Platform nations

This article introduces the concept of platform nations to capture an important recent shift in the way nations and nationalism operate in the public domain. If the rise of the internet initially led to a weakening of state control over public expressions of national belonging, the growing monopoly of platforms enables states to reassert control over national imagination, while also opening doors for other political and corporate actors to interfere in the process. This shift appears to be contributing, at least in some parts of the world, to a disciplining of national imagination online, partially reversing the trend to greater democratisation seen in the early stages of the internet.     

A new sociology of nationalism: The sociology of property and nation

In this essay, I will reflect upon what has been sociology's contribution to understanding the emergence and development of nationalism and how sociology can contribute to understanding nationalism's present and future through a property rights perspective. The essay will discuss, in particular, how historical sociological analysis of property rights and property rights regimes may be central to understanding nationalism past and future. After a general and brief discussion on the current, so‐called return of nationalism, the essay starts with discussion of some late enlightenment proto‐sociologists, suggesting that these writers actually analysed some crucial early dynamics of property and sovereignty which is central to understanding nationalism. The essay then moves on to suggests why a property rights focus might be a useful perspective to understanding nationalism in the 21st century.     

New regionalism in Turkey: questioning the ‘new’ and the ‘regional’

Turkey’s regional policies are inspired by the new regionalism theory. During past two decades, key concepts of new regionalism, including knowledge economies, specialization, networked cities and innovation, have been incorporated in policy documents. At the same time, Turkey comes from a strong central state tradition that controls local and regional development. At first insight, new regionalism and strong central state control do not fit in the same frame. This research analyses the trajectory of regional policies in Turkey with the aim of explaining how these seemingly incompatible policies can coexist. It argues that regional policies developed at the central state level utilized new regionalism as a part of the strategy to maintain power in the course of transformation of the nation state.     

Indigenous myths and nation building in Latin America

In Latin America, ethnicity is equated with indigenity. It is an objective of this article to review the legacy of Anthony Smith regarding the vitality of the ethnic past and the myth of origin, as the core of his theory of nationalism based on the weight of ethnocentrism. To this end, we address two routes, the use of the ethnic past and ethnicity by nationalists and founders of the state and, how indigenous intellectuals, on the other, have found a reinvention of their identities through various myths of Amerindian origin. Ethnic myths and the use of the ethnic past have been accepted, denied or rejected by nationalists, while indigenous peoples adhere to their own myths or seek to reinvent them. Mythical information is a component of identity but also requires institutions to disseminate such information among the group.     

A hyperreal first-place: Portugal dos Pequenitos theme park and the narrative of origins

Abstract

This article analyses a nation-theme park in Portugal. Located in Coimbra and built in the 1940s, when Portugal was a colonial empire and was under the rule of a right wing dictatorship, the park was designed as a pedagogical device for children to learn about the nation. In the park, the whole of the nation was represented by miniature replicas of buildings representing European Portugal and its overseas territories. Seventy-five years after its construction and with little changes to its material structures, this theme park is the most visited tourist attraction in Coimbra. This paper presents the result of ethnographic work carried out with Portuguese visitors to the park so as to understand the affect the place has over Portuguese visitors. The work undertaken with the latter has allowed to identify a narrative of ‘firstness’ that constructs the park as a hyper-real first-place by Portuguese visitors.     

高句丽与汉魏晋及北族政权的朝贡关系

1—5世纪初,无论是统一王朝时期,还是王朝分裂、政权频繁更替时期,高句丽对中原王朝和北族政权都采取积极朝贡的姿态,朝贡活动呈现出单向、双向、多向的变化,先后向十多个王朝和政权进行朝贡。随着政治形势和朝贡对象的变化,高句丽朝贡活动的目的及其与朝贡对象的关系也有一定的变化。     

Pop-culture diplomacy in Japan: soft power,nation branding and the question of ‘international cultural exchange’

This paper critically examines the development of what is known as ‘pop-culture diplomacy’ in Japan. In the postwar era, the country’s cultural diplomacy was propelled by the necessity to soften anti-Japan perceptions, notably in Southeast Asia. In the late 1980s, the popularity of Japanese media culture in Asia began to attract the attention of policy makers, while subsequent globalized practices of soft power and nation branding gave greater emphasis to the use of media culture to internationally enhance the image of the nation, which has meant the promotion of ‘pop-culture diplomacy’ and, more broadly, ‘Cool Japan’. It is argued that pop-culture diplomacy goes no further than a one-way projection and does not seriously engage with cross-border dialogue. The Japanese case also shows that pop-culture diplomacy hinders meaningful engagement with internal cultural diversity and suggests the necessity of taking domestic implications of cultural diplomacy seriously.     

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.     

试论日本古代国家官僚制度

五位以上的有位贵族依据"官位相当制",在官僚机构内部担任高官,并在服制即朝服和礼服方面与六位以下官人相区别。有位贵族在政治、经济、法律和受教育方面具有很大的特权,享有一系列的优惠待遇。官人的出身资格大体分为五位以上官人的子孙的荫子孙、六、七、八位官人之子的位子和除此之外的白丁三种。荫位制,是五位以上的有位贵族子孙的主要出身之路。日本的学校与官吏出身制度的联系不是很密切,日本的学校的功能与其说是培养任用官吏的机构,不如说是在培养专家的同时,以使五位以上贵族子孙广泛了解经学为目的的一种经学传播机构。     

A Nation‐state without the nation? The trajectories of nation‐formation in Montenegro1

ABSTRACT. Following the successful referendum of May 2006, Montenegro became the last of the former Yugoslav republics to opt for an independent state. Only fifteen years earlier, when the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia collapsed, Montenegro was resolute to continue the Yugoslav state‐formation in a union with Serbia. This paper attempts to answer the following questions: Why did it take so much longer for the Montenegrin population to follow the experience of other republics in its decision on independence? How can one explain a staggering change in public opinion on questions of national self‐determination over such a short time‐span? And, finally, what are the dominant discourses of “Montenegrin‐ness”? The authors argue that the answers to these questions are to be found in the particularities of Montenegro's historical development, and especially in the structural legacies of state socialism. The consequence of these developments was the formation of two separate Montenegrin national ideologies: one which sees Montenegrins as ethnically Serb, and the other that defines Montenegrins in civic terms. The paper concludes that these two divergent trajectories of nation‐formation in Montenegro are largely the unintended consequence of intensive state‐building, cultural and political modernisation and, most of all, the gradual politicisation and institutionalisation of high culture.