Asymmetrical international integration and Ukrainian national disunity

This article examines the impact of international integration on ethno-regional relations in multiethnic states. It argues that when ethno-regions in such a state have different geographic patterns of foreign ties, national unity suffers. “Asymmetrical international integration” (AII) hinders national cohesion by reducing the cultural similarity of the ethno-regions, sharpening their disputes over foreign policy, and intensifying their disparate identities. This argument is evaluated using the case of Ukraine. Analysis of a survey distributed to approximately 1000 elites in two key Ukrainian cities in 1994–95, as well as of other data, demonstrates that AII exists, is believed by Ukrainians to weaken national unity, and in fact does weaken national unity.     

城市在促进东北民族融合中的作用

少数民族城市化是指少数民族从传统的乡村社会转化为城市社会的过程,也是城市与乡村在经济、社会和文化等方面相互交融互动、全面整合和共同发展的过程。历史上东北地区城市是区域经济文化联系的“点“和“线“的结合处,是中原汉族文化在少数民族地区传播的中心点。城市空间布局与城市文化进程是影响民族关系的重要途径,对形成和巩固区域民族共同体发挥着巨大作用,同时又促进了中华各民族的交流、融合,成为民族融合的中心。     

The chimera of national identity

ABSTRACT. In both popular discourse and many academic works, the existence of national identity is largely taken as given. Although researchers disagree on whether national identities are modern or perennial, and 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 this view I argue not only that there was 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 nations and often express sincere devotion to the ‘national cause’, none of these are reliable indicators of the existence of a durable, continuous, stable and monolithic entity called ‘national identity’. To fully understand the character of popular mobilisation in modernity it is paramount to refocus our attention from the slippery and non‐analytical idiom of ‘identity’ towards well‐established sociological concepts such as ‘ideology’ and ‘solidarity’. In particular, the central object of this research becomes the processes through which large‐scale social organisations successfully transform earnest micro‐solidarity into an all‐encompassing nationalist ideology.     

‘Set in the silver sea’: English national identity and European integration

ABSTRACT. Although many short‐term reasons for a specifically English Euro‐scepticism have been proposed, a long‐term perspective is required to provide a fuller and more rounded treatment of this important and topical political issue. It needs to be grasped in terms of cultural, political and religious factors in English history, specifically, the antiquity and political character of a sense of English national identity, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the nature and impact of Protestant covenantalism. Among the factors that have shaped a sense of English national identity are its insular, geopolitical situation, the early development of a centralised English state, and the concomitant growth of a unified English legal system. To the existing sense of national identity under the Tudors was added a strong current of religious separatism, manifested first through Henry VIII's break with Rome and his vindication of monarchical supremacy in a national church, and second through the Puritan return to the idea of election modelled on the Old Testament narrative of the Exodus and Covenant of the Israelites. These currents have lent to the sense of English national identity a strong oppositional character, in contrast to the transterritorialism of Christendom characteristic of the leading Roman Catholic powers. This can be seen both by comparing English with French historical trajectories, and more recently, in terms of the separate, but allied, position of England in relation to European integration.