bird watchers

But also nation from above

• Sweden, but Turkey too

And then it becomes more difficult to separate the two

• the state created the sense of a community
• brought groups together — often quite forcefully
• difficult to separate the nation from the state

Questions of membership

But very strange communities

• they correspond to the size of the state
• the nation and the state coincide

Much, much larger than any community we previously had been a part of

• cf. the state — between earth and sky — but where is that?
• all the intense rhetoric the state had to get involved in
• theater and theory

In a way even more demanding

• the state only had to be accepted
• but the the nation you had to feel a membership in
• it had to become a part of your identity

A sense of belonging together?

• but why should I have something in common with these people I’ve never met?
• what is the difference between a person somewhere in Anatolia and someone in, say, Greece

Who belongs and who doesn’t?

• we need some criteria

Language

• but cases where this is not the case — many countries with several official languages
• or cases where the same language is spoken in many nations — England and Ireland

Religion

• obviously not true — except perhaps Israel, Japan

Culture

• “we share the same culture”
• but how much culture is actually shared between different social classes?
• cf. England
• or between people in cities and in the countryside?

History

• history is clearly a very slippery concept
• cf. museums where we find 10,000 year old “Swedes,” “Norwegians” or “Turks”
• cf. the historical struggles in Taiwan — mainlanders or Pacific Islanders?

“Blood” or whatever

• DNA tests — little actual difference between Greeks and Turks
• nothing can tell people apart based on this distinction

Strange conclusion:

• difficult to find a criteria that demarcates the group
• so what is a “nation”?

Recognition

• we belong to the same nation if we recognize each other as such
• subjective, not an objective criteria

“Markers”

• almost anything can serve as a marker — telling us apart from them
• Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda — one group is supposed to be taller than the other
• … and the result was a genocide

The ontological status of the state

In what sense do “nations” exist?

• cf. “the ontological status of the state”
• where is this thing?
• the state disappears in the world or from the world

Benedict Anderson on “imagined communities”

Famous argument regarding the origin of the nation

• few catchphrases have been more commonly quoted

The role of print media

• print capitalism — Gutenberg and all that
• but above all cheap newspapers in the 19th century
• new rotary presses

The nation appears as a kind of character

• always there
• we return to day after day

The nation is read it into existence

• we imagine together as we read together
• or as we read at the same time — cf. Hegel and morning prayers

“Imagined” doesn’t mean it’s not real … although Anderson is a famous Marxist

• most of our social life is “imagined”
• even the smallest community — families
• money is imagined too
• they become real and they are imagined

My critique:

• how the imagination works
• reading just isn’t enough

Cf. critique of picture theory of the imagination

• not a picture in our minds
• rather — to recall an experience
• works in all sensory modalities at once
• much richer

As far as nations are concerned, they are moved into place

• national movements
• Gandhi, Salt March
• China — the Long March
• national day celebrations

Only in this way to we see the nation

• and we feel it
• we experience it

It is the moving mass of people that our imagination refers to when we imagine the nation

• reading is dry and unemotional
• moving together is rich and transformative

Always something slightly ridiculous about other peoples national celebrations

• Swedes make fun of the Norwegians
• it only makes sense of you are a member of the community

Countries that want to deemphasize their nationalism

• Germany or Japan
• the first thing they do is to stop marching
• neo-Nazis march

Turkey is very interesting from this point of view

• people here are not moving together
• instead everyone hangs a flag or a picture of Ataturk outside their houses
• goes against my theory …

I have very little experience as demonstrator

• but London, 2003 and Istanbul 2023
• had a great impact on me

Actually, it doesn’t have to be political

But important caveat

• media is important for letting people know about each other
• cannot say that newspapers etc player no role
• but the imagination is something else

History

• something a bit more specific about the history of the idea of a nation

Pre-history of the nation

• natio — born
• the land where I was born

Problem of the imagination

• difficult to see your community when you are right up in it
• and it is in any case only going to be very small

You need to move out and away

• only then can you see the nation

The same logic is repeated again and again

• Indian nationalism etc — started in London
• African nationalism started in the West Indies

Medieval universities

• Paris and Bologna
• students from all over Europe
• used Latin as a universal language

Gather as the “German nation” etc

• still true in Uppsala, for example — “nationer”

La nation française

• meetings outside of the state
• discussion of politics
• often in secret

Literary salons

• England: coffee shops etc

Civil society

• meeting away from home but not in a state-organized arena
• interacting withn people you don’t know

You can say what you want

Your previous social status doesn’t matter

There is a loyalty between you

This gives us

• liberté, egalité, fraternité

The French revolution

• 1789 — the king is deposed, and decapitated, and the people take over the state

French revolutionary wars

• France goes to war with the rest of Europe
• The Holy Roman Empire is quickly run over
• Napoleon as a savior
• nationalist reaction

German nationalism

• born from defeat
• significant that German unification was announced in Versailles in 1872

Napoleon is eventually defeated

• but return to previous regimes
• a lot of Germans go into exile

Liberalism

These were liberal movements

• revolutionary
• against the king and the aristocracy
• freedom of speech, organization, economic freedom

The traditional elites were against

• very obvious in Germany
• there was a nation, but no state

Similar in Italy:

• 1860 — “We have made Italy, now time to make Italians”
• they have not succeeded yet …

Subsequent history …

• how the nation is taken over by the elites
• becomes a conservative idea
• nation, king, God
• an important reason why democratization was possible — keep the people united behind the traditional elites

The rhetorical battle

All the ways in which a national identity was created

Very much on display in Turkey

Railways

Schools

Armies

All the nationalistic peraphernalia

Intimacy

A new way of thinking about politics

• we should be similar to our leaders
• not what they do but who they are
• “the Fall of Public Man” (Sennet)
• how we prefer local dictators to foreign benign rulers

Constitutional and ethnic nationalism

France

• the nation has access to a state

Germany

• the nation as a ghost roaming freely

“Eastern” vs. “Western”

Blut und Boden

Questions of membership/ citizenship laws

Explained by the different histories of the nation

• Germany: a nation without a state
• France: a nation taking over a state
• US: a nation creating a state

Explanations

Gellner’s explanation as influential

• connected to industrial capitalism
• explains the nationalism of the 19th century

Demands of the economic markets: people need to be replaceable

• give them the same education, language etc
• they are no longer tied to a particular location in life
• they can move around freely in response to market demands

The educational system makes sure this happens

• produces people with the same education, speaking the same language

Reunite all the different people who had moved in from the countryside

• a new form of community

But what happens if capitalism changes

• is there a place for nationalism in a global economy?

Nationalism as a way for people to protect themselves

• nationalism becomes more powerful as a result of globalization

Outside of Europe

Clearly an imported, European, idea — no cases of …

• sovereign states
• the people taking over the state

Nationalist leaders

• all educated in the West

You need distance in order to see

• you can’t see the world if you are living right inside it
• it is in London and Paris that the nations are imagined

Enormously destructive of empires

• the Ottoman Empire

Imperialism nationalism

• Ottomanism

Easy to make fun of, but

• Indian, Chinese nationalism also imperial

A sort of European poison

• everybody assumes that they must develop this way — this is what Europe did
• Europeans engage in “nation-building”

Blocked mobility thesis

• the nation as an entrepreneurial project
• the new European, elites, taking over

There is a lot of critique of colonialism

• but no proper national subject
• independence is not given to anyone

How these projects failed

• will talk more about later in the course

Alternatives:

• “Africa is a country”
• pan-nationalism — pan-Arabism

How these dreams were betrayed by local elites

• they got access to the instruments of power and saw no reason to let go
• nationalizations of natural resources shored up their power
• military coups
• resource curse

But we’ll talk about this later in the course …