Muslims' nation‐building process in socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1960s

During the 1960s, the Yugoslav Socialist authorities gradually recognised Bosnia and Herzegovina's Muslims as a nation. Interestingly, in the 1940s, the Yugoslav Communist leaders refused to consider Muslims even as an ethnic group and saw them only as a religious community whose members had to designate themselves as Serbs or Croats. Why did the regime decide to recognise Muslims as a nation in the 1960s, whereas 20 years earlier they supported the opposite position? To understand the shift, this nation‐building process must be understood as the result of a dual dynamic on the federal and the republican level, where important changes occurred. At the federal one, the Communist authorities initiated a decentralisation process within the context of Yugoslav self‐management in the 1950s, which significantly reinforced the republic elites. This coincided with the resurgence of the national question in the whole of Yugoslavia. Simultaneously, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a new elite progressively rose to power in the 1960s and put the ‘Muslim question’ on the political agenda. This led to the gradual increase in status of the Muslims from a religious community to an ethnic group at the beginning of the 1960s and then to a nation at the end of the decade.     

Creating a country through currency and stamps: state symbols and nation‐building in British‐ruled Palestine

ABSTRACT. Recent studies have examined the use of currency and stamps for nation‐building in various contexts, with these artefacts seen as vehicles for indoctrination and gaining legitimacy by ruling elites – as a form of “banal nationalism”. This article goes further to argue that in moments of geopolitical upheaval, these symbolic artefacts can play a crucial role in shaping the very framework of nationhood. This article focuses on the Middle East during World War I and its aftermath, and on British efforts to shape public opinion through the issuing of Palestine postage stamps and currency (1920–7), which were intended to convey Britain's commitment to Zionism. Parallels are drawn to the introduction of Arab stamps and flags during the Arab Revolt (1916–18). The benefit to Zionist nation‐building and “Hebrew Revival” is discussed, as well as the strikingly different reactions of local constituencies – Arabs and Jews – to the political message of these symbolic objects.     

Deserving to Whom? Investigating Heterogeneity in the Impact of Social Constructions of Target Populations on Support for Affirmative Action

The social construction of target populations has emerged as an influential framework for understanding the public policy process. In particular, target populations have been shown to shape the allocation of benefits and burdens by political elites. However, existing studies focus on the elite level, which overlooks whether public preferences are aligned with the allocation of policy benefits and burdens by political elites. Moreover, many studies treat social constructions as homogenous, which this paper calls into question. Using a nation‐wide survey experiment, I investigate variation in public support for affirmative action policies with randomly assigned target populations. The findings indicate that the public formulates policy preferences on the basis of perceived deservingness of target groups similar to political elites. In addition, the findings uncover heterogeneity in the effect of targeting on public opinion based on ideology and racial/ethnic group identity.     

Carving out the nation with the enemy's kin: double strategy of boundary‐making in Transnistria and Abkhazia

The 1992–1993 civil wars in Moldova and in Georgia ended with a de facto separation of Transnistria and Abkhazia, respectively. These de facto states are both inhabited by the kin to the ‘enemy’ across the administrative border: Moldovans and Georgians/Mingrelians. How do the de facto authorities foster a collective identity in support of their claim for legitimacy and statehood? Engaging with Wimmer's taxonomy of boundary‐making, this article argues that nation‐building involves not only expansion but also, simultaneously, contraction. Transnistria constructs a higher‐level identity category and co‐opts and contracts the Moldovan category, separating it into ‘our’ and Bessarabian Moldovans in order to incorporate the former into the Transnistrian people. In Abkhazia, the nation‐building project establishes the Abkhazs as the titular nation allowing, however, for the construction of an Abkhazian people that would include minorities, with Gal/i Georgians said to be Mingrelians, distinct from Georgians. These cases show that elites combine different ethnic boundary‐making strategies in order to implement their favoured identity project and to legitimize the claimed statehood.     

A fine instrument: two nation‐building strategies in post‐Soviet Belarus*

Abstract. This article pursues two aims. On the empirical level, it challenges the view of Belarus as a ‘denationalised’, or ‘failed’ nation, and exposes the country as an area of intensive nation‐building. The article demonstrates that, unlike most post‐communist states, two versions of national identity have been advanced in Belarus since 1989, with divergent results for their proponents. On the theoretical level, such an atypical experience places qualifications on the instrumentalist approach, that regards nation‐building as a political tool. The analysis of identity creation in Belarus suggests that nation‐building as a political strategy may be limited by the existing attitudes in the society in question, the socio‐economic structures, as well as by the influence of foreign actors.     

North Africa's Spain: peripheral national identities and the nation‐state as neo‐empire

When ethno‐cultural heterogeneity exists and thrives within a nation‐state, social tension and ethno‐nationalist sentiments are not considered surprising. Yet in many nation‐states, various native‐born communities have diverse and potentially contradictory national identities without the desire for self‐determination. In this paper, I explore the circumstances in which ethno‐culturally distinct, peripheral communities may develop variants of the dominant national identity – ensuring that they remain excluded from the national narrative – yet remain part of the nation‐state. To do so, I conduct a comparative analysis of the native‐born Muslim communities in Spain's two North African exclaves. I find that most Muslims are Spanish citizens yet understandings of ‘Spanish‐ness’ appear to vary between the exclaves. I use these findings to propose further steps for refining current conceptualisations of the nation‐state, in an effort to better understand cases in which variations in the dominant national identity exist, but without ethno‐nationalist sentiments.     

Reconciling custom,citizenship and colonial legacies: Ni‐Vanuatu tertiary student attitudes to national identity

Nation‐building remains a key challenge in Vanuatu. From the origins of this new nation in 1980, it was clear that creating a unifying sense of national identity and political community from multiple languages and diverse traditional cultures would be difficult. This paper presents new survey and focus group data on attitudes to national identity among tertiary students in Vanuatu. The survey identifies areas of common attitudes towards nationalism and national identity, shared by both Anglophone and Francophone Ni‐Vanuatu. However, despite the weakening ties between language of education and political affiliation over recent years, the findings suggest that there remain some key areas of strong association between socio‐linguistic background, and attitudes to the nation, and national identity. These findings cast new light on the attitudes of likely future elites towards regional, ethnic, intergenerational and linguistic fault lines in Vanuatu and the challenges of building a cohesive sense of political community and national identity.     

The rise of Islamic finance: post‐colonial market‐building in central Asia and Russia

Islamic finance signifies more than a projection of religious affiliation. The importance of Islamic finance is increasing in central Asia, both as a source of capital and as a form of post‐colonial market‐building. In central Asia, it is an important facet of the new phenomena of ‘nation‐branding’ and a means of reinvigorating the economy. In identity politics, Islamic finance projects an attitude of religious tolerance allowing states in the region to reposition their geopolitical identity relative to the Islamic community. This creates a ‘performance’ of Islamic finance that facilitates the creation of legitimacy for the state. Adopting Islamic finance projects images of the state's religious tolerance and diversity without changing the underlying structures; it suggests an ‘Islamicness’ that is useful to the development and post‐colonial goals of the state. As such, it creates opportunities for geopolitical alliances with Muslim countries. Economically, it appeals to rising financial‐industrial elites seeking new investment‐opportunities, which reduces pressure on the state to democratize. Meanwhile, in Russia, Islamic finance is an alternative source of capital for the sanctions‐hit state and a useful identity marker with which to connect to the increasingly wary Caucuses and Commonwealth of Independent States countries, lending it a wider significance across Eurasia.     

Brown Britain: post‐colonial politics and grand strategy

How do we approach the subject of British grand strategy today? This article seeks a new approach to this question. It argues that there is a gap of grand strategic significance between actually‐existing Britain and the Britain its political elites tend to imagine. The colonial and imperial histories that helped constitute and still shape the contemporary United Kingdom have fallen through this gap. One consequence is a grand strategic vision limited to a choice of partner in decline—Europe or the US. Overlooked are the power political potentialities of post‐colonial generations situated in multiple sites at home and abroad. In search of this potential, we lay the conceptual basis for a strategic project in which the British ‘island subject’ is replaced by a globally networked community of fate: ‘Brown Britain’. This entails reimagining the referent object of British strategy through diaspora economies, diverse histories and pluralized systems of agency. What might such a post‐colonial strategy entail for British policy? We offer initial thoughts and reflect on the often occluded social and political theoretic content of strategic thought.     

The ummah as nation: a reappraisal in the wake of the ‘Cartoons Affair’†

ABSTRACT. In the wake of the 2006 ‘Cartoons Affair’ which saw international protests by Muslims against the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, it is clear that identity based on membership in the Islamic ummah goes far beyond simple religious affiliation. This essay presents a novel argument for treating the ummah (the transnational community of Muslim believers) as a nation. I begin with a theoretical treatment of the ummah as nation which employs historic and current interpretations of what constitutes nationhood. I then turn to the current state of the ummah; my findings present a potent nexus of information and communications technology (ICT), emergent elites, and Muslim migration to the West that has facilitated a hitherto impossible reification of the ummah. I also discuss how globalisation, Western media practices, and the nature of European society allow ‘ummahist’ elites to marginalise other voices in the transnational Muslim community. Based on the global events surrounding the Danish cartoons controversy of 2005–06, I conclude that there is need to recognise ummah‐based identity as more than just a profession of faith – it represents a new form of postnational, political identity which is as profound as any extant nationalism.     

The nation‐state in its state‐istics (Belgium, 1846–1947)

Statistics are, as the etymology of the term suggests (state‐istics), intimately connected with the construction or administration of the nation‐state. This paper addresses the genesis and development of the nation‐state by studying one of the main instruments that states use to ‘embrace’ their populations, viz. population statistics. More particularly, the paper presents a critical analysis of the conceptual and ‘scientific’ representations of modes of belonging to the nation‐state as produced in the Belgian (Queteletian) population censuses from the mid‐nineteenth until the mid‐twentieth century. It is shown how the analyses of the statisticians' interests, techniques and classification schemes shed light on the various ways in which inclusion in, or exclusion from, the Belgian nation‐state have been articulated in its population censuses. It is argued that these shifting interests and classification schemes also inform us about the construction and administration of the contemporary nation‐state.     

The nation as the cradle of nationalism and patriotism

This paper argues against dismissing as ‘populist nationalism’ every positive view of one's nation and ignoring patriotism as its antithesis. The European nation exists in two senses: as a large ‘social group’, a community of real people, and as an abstract community of cultural values promoted by intellectual elites grounded in a humanities‐based education. The widespread prejudice that condemns every positive expression of one's relationship to the nation has proved counterproductive because it has prompted ever stronger spontaneous reactions in the form of primitive nationalistic egoism. This has weakened the commitment people feel towards their nation and the humanistic potential that the nation possesses as a cultural community of values. Consequently, anti‐national European intellectual elites bear some responsibility – along with those preaching neoliberal individualism – for the success of populist demagogues and the decline in patriotic values. Given the state of education today, a revival of humanist culture for national elites seems impossible, making the continued rise of primitive nationalism appear unstoppable.     

Contextualising ‘Turkification’: nation‐building in the late Ottoman Empire, 1908–18*

Abstract. This article offers an analytical framework for understanding the peculiarities of the Ottoman Empire's nationality policies in the second constitutional period (1908–18). It will examine the extent to which the nationality policies of the Young Turks can be perceived as a nation‐building project, and question whether it is reasonable to apply the term ‘Turkification’ to these policies. The primary goal of the paper in this context is to identify how and to what degree a nationalist outlook shaped imperial polices of the late Ottoman Empire. Engaging in a critical dialogue with the existing historiography, the article argues that ‘Turkification’ should be conceptualised solely as a project of nation‐building in the multiethnic Ottoman Empire. It was only one of the policies employed by the imperial elite and it coexisted with other imperial policies ranging from centralisation to decentralisation, assimilation to dissimilation and integration to homogenisation. The paper concludes by contending that only by contextualising and understanding this complexity and only by taking geographical variations into account can the peculiarity of ‘Turkification’ be grasped.     

Small state imperialism: the place of empire in contemporary nationalist discourse

Many modern European nations can trace their heritage back to one of the large multinational empires that once encompassed much of the European landscape, and nationalising elites often refer back to their place in these empires for the materials upon which their nation was purportedly built. In this article we examine some Belarusian nationalising elites and their references to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in order to demonstrate a recent trend in East European small‐state national identity construction, which we refer to as ‘small state imperialism.’ Small state imperialism exhibits realist characteristics and paints the small nation's place in empires of the past as privileged and aggressive, and in this way deviates from the oppressed but morally superior image one typically expects of a small nation. This interpretation is not limited to Belarus; in a number of East European states a similar imperialist turn has taken root in nationalist discourses.     

Constitution‐writing,nationalism and the Turkish experience

Until recently there has been relatively little attention paid to the question of how the relationship between the state, its citizens and the nation is articulated in constitutional texts. This paper seeks to address this gap through an examination of how the rules of belonging to the nation are discussed by the political elite and how these discussions find their final formulation in the constitutional texts. The analysis focuses on the Turkish case at two constitution‐writing moments (1924 and 1961). While such moments have conventionally been assumed to be ‘revolutionary’, the data on Turkey highlights continuities rather than radical changes over time. More particularly, it underscores the resilience and salience of the principle of nationalism over time.     

Standards of self‐determination and standards of minority‐rights in the post‐communist era: a historical perspective

Abstract. In the recent Yugoslav crisis, the decisions of the international community sparked off a sharp debate on the recognition of self‐determination claims, reminiscent of the debates in the aftermath of the First World War. This article compares and contrasts the principles and practices of the international community in these two periods. It draws a parallel between the simultaneous strengthening of self‐determination norms and minority protection norms, first at Versailles and then in the midst of the recent Balkan crisis. Though the processes showed many similarities, there was one crucial difference: by the time of the Balkan crisis, the international community had come to regard minority autonomies as the most appropriate form of protection for compact minorities in new nation‐states born of ethnic separatism. While in the Versailles system minority protection norms were meant as compensations for the denial of self‐determination, in the Balkan crisis the autonomies were regarded as the highest form of minority protection, which in turn increased the perceived risk of minority separatism in new states. It is in this context that the article presents the debate over the traditional and more recent approaches to the ‘unit question’, which has haunted scholars and policy‐makers ever since the concept of self‐determination emerged as an international norm.     

Identity of non‐self‐evident nation: Czech national identity after the break‐up of Czechoslovakia and before accession to the European Union*

ABSTRACT. In this study the authors analyse Czech national identity after the break‐up of Czechoslovakia and before accession to the European Union. National identity is understood here as a construct consisting of several elements, four of which the authors analyse: territorial identity (localism, regionalism, patriotism, and Europeanism), the image of the nation – the cultural nation (ethno‐nation) and the political nation (state‐nation), national pride (in general, and in cultural performance and in the performance of the state), and love for the nation – nationalism (or more precisely, chauvinism) and patriotism. To create a more complex picture of Czech national identity the authors compare it with national identities in eleven other European countries. To conclude, the authors analyse the attitudes of Czechs toward the European Union, and national identity is used as an important explanatory element of the support for EU governance.     

Bringing Back the (B)order: Post‐9/11 Politics of Immigration,Borders, and Belonging in the Contemporary US South

Abstract: Post 9/11, debates about borders, immigration, and belonging have reached a new intensity in the US South. The temporal overlap of growing immigration to the South since the late 1990s and growing nativist sentiment across the US since 9/11 has led southern communities to fuse new regional racial demographics to new national border anxieties. This convergence enables southern political elites to address the changing contours of local communities through recourse to national imperatives of border security, all the while avoiding an explicit language of race in a thoroughly racialized debate. In an analysis of recent political maneuvers in the South, this article examines what happens when debates about nation, community, and borders are relocated to southern spaces heretofore absent in discussions of immigration. It argues that legislative actions against immigrant populations in southern states are virulent and multi‐scalar border policings in which concerns about the social and cultural boundaries of southern communities, new racial projects across the South, and post‐9/11 immigrant anxieties across the US become inseparable. To conclude, it discusses the theoretical insight that this critical assessment of the South's new border projects offers vis‐à‐vis understandings of, and struggles against, exclusion, racism, and social injustice.     

Ethnic return migration and the nation‐state: encouraging the diaspora to return ‘home’

ABSTRACT. Countries of immigration are generally faced with a dilemma: they wish to accept immigrants for economic purposes, but also to restrict immigration for ethnonational reasons. This is especially true in ethnic nation‐states, where immigration is seen as a threat to ethnonational unity more than in civic nation‐states. However, in recent decades, various ethnic nation‐states have adopted immigration policies that have encouraged their diasporic descendants born and raised abroad to return to their ethnic homeland. Ethnic return migration apparently solves the immigration dilemma by providing ethnic nation‐states with a much‐needed unskilled labour force without causing ethnonational disruption because the immigrants are co‐ethnic descendants. After comparing ethnic return migration policies in European and East Asian countries, this article analyses the development of such policies in Japan and their eventual failure to solve the country's immigration dilemma. As a result, Japan (and other ethnic nation‐states) have imposed restrictions on ethnic return migration.     

Nation‐building policies in the Balkans: an Ottoman or a manufactured legacy?

Are post‐Ottoman nation‐building policies in the Balkans a legacy of the millet system? Some contend that the discriminatory nation‐building policies along religious lines employed by Balkan nations ruling elites are a legacy of the Ottoman era millet system (administration by religious affiliation); others argue that the Ottoman legacy is palpable in the millet‐like features preserved in the minority rights protection system resulting from World War I, and yet other scholars see the millet system as a critical antecedent. Studying closely the policies towards non‐core groups in the post‐Ottoman Balkans, one finds that the ‘Ottoman legacy’ is much more differentiated than is commonly assumed and that effects vary widely from place to place. Moreover, I argue that the persistence of certain features from one period to another may be an actual legacy in some cases, but there is also a possibility that we are dealing with a manufactured legacy, where elites choose to intervene and perpetuate an institution or a particular feature of it. I empirically demonstrate this distinction in a crucial case using archival sources.