Theories of Nationalism

Theories of Nationalism A Critical Introduction Second Edition Umut Özkirimli Ozkirimli Prelims 22/12/09 11:09 am Page i Theories of Nationalism Ozkirimli Prelims 22/12/09 11:09 am Page ii Also by Umut Özkırımlı Tormented by History: Nationalism in Greece and Turkey (with Spyros A. Sofos) Contemporary Debates on Nationalism: A Critical Engagement Nationalism and Its Futures (editor) Ozkirimli Prelims 22/12/09 11:09 am Page iii Theories of Nationalism A Critical Introduction Second Edition Umut Özkırımlı Ozkirimli Prelims 22/12/09 11:09 am Page iv © Umut Özkırımlı 2000, 2010 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2000 Second edition 2010 Published by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries ISBN 978–0–230–57732–9 hardback ISBN 978–0–230–57733–6 paperback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10987654321 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 Printed and bound in China Ozkirimli Prelims 22/12/09 11:09 am Page v Contents List of Boxes vii Preface to the Second Edition ix 1. Introduction 1 Why nationalism? 1 Objectives 5 Structure 6 2. Discourses and Debates on Nationalism 9 Historical overview 9 The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 10 1918–1945 31 1945–1989 39 From 1989 to the present 46 3. Primordialism 49 What is primordialism? 49 The nationalist thesis 51 Pierre van den Berghe and the sociobiological approach 53 Edward Shils, Clifford Geertz and the culturalist approach 55 Adrian Hastings and perennialism 58 A critique of primordialism 60 Primordialism today 67 4. Modernism 72 What is modernism? 72 Economic transformations 72 Tom Nairn and uneven development 73 Michael Hechter and internal colonialism 77 Political transformations 83 John Breuilly and nationalism as a form of politics 83 Paul R. Brass and instrumentalism 88 Eric J. Hobsbawm and the invention of tradition 94 Social/cultural transformations 97 Ernest Gellner and high cultures 98 Benedict Anderson and imagined communities 105 Miroslav Hroch and the three phases of nationalism 113 v Ozkirimli Prelims 22/12/09 11:09 am Page vi vi Contents A critique of modernism 120 Modernism today 137 5. Ethnosymbolism 143 What is ethnosymbolism? 143 John Armstrong and myth-symbol complexes 144 Anthony D. Smith and the ethnic origins of nations 148 A critique of ethnosymbolism 157 Ethnosymbolism today 165 6. New Approaches to Nationalism 169 Why ‘new’? 169 Michael Billig and banal nationalism 170 Nira Yuval-Davis and feminist approaches 175 Partha Chatterjee and post-colonial theory 182 Craig Calhoun and nationalism as discursive formation 187 Rogers Brubaker and ethnicity without groups 190 A critique of new approaches 194 7. Understanding Nationalism 199 A critique of the theoretical debate on nationalism 199 The outline of a theoretical approach to nationalism 205 Nationalism studies today 217 Bibliography 220 Index 240 Ozkirimli Prelims 22/12/09 11:09 am Page vii List of Boxes 2.1 Hans Kohn 36 2.2 Elie Kedourie 43 3.1 Edward Shils 50 3.2 Pierre van den Berghe 53 3.3 Clifford Geertz 56 3.4 Adrian Hastings 59 4.1 Tom Nairn 74 4.2 Michael Hechter 78 4.3 John Breuilly 85 4.4 Paul R. Brass 89 4.5 Eric J. Hobsbawm 95 4.6 Ernest Gellner 99 4.7 Benedict Anderson 107 4.8 Miroslav Hroch 115 5.1 John A. Armstrong 145 5.2 Anthony D. Smith 149 6.1 Michael Billig 172 6.2 Nira Yuval-Davis 178 6.3 Partha Chatterjee 184 6.4 Craig Calhoun 189 6.5 Rogers Brubaker 191 vii This page intentionally left blank Ozkirimli Prelims 22/12/09 11:09 am Page ix Preface to the Second Edition Almost a decade has passed since this book was first published. It was very easy to fill in the section on competing books in Palgrave Macmillan’s The Author’s Publicity Form back then as there were, despite the growing interest in nationalism, only a handful of general theoretical surveys of the field. This is no longer the case. Nationalism proved more resilient than expected as a subject of academic inquiry, certainly not a faddish obsession instigated by the tectonic changes that took place towards the end of the ‘short twentieth century’ (Hobsbawm 1994). As a result, the literature on nationalism has continued to grow exponentially. Whereas a basic keyword search on the popular online bookshop Amazon yielded 3,083 titles related to ‘nationalism’ in 1999 (Amazon 1999), today a similar search yields 86,360 titles (Amazon 2008). Obviously, part of this increase can be explained away by changing marketing strategies and improved technological capacities of internet firms, but this find- ing is corroborated by a similar keyword search in the Library of Congress Online Catalogue, which contains more than 10,000 titles related to nationalism (Library of Congress 2008) as opposed to 932 eight years ago (Library of Congress 2000). These may not be the most ‘scientific’ way to measure the growing interest in nationalism, but the trend is clearly there. Theories of Nationalism had to take this remarkable upsurge into account for at least three reasons. First, there are now several introductory texts, hand- books, readers, even encyclopedias engaging with various aspects of the theories covered in this book. Second, the theorists themselves have not stood still and continued to amend and improve their theories/approaches vis-à-vis criti- cisms levelled at their initial formulations over the years. Third, the relative weight/position of particular theories within the debate has changed. Hence it is more difficult to hold that modernism, the view that nations and nationalism are historically and sociologically novel, is still the ‘dominant orthodoxy’ in the field today as there are more and more theorists who subscribe to the view that nations, if not nationalism, are not novel, that there were indeed nations in medieval or ancient times. The book had to be substantially updated and revised to be able to reflect the current state of play in the field and to address a twenty-first century audience. Yet the expansion of the literature was not the only reason that called for a revision. Theories of Nationalism was derived from the PhD dissertation I submitted in 1999, and as such, reflected all the vices and limitations of its kind. I have become aware of some of these limitations as my work on nationalism has evolved over the years, in various theoretical exchanges and more importantly ix Ozkirimli Prelims 22/12/09 11:09 am Page x x Preface to the Second Edition through the study of actual historical cases. Others have been brought to my attention by colleagues who have been using the book as teaching material or pointed out in the reviews of the first edition. It may be useful to briefly refer to these limitations before summarizing the novel features of this edition. Perhaps the most common charge brought against the first edition related to the conspicuous absence of authorial voice (MacDonald 2001; Peled 2002). This was partly deliberate as I did not want to let my theoretical preferences interfere with my treatment of other theories – which was indeed the central criticism raised against the main competitor of Theories of Nationalism at the time, Anthony D. Smith’s Nationalism and Modernism (Marx, 2000; Frusetta, 2000). Nevertheless, I overdid it. I now realize that it was not a good idea to try to condense my own views on the debate and my suggestions for an alternative theoretical framework into a single chapter for the sake of fairness or a misguided ‘objectivity’. Making my voice ‘audible’ throughout the text would have also enabled me to devote more space to my theoretical framework, which remained too undeveloped in the first edition, a point raised by several review- ers (Hawkins 2001; Mason 2001; Flynn 2002). Another common criticism concerned the seemingly privileged treatment of ‘recent approaches’ to nationalism (Pozo 2002; Peled 2002; Mason 2001). Although this was never reflected on my treatment of other theories and approaches, as alluded to above, the critics were certainly right in pointing to the absence of a ‘Critique of Recent Approaches’ section in the book. Again, this was partly inevitable, as not many authors engaged with these approaches at the time, preferring to focus on classical theories instead.

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