Do nationalist parties shape or follow sub‐national identities? A panel analysis on the rise of the nationalist party in the Flemish Region of Belgium, 2006–11

In this article, we examine the steep and unprecedented rise of the New Flemish Alliance (N‐VA), a Flemish nationalist party in Belgium that succeeded in gaining almost thirty per cent of the vote in a couple of years. During this period, a panel survey among 3,025 late adolescents and young adults was conducted. Our analyses suggest that support for a sub‐nationalist ideology is far more successful in explaining a subsequent vote for the nationalist party than vice versa. In terms of supply and demand mechanisms, we find that N‐VA has managed to address a preexisting reservoir of Flemish nationalist voters (demand), rather than attributing to a development of a stronger Flemish identity among its followers (supply). We should therefore not overestimate the constructionist power of (sub‐)nationalist political elites for the development of (sub‐)nationalist identities.     

Sub‐state nationalism and the welfare state: Québec and Canadian federalism

ABSTRACT. This article examines the relationship between sub‐state nationalism and the welfare state through the case of Québec in Canada. It argues that social policy presents mobilisation and identity‐building potential for sub‐state nationalism, and that nationalist movements affect the structure of welfare states. Nationalism and the welfare state revolve around the notion of solidarity. Because they often involve transfers of money between citizens, social programmes raise the issue of the specific community whose members should exhibit social and economic solidarity. From this perspective, nationalist movements are likely to seek the congruence between the ‘national community’ (as conceptualised by their leaders) and the ‘social community’ (the community where redistributive mechanisms should operate). Moreover, the political discourse of social policy lends itself well to national identity‐building because it is typically underpinned by collective values and principles. Finally, pressures stemming from sub‐state nationalism tend to reshape the policy agenda at both the state and the sub‐state level while favouring the asymmetrical decentralisation of the welfare state.     

Denied ethnicism: on the Walloon movement in Belgium

The Walloon movement is the lesser‐known counterpart to the Flemish movement in Belgium. In contemporary political debate it presents itself, and is usually perceived, as a civic and voluntaristic movement predicated on the values of democracy, freedom, openness and anti‐nationalism. As such it is contrasted against its Flemish counterpart, which accordingly is characterised as tending towards an ethnic exclusivist form of nationalism hinging on descent, culture and language. However, the historical record behind these representations shows that the Walloon movement is rooted in ethno‐cultural as much as social politics, and that it has always contained both civic and ethnic elements to varying degrees. This article highlights the Walloon movement in order to analyse the language and national stereotypes in which national movements are characterised both in political rhetoric and in scholarly analysis. The case is particularly relevant for the problematic usage of the ‘civic–ethnic’ opposition, slipping between the discourses of antagonism and analysis; one type of such slippage is here identified as ‘denied ethnicism’.     

Language and Nationalism: Comparing Flanders and Tanzania

Abstract. Language is often a central issue in nationalist ideologies. It is seen as a crucial element in the definition of people's identities, and it is often a battlefield for nationalist activities. An analysis of how language is conceptualised and made part of a particular nationalist struggle may yield insights into the ideological structure of this particular nationalism, and thus lead to more refined ways of distinguishing between various types of nationalisms. In this article, a comparison is made between language in Flemish nationalism and in Tanzanian post-Ujamaa nationalism. In both cases, great emphasis is placed by the nation-builders on the central role of language in attaining the nationalist goals. However, a comparison of both cases also yields significant differences. The Flemish view of language is predominantly ethnic. Dutch is seen as an inalienable marker of identity, shared with the Dutch people, and creating a fundamental difference with the Walloon Belgians. Also, language is closely associated with the territory on which it is being spoken, which yields a homogeneistic and assimilationist attitude towards speakers of other languages on Flemish temtory. In Tanzania, Swahili is seen as an instrument for attaining a socialist political- ideological hegemonisation of the state. Swahili is chosen not for cultural reasons, but because it allows for egalitarian, socialist connotations. Underlying both language ideologies are basic differences in the structure of nationalism in Flanders and Tanzania, Flanders being an example of ethnic nationalism and Tanzania an example of socialist state nationalism.     

Maximum Working Class Unity? Challenges to Local Social Movement Unionism in Cape Town

Joint political mobilisation between trade unions and community groups, often referred to as ‘social movement unionism’, has been upheld as a way forward for organised labour in a neoliberal world economy. Analysing the interaction between unions and communities is critical for understanding the potential and actual roles played by trade unions in voicing the concerns of marginalized workers and poor communities. This article examines the efforts of organised municipal workers and urban social movements trying to unite their forces in post‐apartheid South Africa, by looking at the politics of the Cape Town Anti‐Privatisation Forum (APF). While the participants of the APF have in common their opposition to commercialisation and privatisation of service delivery, their political unity is fragile. By contrasting the ‘ideal‐type’ social movement unionism depicted in the contemporary literature on labour and globalisation with the findings of this particular case, we uncover some main dimensions along which this organisational cooperation is challenged. In contrast to the political unity experienced during the anti‐apartheid struggle, the APF initiative operates in a restructuring post‐apartheid economy where bridging internal organisational differences and confronting the hegemonic position of the African National Congress (ANC) in civil society have proved particularly challenging.     

The state as a symbol or a means to an end: internal border changes in multinational federations

Federalism is an important institutional option for the management of difference in multinational states. A number of scholars have argued that the internal boundaries of such states should divide each constituent group into several federal units. In theory, boundary engineering of this type should activate cross‐cutting cleavages, subvert secessionist movements and, ultimately, foster political integration and stability. This article, by contrast, demonstrates the conditions under which the subdivision of territorial units can destabilise polities. Where statehood is a central symbol in nationalist narratives of constituent groups, the fragmentation of the sub‐state unit will be perceived as a threat to national identity of the group in question. The article compares former Yugoslavia and Nigeria, two cases in which such processes led to divergent outcomes.     

Remembering the past against the grain: an analysis of the reconstructions of the past in The Sunday News's ‘Lest We Forget’ column

Memories of the nationalist struggle are fervently contested in Zimbabwean public spaces such as the media. This paper examines the emergence of the counter‐hegemonic historical narratives in the state‐controlled media that seek to subvert the dominant nationalist discourses propagated by the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF). Focusing on the Sunday News's Lest We Forget newspaper column, the paper analyses the representations of the role played by the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) in the liberation struggle, a nationalist movement whose contributions are marginalised and obscured in the official nationalist historiography. Given that in Zimbabwe the state‐owned media are generally viewed as mouthpieces of the ruling party, this paper identifies the tensions in the Sunday News as alternative historical memories are being reproduced and sustained. Drawing upon the critical discourse analysis (CDA) method, this article argues that alternative historical imaginations are rekindled in the state media.     

Ethnic Nationalism and Subaltern Political Process: Exploring Autonomous Democratic Action in Kashmir

Abstract. This article argues that the emergence and development of subaltern political process is a significant conflict dynamic found in the escalation of ethnic nationalist movements. These ethnie‐defined modes of political participation are in turn an expression of the autonomous nature of ethnic nationalism, but occur ‘underneath’ and often antecedent to the organised violence and militancy which distracts most analyses of these conflicts. The article discusses this process of insurgent political mobilisation as a response to the structural paralysis of the post‐colonial state, using the ethnic nationalist conflict in Indian Jammu and Kashmir as the central case study. In its discussion of this case, the article seeks to argue that the presence of such subaltern political process provides additional empirical evidence of the autonomous nature of ethnic nationalism, and its capacity to carve out alternative options for democratic action and popular participation.     

Kurdish nationalists and non‐nationalist Kurdists: rethinking minority nationalism and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, 1908–1909

ABSTRACT. Recent scholarship has begun to nuance the idea of Ottoman decline, but few works have attempted to see nationalism outside of the dominant decline paradigm. By addressing the emergence of Kurdish nationalism in the late Ottoman period, this paper questions the idea that imperial disintegration and nationalism were inherently intertwined; and challenges not only the mutually causal relationship that has been emphasised in literature to date, but also the shape that the ‘nationalist movement’ took. Using archival sources, the Kurdish‐Ottoman press, travel literature and secondary sources in various languages, the present paper will illustrate how the so‐called Kurdish nationalist movement' was actually several different movements, each with a differing vision of the political entity its participants hoped to create or protect through their activities. The idea of Kurdish nationalism, or Kurdism, may have been present in the minds of these activists, but the notion of what it meant was by no means uniform. Different groups imbued the concept with their own meanings and agendas. This study demonstrates that most ‘nationalists’ among the Kurds continued to envision themselves as members of the multi‐national Ottoman state, the temptingly powerful rise of nationalism in their day notwithstanding. The suggestion has important implications for students and scholars of nationalist movements among other non‐dominant groups, not only in the Ottoman Empire but in contemporaneous empires such as the Habsburg, and in later states like Iraq, Rwanda and Sudan. The present study further questions the received wisdom that multi‐ethnic entities are a recipe for disaster. It proposes that a joint effort to rethink what we know about minority nationalism may involve not only a reconceptualisation of the very terms we use, but perhaps an accompanying shift in approach too.     

‘Scientific’ nationalism

This paper investigates how the discursive battle for the Flemish nation is waged in the Flemish mass media by politicians of the Flemish nationalist party, the New Flemish Alliance (N‐VA). I focus on the ‘new nationalism’ that N‐VA politicians advocate as a means to ‘banalise’ a hot Flemish nationalism. I establish that N‐VA spokespeople and especially their chairman Bart De Wever invoke discursive alliances with established scholars such as Anderson, Hroch, Calhoun and Billig. On the one hand, these alliances are used to sell their nationalism as a non‐ideological or non‐discursive project. On the other hand, the analyses of these intellectuals are used as manuals to ‘banalise’ a hot nationalism. The concept of ‘scientific’ nationalism refers to the entextualisation of scientific discourses in order to legitimate and banalise the nationalist project of the party as ‘in line with science’.     

Rethinking the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and its Inter‐American Regional Organization

In responding to the impact of corporate globalization on the working class, the trade union movement needs not only to rethink its strategies, but also to review its international organization. This article highlights changes in the labour market such as the increase in unemployment, deregulation, informality, the stronger presence of women, and the issue of child labour. In this context, the article goes on to consider the growing social movements that might form alliances with trade unions for social change. The present international confederations of trade unions—the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the World Confederation of Labor (WCL), and the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU)—were profoundly engaged in the cold war. Their structure today, particularly that of the ICFTU, is the same as 50 years ago. The ICFTU's structure mirrors the Leninist model of centralized direction practiced by its traditional opponent, the WFTU. Many national confederations resisted this East‐West pressure during the Cold War, and chose to stay outside all of the international confederations. Post‐Cold War, most have elected to become members of the ICFTU, believing it to be a democratic space for an open political debate, and in the hope of reform. However, expected change has been slow to materialize. This paper explores the way in which changes already made in the Organización Regional Interamericana de Trabajadores (ORIT) might shape ongoing discussions in the ICFTU.     

Politics and the nation: nationalist mobilisation of ethnic differences

Abstract. Based on a critique of the exogenous and expressive views of politics underlying many studies of nationalism, this article analyses the political factors that affect nation‐building processes in a direct manner. First, ethnicity should be considered not so much as an historical and objective starting point but as the outcome of nationalist intellectuals' efforts at filtering and selecting political and cultural elements. It is important to examine the structure and genealogy of nationalist ideological capital using myth/symbol analysis or frame analysis. Second, one of the key concepts in the study of nationalist movements is the Political Opportunity Structure, as it refers to the developmental context, both institutional (democratisation, decentralisation, etc.) and strategic (potential allies, electoral dealignments, etc.). In this sense, ethnic regulation policies should not be taken as mere effects or responses, but as decisive intervening causes in the very process of national identity‐building. Finally, this article argues that rational choice analysis and collective action logic can be found useful in explaining the successes or failures of nationalist movements that attempt to mobilise and organise politically as mass phenomena.     

How to gauge banal nationalism and national indifference in the past: proletarian tweets in Belgium's belle époque

Michael Billig's theory of banal nationalism involves the assumption that the absence of an explicit discourse on the nation should be interpreted as the unmindful presence of nationalism and that the mass media faithfully represent or reflect the discourses of ‘ordinary people’. Recent historical research of ‘national indifference’ in imperial Austria has inverted the correlation between the ubiquity of nationalist discourses and their impact in society. This article assesses these conflicting frameworks and refutes AD Smith's critique of everyday nationalism research as necessarily ahistorical and presentist. This case study of the rank‐and‐file of the social‐democratic Belgian Workers' Party at the close of the nineteenth century uses a unique source of working‐class voices: the so‐called ‘propaganda pence’ or ‘proletarian tweets’ from the Flemish‐speaking city of Ghent. Hot, explicit nationalism was absent from these sources, which begs the question: is this proof of banal nationalism or national indifference? A historically contextualized analysis of the absences shows that workers expressed national indifference towards Belgian, but not towards Flemish ethnicity. In Rogers Brubaker's terms: Flemish ethnicity was a relevant social category, but only in a very restricted number of social contexts could it become a basis for ‘groupness’ or political mobilisation in daily life.     

Accommodation and the politics of fiscal equalization in multinational states: The case of Canada

The politics of accommodation in multinational states sometimes features an important, yet often overlooked, fiscal dimension. In fact, the scholarly literature on the accommodation of nationalist movements emphasizes territorial autonomy, access to power and representation within central institutions, and the promotion of the state national identity, but it is virtually silent on how patterns of territorial fiscal redistribution, and more specifically programs of horizontal fiscal equalization, may contribute to accommodating sub‐state nationalism. This article looks at the Canadian case and analyses the multidimensional relationship between equalization policy and Québécois nationalism. It explains how a key motivation behind the creation of Canada's fiscal equalization program in 1957 was to “end” the institutional and political isolation of Québec and how equalization may have, thereafter, contributed to making Québec's secession less appealing to a good number of Quebeckers than it would have been in the absence of this program. Simultaneously, the article discusses how equalization may have contributed to a certain political backlash against Québec in the other provinces, thus providing mixed evidence in the assessment of the accommodation potential of equalization policy.     

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.     

Between nationalism and regionalism: Higher education policy and national/regional identity in Quebec and Wallonia

This article explores the nexus between nationalism/regionalism and higher education policy at the subnational scale. Relying on a Critical Discourse Analysis, the study investigates how notions of national/regional identity are discursively embedded in the higher education policy discussions of Quebec and Wallonia. A comparative approach based on the distinct logics of subnational politics in both cases is used. Whereas Quebec is considered a quintessential example of ‘subnationalism’, the Walloon case is defined as a political regionalist movement. The findings reveal the permeation of substate identity interests in both Quebec and Wallonia's higher education policy discussions, underscoring parallels between them despite their diverging characters. At the same time, the discourse analysis sheds light on important distinctions in the manner in which this identity discourse is articulated. By juxtaposing identity politics in ‘nationalist’ and ‘regionalist’ movements, the study aims to bridge their conceptualisation and critically reflect on the categorisation of subnational movements.     

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.     

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.     

Nationalism,economic crisis and ‘realistic revolution’ in 1980s Mexico*

ABSTRACT. This article examines how the Mexican state drew upon nationalist discourse for legitimacy following the 1982 debt crisis. The analytical framework situates Mexico within the context of Latin American nationalism and explores the structural and conjunctural factors that contributed to the endurance and effectiveness of Mexican revolutionary nationalism as a hegemonic nationalist discourse. Historical commemorations during the Miguel de la Madrid administration (1982–88) are then examined to show how the state evoked nationalist motifs as it dealt with economic crisis, pressure from the USA, domestic political opposition and the implementation of neoliberal reforms. The relative effectiveness of sometimes counterintuitive appeals to nationalist legitimacy is found to be neither wholly ‘rational’ nor ‘irrational’, in this case having its basis in a history of elite and popular negotiation through the revolutionary nationalist framework, the continuity of the post‐revolutionary Partido de la Revolución Institutional (PRI) state model and the lack of a viable competing paradigm.