CHALLENGING THE CIVIC NATION by Stephen John Larin A thesis submitted to the Department of Political Studies in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada November, 2012 Copyright © Stephen John Larin, 2012 Abstract This thesis is a critical examination of civic nationalism that focuses on the disconnect between nationalist ideology and the social bases of nationhood, and the implications that this disconnect has for the feasibility of civic nationalism as a policy prescription for issues such as intra-state nationalist conflict and immigrant integration. While problems with the principles of civic nationalist ideology are important, my focus here is the more significant problem that civic nationalism is based on a general theory of nations and nationalism that treats them as solely ideological phenomena. Against this I argue that the term ‘nationalism’ refers to several different phenomena, most importantly a ‘system of culture’ or way of organizing society as described by Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson, and that augmenting Gellner and Anderson’s theories with the kind of relational social theory used by authors such as Rogers Brubaker and Charles Tilly provides an alternative explanation that is a better match for the evidence. If this is the case, I contend, then civic nationalism is both a misrepresentation of the history of nations and nationalism and infeasible as a prescription for policy issues such as intra-state nationalist conflict and immigrant integration. These arguments are supported with empirical evidence that is principally drawn from four cases: France, the United States, Northern Ireland, and Canada. i Acknowledgements I first want to thank my supervisors, Margaret Moore and John McGarry. Both are exceptional scholars who taught me a great deal about both politics and our profession, and provided many opportunities that I otherwise would not have had. I am very grateful for their sincere commitment to my success and wide-ranging support over the course of my degree. I also benefitted from an excellent examination committee: André Lecours (external), Will Kymlicka (internal-external), and Zsuzsa Csergo and Oded Haklai from our department. Their thoughtful questions, comments, and advice are appreciated, and I am thankful for their serious engagement with my work. Another mentor who I would like to recognize is Walker Connor. I was fortunate to have an office next door to Professor Connor while he was the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Ethnicity and Multicultural Citizenship at Queen’s, and benefitted from our regular morning chats and occasional discussions at the pub. These conversations and Professor Connor’s work have shaped and strengthened my belief in the importance of careful conceptual analysis to the empirical study of nationalism, and he has continued to encourage my work and provide important opportunities over the years. The Ethnicity and Democratic Governance project, an international Major Collaborative Research Initiative funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, also played a pivotal role in my doctoral experience and training. I would like to thank the Director, Bruce Berman, for hiring me to co-ordinate and co-author the grant application, and continuing my deep involvement in the project until its completion six years later. I am also grateful to the members of the Executive Committee for demonstrating how highly successful ii scholars generate and continue that success, and I particularly appreciate the advice and support of Avigail Eisenberg, Alain-G. Gagnon, Will Kymlicka, Susan Marlin, and Richard Simeon. A special debt of gratitude is owed to the project’s indispensible administrative staff, Jennifer Clark and Anne Linscott, who were always there for me when I needed them. Many members of Department of Political Studies contributed to the completion of my degree by sharing their expertise, friendship, or both. Professors Grant Amyot, Zsuzsa Csergo, Oded Haklai, and Kim Nossal were each helpful in different ways. Fellow graduate students that I would like to thank for support of various kinds over the years include Aaron Ettinger, Janique Dubois, Christopher Janzen, Rachael Johnstone, Pascal Krüger, Dru Lauzon, Rémi Léger, Charles Martin, Matthew Mitchell, Stephen Noakes, Charan Rainford, Iain Reeve, Philippe Roseberry, Victoria Tait, and Brandon Tozzo. Among the many former students who have become friends, Gemma Boag and Maria Pontikis were particularly helpful and encouraging. Last, but not least, the department’s administrative staff, especially Barb Murphy and Frances Shepherd, have been invaluable. I would also like to acknowledge the members of the Cloverdale Judo Club, with whom I spent my Tuesday and Thursday evenings for the past several years. Their easy friendliness and sincerity provided me with a sense of community and regular escape that significantly improved my life in Kingston. I am particularly grateful for the friendship and support of Chris Brooks, Peter Leonard, Charles Maingon, and Jay Timpson. I learned a lot from these men, and miss our time together on the mats. Several people who do not fit in the previous categories also deserve recognition. Karlo Basta, who recently completed his own PhD at the University of Toronto and is now Assistant Professor at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, is a good friend and colleague who iii provided crucial support in the final months of this project. Russell Lim, Hani Mourra, Matthew Pearl, and Scott Webber are life-long friends who were always just a phone call away and unfailing in their encouragement. My greatest debt is to my family, to whom this thesis is dedicated. Two people, my grandmother Grace Sharp and step-father Travis Lillard, are no longer with us, and I regret that they are not able to share this accomplishment with me, which I know would make them proud. I am also grateful for the support of my grandmother Mary Larin and step-mother Linda Cameron. My mother Heather Lillard, father Martin Larin, and brother Philip Larin, however, deserve the most credit. They know what this means to me better than anyone else, and I could have not done it without them. iv Table of Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements ii Table of Contents v Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Civic nationalism 33 Chapter 3 Problems in principle 64 Chapter 4 Nationalism beyond ideology 100 Chapter 5 A relational approach to nations and nationalism 148 Chapter 6 Intra-state nationalist conflict 213 Chapter 7 Immigrant integration 266 Chapter 8 Conclusion 298 Bibliography 307 v Chapter 1 Introduction A distinction between ‘civic’ and ‘ethnic’ types of nations and nationalism is one of the basic tenets of contemporary nationalism studies, and a popular frame for these subjects outside of academia. In countless journal articles, newspaper editorials, and in partisan rhetoric, a civic variety of nationalism, based on the voluntary association of politically like-minded individuals, is contrasted with an ethnic kind, based on common ancestry and related ascriptive characteristics. The specific terms ‘civic’ and ‘ethnic’ were first used consistently in this context by Anthony Smith in the 1980s, but he was building on a long tradition that can be traced back through Hans Kohn’s ‘political’ (Western) and ‘cultural’ (non-Western) nations and nationalism, Friedrich Meinecke’s Staatsnation (state nation) and Kulturnation (cultural nation), and nineteenth-century political debates over the proper borders of France and Germany among figures such as Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges and Theodor Mommsen.1 In short, some version of this distinction has existed for at least two hundred years. Its use was mostly limited to academics studying nationalism (a relatively small group prior to the 1990s) until Michael Ignatieff’s book Blood and Belonging, the companion to a highly successful BBC documentary series that he both developed and participated in, became an international best-seller and won several awards at the height of public interest in nationalism following the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. “What’s wrong with the world is not nationalism itself,” Ignatieff wrote, but “the kind of nation, the kind of home that nationalists 1 Anthony D. Smith, Theories of Nationalism, Second ed. (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1983); Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in Its Origins and Background (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2005); Friedrich Meinecke, Cosmopolitanism and the National State, trans. Robert B. Kimber (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970); Michael Heffernan, "History, Geography and French National Space: The Question of Alsace-Lorraine, 1914-18," Space & Polity 5, no. 1 (2001). 1 want to create and the means that they use to seek their ends.” There is a “struggle going on between those who still believe that a nation should be a home to all, and race, color, religion, and creed should be no bar to belonging, and those who want their nation to be home to only their own. It’s the battle between the civic and the ethnic nation.”2 Newspapers and other media picked up on this, and Ignatieff’s simplified version of Smith’s distinction became a focal point for both academic and public debates. Over the past two decades, numerous books and articles have employed some version of the distinction, and its influence outside of academic circles continues to grow. Many authors use it as a frame for case studies or