Military Nationalism and the State: the Case of Fin‐De‐Siècle Spain

Abstract. Military culture can play an important role in the rise of modern nationalism, as developments in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Spain demonstrate. Like many Europeans, Spanish army officers turned increasingly to nationalist ideology as they lost faith in the ability of liberal institutions to meet their needs. Because Spain, where army officers had much influence on politics and society, lacked other strong movements of modern, Castile‐centred nationalism, military culture had a significant and long‐lasting influence on the subsequent development of notions of Spanish national identity. The case of turn‐of‐the‐century Spanish military nationalism lends credence to a general understanding of nationalism as a political phenomenon in which the state plays a central role.     

The growth of artistic nationalism in Senegal

ABSTRACT. In the 1960s, Senegal's first national leaders narrowly defined how artists should practise nationalism through their work, particularly in the weaving craft, and enforced this definition through selective state patronage. This ideological and stylistic control echoed state control over economic markets. As subsequent administrations have restructured the economy, leading to a powerful informal business sector, so have independent contemporary weavers redefined artistic nationalism. Using ethnographic and archival interviews, this article examines nationalism in Senegalese weaving, placing the perspectives of contemporary weavers alongside those of two arts administrators who helped to develop state‐sponsored programmes in the 1960s and 1970s. I argue that contemporary weavers find inspiration from Senegalese nationalism of the mid‐twentieth century, yet have modified it to encompass individual expression. Because definitions of artistic nationalism in Senegal have shifted, it remains a significant ideology within the national arts scene.     

Identity,Gender, and the History of European Nations and Nationalisms

Abstract. The distinction between cultural and political nationalisms has become a commonplace in writings on nations and nationalism. In this article I analyse the relation of culture to politics in the history of modem European nationalist thought from a gender perspective. I argue that gendered forms of national identification and masculinist definitions of the body politic and the national citizen were mutually reinforcing. The article has three main sections. First, I draw on feminist historio–graphy to show that the central event of modem European nationalism, the French Revolution, involved a differentiation of masculine from feminine forms of national citizenship. Second, I use nineteenth-century sources to argue that the ‘separation of spheres’ and an image of the bourgeois family effectively diminished the role of women in relation to the nation. In the final section I show that the history of changing perceptions of the sexed human body is implicit in the imagining of national communities and in the political legitimation of national boundaries and national identities.     

Liberal intolerance in European education debates

The reaction against non‐western immigrants and especially Muslims has been analysed both in terms of an exclusionary civic nationalism and in terms of an assertive liberalism. Similar to exclusionary civic nationalism, assertive liberalism purports to defend liberal democratic principles and society against illiberal principles and forces predominantly represented by Muslims. This article argues that nationalism and liberalism are analytically distinguishable but difficult to disentangle empirically. It contends that a more detailed analysis of assertive liberalism can be obtained by subdividing it into four categories of liberal intolerance and demonstrates this by analysing six national debates on the accommodation of cultural and religious diversity in education. The analysis indicates that the nature of liberal intolerance understood as the combination of the four categories of liberal intolerance varies with the state tradition regarding religious neutrality of public institutions and the type of welfare state, but also that many liberal arguments for and against accommodation repeat themselves across national contexts.     

Infrastructure Nation: State Space,Hegemony, and Hydraulic Regionalism in Pakistan

Large‐scale infrastructures are often understood by state planners as fulfilling a national integrative function. This paper challenges the idea of infrastructures as national integrators by engaging theories of state/nation formation and infrastructure in a postcolonial context. Specifically, I put Lefebvre's characterization of the production of state space as a homogenization‐differentiation dialectic in conversation with Gramsci's understanding of hegemony, bureaucracy, and nationalism to analyze the controversy surrounding the giant Tarbela Dam in Pakistan in the 1960s. I use the Tarbela controversy as a case study to elaborate a theory of postcolonial nation‐formation through state‐led infrastructural projects. I argue that in a postcolonial context the failure to articulate a hegemonic nationalist ideology to accompany the production of large‐scale infrastructure results in a fragmentation of state space in some ways, even as state space is homogenized and integrated in other ways. The paper also offers a “hydraulic lens” on the politics of regionalism in Pakistan.     

Untangling liberal democracy from territoriality: from ethnic/civic to ethnic/territorial nationalism

The term ‘civic nationalism’ as it is used today in nationalism studies is misleading because it combines territorial collective identity with liberal‐democratic values. As such, for example, it does not provide much insight into the comparison of Azerbaijani and Georgian concepts of national identity. Azerbaijan, arguably an authoritarian country, has used unconditional citizenship by birth on territory (jus soli) and refused to naturalize Azeri co‐ethnics from Georgia. Georgia, seemingly a developed liberal democracy, hasn't practiced any jus soli, has bestowed citizenship on Georgian co‐ethnics abroad and refused it to its ethnic minorities. These two cases testify to the need to revise the term ‘civic nationalism’, inapplicable to many, especially non‐Western, empirical cases of national identity. By establishing distinct historical narratives based on premodernist sources, the article argues that the ethnic/territorial tension is premodern, which explains why civic nationalism has a premodern (territoriality) and a modern (liberal‐democratic values) component. Territorial collective identity, in its contrast to an ethnic one, has deep historical roots and needs to be separated from the overall umbrella of civic nationalism. Such an approach resolves many current theoretical objections to ethnic/civic dichotomy, a ubiquitous, but still insufficiently understood, heuristic tool.     

Influences of nationalisms on citizenship education: revealing a ‘dark side’ in Lebanon

The development of education policies is in many aspects driven by nationalist aims, especially when demonstrating postcolonial autonomy. In the case of Lebanon, Arab and Lebanese forms of nationalism have framed education policy development when transitioning out of the French mandate to an independent republic and during pan‐Arab movements against colonialism. Following 15 years of armed conflict (1975–1990), the reformed national curriculum for citizenship drew on a negotiated compromise between advocates of Lebanese and Arab nationalism to foster a unifying national identity. The practices and outcomes of citizenship education, however, reveal degrees of social exclusion, barriers to learning active citizenship, infringement on intellectual freedoms and denial of thinking historically. Evidence is drawn from empirical studies, the state of affairs of history education and student registration figures in Lebanese and non‐Lebanese systems. The findings raise debates on the role of language in citizenship education and suggest a need to reconceptualise the implementation of nationalist aims in education policies, especially by incorporating elements of cosmopolitanism.     

Contesting Putin's nation‐building: the ‘Muslim other’ and the challenge of the Russian ethno‐cultural alternative

This article explains the crystallisation of a new Russian national discourse, shaped by a challenge posed to Putin's statist non‐ethnic national model by a popularly formed ethno‐cultural alternative, constructed through negation of the ‘Muslim other’. The article describes this new and previously overlooked phenomenon of Russian nationalism and explicates the social mechanism behind its formation. The article concludes that when rampant corruption exists, generating a breakdown of legal order, the ‘other’ is defined through behaviour that deviates from accepted local norms, while the contrasting normative ‘general public’ is defined as ‘Russian’. Such group definitions mean that the current process of Russian grass‐roots exclusive national consolidation is based predominantly on culturally based behavioural codes, rather than on mere ethnic or religious affiliation, as is widely believed. Additionally, a conceptual landmark discourse shift from the question of Russia's mere plausibility as a nation‐state to a focus on its ongoing definition is demonstrated.     

Everyday peace capture: Nationalism and the dynamics of peace after violent conflict

Nationalism is arguably one of the most detrimental peace‐breaking factors in conflict‐affected societies. This article examines how ethno‐nationalist elites, subterranean movements, and ordinary people can become blockages to sustainable peace and reconciliation after violent conflict. It argues that peacebuilding and state‐building imposed from outside as conflict transformation approaches without acceptable peace settlement and resolute solution of the disputes among parties in conflict risk enabling the co‐optation of power‐sharing arrangements by ethno‐nationalist elites, contestation of peace and reconciliation by subterranean mono‐ethnic movements, and the occurrence of vernacular peace‐breaking acts. This negative mutation of nationalism not only harms peace, justice, and development but also undermines the rights and needs of distinct identity groups. Under these conditions, escaping the nationalism trap in conflict‐affected societies requires seeking political change through post‐ethnic politics and reconciliation through everyday pacifist acts undertaken by the affected communities themselves. The article draws on Kosovo to illustrate empirically the dynamics of peace‐breaking and practices of everyday nationalism. It seeks to bridge debates on nationalism and post‐conflict peacebuilding and offer alternative pathways for rethinking strategies of peace in divided societies.     

Beyond Alternative: Exploring the Potential for Autonomous Food Spaces

Abstract: Much attention has been given in recent years to the rise of alternative food networks However, the very concept of “alternative” has come under increasing scrutiny, as theorists grapple with what is meant by alternative and whether the concept adequately captures the key components of such a diverse range of networks and communities. Drawing on poststructuralist political economy, I propose the concept of autonomous food spaces as one possible lens for approaches food‐provisioning activities that situate food within the broader context of non‐capitalist communities seeking to build relationships of mutual aid and non‐market exchanges. I use the examples of a radical collective kitchen, Food Not Bombs, and a community‐supported agriculture operation, Vegetables Unplugged, to explore the potential for autonomous food spaces as part of a broader “politics of possibilities” beyond capitalism.     

A bargain between the secular state and Turkish Islam: politics of ethnicity in Central Asia

Abstract. This paper reveals and analyses the ethnic politics mobilised by a fast‐growing Islamic movement, the Gülen movement, which emerged in the 1980s in Turkey and expanded to Central Asia in the mid‐1990s. Following the micro‐sites, where nationness is reproduced as an everyday practice, my ethnographic research in Almaty‐Kazakhstan explored the emergent Islamic sensibilities for the nation and ethnic identity. Revivalist Islam has often been essentialised as incompatible with nationalism, since it has been widely associated with the Muslim community rather than nations and nation‐states. I argue that this bias is facilitated and maintained by the deep division in the literature. Scholarly work on both Islam and nationalism are split into two opposing approaches, state‐centered and culture‐centered. The findings of the present study challenge the binary thinking that juxtaposes politics against culture and dichotomises ethnic and state‐framed base of nationalism and nationhood. My major finding is that the Gülen movement has not only inherited the symbols and myths of descent from the founding fathers of the Turkish state, but it is also currently reproducing the related ethnic politics in cooperation with–not in opposition to–the secular states in the post‐Soviet Turkic world. The study reconciles ethno‐symbolic and state‐centered approaches in explaining the convergence between Islamic and secular nationalism in the formation of ethnic politics in Almaty‐Kazakhstan.     

A Swiss anomaly? A relational account of national boundary‐making

ABSTRACT. This article reviews how major theorists of nationalism – from Ernest Renan to Benedict Anderson – have tried to come to grips with the puzzle that Swiss nationalism and the Swiss state present in view of the monoethnic states that surround it. I will argue that this puzzle disappears when assuming a political sociology perspective that highlights the networks of political alliances underlying nationalist movements and the power structure of recently formed nation‐states. Studying an ‘outlier’ case such as Switzerland helps us to gain insight into the general processes and mechanisms at work in the rise of nationalism and the nation‐state.     

Nationalism studies between methodological nationalism and orientalism: an alternative approach illustrated with the case of El Greco in Toledo,Spain

Methodological nationalism is still dominant in nationalism studies. When studying the construction of national identities, scholars generally limit their study to the borders of one nation‐state, while only paying attention to members of that particular nation. Implicitly, foreign actors and influences are left out of the picture. I will challenge this methodological nationalism with a case study, which demonstrates that the place of Toledo within the Spanish national imagination, and more particularly that of El Greco, the most important representative of the city's artistic heritage, was largely determined by foreigners. During the nineteenth century, El Greco was rediscovered primarily by foreign scholars and artists. Moreover, it would be the rise of international tourism in the early twentieth century that convinced Toledans to adopt El Greco as the city's main artistic icon. This case, thus, clearly shows that in nationalism studies methodological nationalism can be avoided by also including foreign actors.     

Ethno‐nationalism and the global ‘modernising’ project

This article analyses the features and problems of ethno‐nationalism in the global context. The existing bodies of theories and literature on ethno‐nationalism mainly reflect the views and interests of the colonising ethno‐nations and their states at the cost of the dominated ethno‐nations. This preliminary study shows the inadequacy of information, knowledge and theory in the study of nationalism by questioning the validity of the global ‘modernising’ projects of modernisation theorists and some Marxists and by addressing the question of ethno‐nationalism from the perspective of the colonised ethno‐nations. By providing the reference cases of the Oromos and the Southern Sudanese, this study explains the challenge ethno‐nationalism poses to the nature and role of the state.     

State production of cultural nationalism: political leaders and preservation policies for historic buildings in France and Italy

Although cultural and political nationalism have often been treated as separate, recent studies argue that they are linked because the state produces policies such as promotion of cultural heritage to further nation building. The article examines the conditions that favour national political leaders adopting policies to protect historic buildings for aims of political nationalism. It compares France and Italy, focusing on the period after 1870. It finds that in both countries, national political leaders have introduced extensive protection of historic buildings when faced with major challenges such as war, regime change or pressures from localism or supporters of cultural nationalism as part of wider strategies to build and reinforce the nation state. But Italy extended protection earlier and more deeply than France, suggesting in a later nation state with strong inherited cultural nationalism but major political weaknesses and, national political leaders may introduce earlier, more far‐reaching and more layered legal protection than in states created earlier and with fewer weaknesses.     

The disciplinary politics of antagonistic nationalism in militarized South and North Korea

After the Korean War (1950–53), the two militarized Koreas governed each and every member of society in similar ways through their disciplinary politics of antagonistic nationalism. The existing studies of state formation in the two Koreas have neglected an aspect of state power that was neither necessarily top‐down nor violent from above but also reproduced from below. In both South and North Korea, especially from the 1960s to the 1970s, state power had internal dynamics that penetrated the day‐to‐day activities of most citizens and led them to actively accept and participate in nationalist rule. This article explores an understudied aspect of the two Koreas' state power that was disciplinarily diffused in people's everyday practices through reproduction of aggressive nationalism from below and the organic construction of the individual body and nation.     

Empire‐nation: national and imperial discourses in England

When the states of England and Scotland combined in 1707, conditions were created whereby English nationalism could merge into British nationalism. With the expansion of empire, English nationalism was expressed through imperial‐national discourses allowing English nationalists to claim non‐English space when articulating what might be best understood as an Anglo‐British nationalism. Accordingly, such discourses largely ‘hid’ what one might now understand as ‘English nationalism’ within a ‘British’ discourse of empire. The case of England illustrates that imperial discourses can become intimately bound up with the ‘national’ discourse of the nations at the core of the imperial structures. Accordingly, it is here argued that imperial and national discourse are not necessarily opposed to each other, but are able to feed into each other, affecting the manner in which ideas of the nation and empire are conceived and articulated.     

The introduction of multiculturalism in Canada and Australia, 1960s–1970s

This article compares the emergence of a policy of multiculturalism in Canada and Australia between the 1960s and 1970s. It charts the rise of the policy in the two countries through the adoption of a philosophy of multiculturalism as the basis of their national identities. There is a distinction between philosophy and policy: a multicultural policy emerged out of a philosophy of multiculturalism. Furthermore, a philosophy of multiculturalism replaced the ‘new nationalism’ as the foundation of the national identities of both English‐speaking Canada and Australia. The abandonment of the White Canada and White Australia policies and the adoption of non‐discriminatory immigration policies in both countries were also of importance in the emergence of a policy of multiculturalism. There are many similarities in the Canadian and Australian experiences. However, the major differences are explained by the presence of the French‐Canadians in Canada and the early non‐British migration that Canada received in the late‐nineteenth century compared with Australia.     

The Politics of Recognition and Redistribution: Development,Tribal Identity Politics and Distributive Justice in India's Jharkhand

This article illustrates how the potential of recognition‐based politics to achieve distributive justice is determined by political structures and the power relations that constitute them. In response to Nancy Fraser's framework of social justice, it shows that the meaningful coordination of identity‐based claims with distributive justice is constrained — not only by the content of the claims themselves, but also because redistributive demands are subverted through competing pursuits for power and legitimacy between rival political factions. The article describes how the separate‐state movement for Jharkhand in Eastern India was de‐radicalized by three instruments, namely, the reservation system, cultural nationalism and state development discourse. This explains why distributive measures do not feature prominently in the Jharkhand state and why recognition politics has taken a disciplined form in the electoral mainstream while distributive politics continues to be pursued through violent and extra‐parliamentary means.