Question: The debate between ethnosymbolists,
primordialists, and modernists seems to be basically focused on
why and when nationalism and nations first developed. Would it
be fair to say that nationalism studies have been heavily --
perhaps too heavily -- focused on the origins of nations and
nationalism? Have other topics, such as the persistence of
nationalism, been neglected?
Answer: That is a very good question. I do think the question of
origins is important, as I think I indicated in my interview. I
also think it bears upon the question of persistence; if you
think you have an idea of what caused something, you might think
you have an idea about when that cause might cease operating.
However, I think the matter is complicated in a number of ways.
First, again as I indicated, nationalism seems to go through
constant transformations which in turn are related to new
developments. At the very least we need to distinguish between
different kinds of nationalisms and which might persist or not.
For example, one might argue that aggressive ethno-nationalism
will cease to operate in a territory which has been ethnically
cleansed. Michael Mann, in Dark Side of Democracy, suggests
something of the kind for the northern hemisphere (with the
pessimistic implication that this is still something to be
completed in the southern hemisphere).[1]
There has been a lot of discussion about whether "nationalism as
a whole" might be coming to an end; an argument, for example,
Hobsbawm advances. But I think that is different from the
argument about persistence or not in particular cases. And we
are then back to what we mean by nationalism. Billig, for
example, in Banal Nationalism argues that there are various
reasons why "hot" nationalism comes and goes, but in addition
argues that it can only re-emerge after a period of absence if
sustained by a more continuous "cool" or "banal" nationalism.[2]
If one agrees with him, one might argue that nationalism simply
persists in this low-level way for so long as there is a world
of nation-states and a tendency to see things in terms of
national "us and them." But one might then have a set of
arguments about the decline of "hot" nationalism. So far as I
know, no one has attempted to provide this in any general or
theoretical way but rather on a case-by-case basis. John
Hutchinson in Nations as Zones of Conflict does advance an
original and powerful argument about the periodicity of
nationalism which might help.[3] But it is a good question that
I need to think a lot more about.
Notes [1]. Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining
Ethnic Cleansing (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
[2]. Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage, 1995).
[3]. John Hutchinson, Nations as Zones of Conflict (London:
Sage, 2005).
Question: Twice during the interview, you
mention the distinction between civic and ethnic types of
nationalism. In the first instance, in reference to a paper on
the American Civil War, you say that you "think that the
theoretical debates about the ethnic/civic nationalist
distinction are important for historians of nationalism." (11)
Later, when commenting on the refrigerator metaphor, you say
that "Nationalism should not be used as a moral term, or divided
into good and bad types (civic/ethnic, western/eastern), or
simply confined to the fields of political conflict and
violence, but seen as a type of language, sentiment and politics
which intrinsically both includes and excludes and which will
take on a "dark" or a "bright" aspect according to situation."
(13) My question is this: What, as a historian, is your position
on the civic/ethnic distinction? As a non-historian writing a
critique of this approach to nationalism, I would appreciate
your insight.
Answer:
I do not think the distinction civic/ethnic is very useful if
seen in terms of different types of nationalism which is used to
group specific cases. That is how it originally worked in the
form Hans Kohn presented it, of western and eastern nationalism.
For powerful arguments against the distinction used in that way
there is an article by Oliver Zimmer, as well as an essay by
Rogers Brubaker republished in his book Ethnicity without
Groups.[1]
However, I do think the discourse of nationality in a
way operates between two poles, one of which is purely about
inclusion/exclusion in terms of voluntary commitment to certain
rules and institutions and the other in terms of involuntary
characteristics shared with others. By and large, most of the
arguments mix these elements in particular ways, e.g., centring
on history or customs or language or religion, often in complex
combinations. I think they are only sharply defined when in
conflict.
So precisely because in the American Civil War there
was an argument about excluding Afro-Americans or German and
Irish immigrants from the nation, so those who came into
conflict with people arguing such cases, presented a sharp
argument about a nation based on the universal principles of the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. In practice
both sides constantly modified and combined their positions
(e.g., Lincoln was originally satisfied with the continuation of
slavery in the states where it was the law but not to see it
extended to other states). So I think we need both to see the
need always to combine choice and "groupness" in national
discourse, used both to identify and to include/exclude, and
that sharply counterposing these two poles as actual types
against one another reflects particular kinds of conflict.
Notes
[1]. Oliver Zimmer, "Boundary Mechanisms and Symbolic Resources:
Towards a Process-Oriented Approach to National Identity,"
Nations and Nationalism 9.2 (April 2003), pp. 173-193; and
Rogers Brubaker, Ethnicity Without Groups (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2004).
Question: In discussing the origins of the Confederacy during
the American Civil War, Brian Holden Reid has written that,
"drafting a constitution, no matter how delicate the legal
refinements, does not make a nation." This in reference to the
urgency with which the newly formed Confederacy had set about
the task of drafting a Constitution, before in fact they did
much of anything else. At the same time, writing at the
beginning of the Civil War a contributor to _De Bow's Review_
wrote that "every nation and every sovereign State exists only
by virtue of a constitution."
Do you think that we have here encapsulated a difference between
American (maybe even New World?) and European notions about the
formation of nations? For Americans, and we have seen this in
Japan after WW II and in Afghanistan and Iraq today, drafting a
constitution does seem to function as a surrogate for the act of
nation-building. Do you agree?
Answer:
I cannot answer this at all adequately in a short time. I do
think the notion that "new nations" can be constructed by an act
of will, symbolised and expressed above all through a
constitution is a powerful idea which goes well beyond the USA.
Arguably it played an important role in the French revolution.
In the 1848-49 revolutions constitutions were often seen in this
way. That is particularly true of some of those debating in the
German National Assembly. But of course for many involved in
such debates, the constitution would only work if it took into
account the specific historical situation and was negotiated in
order to construct a necessary consensus.
It helps, of course, if one wins the particular war or
revolution which made it possible and indeed even imperative to
draw up such a constitution in the first place. After all, if
the South had not been defeated (and that, I think, would have
counted as victory), might the constitution have become the
basis for a "new nation"? There were many who seemed to think
this could happen at the time, including outsiders like
Gladstone.
And in modern Europe, Habermas famously argued for
"constitutional patriotism," in a way making the Basic Law of
1949 a founding document. But it seems to me that no historian
seriously argues that a shiny new constitution is sufficient.
And such a constitution itself becomes a repository of myths and
memories in just the same way some people argue ethnicity does.
Because the constitution has a variety of meanings: as a set of
rules shaping the form and conduct of rule, as a political act
which brings certain people together in a certain way, as a
commitment to a particular set of principles, and as an
historical myth of origin. Maybe the USA has put too much faith
in just one aspect of that, that is as a commitment to a set of
principles. But maybe others put too much faith in something
else, such as a notion of historic community or the capacity of
self-interest to generate solidarity.
But I don't think I have begun seriously to answer this
question.