Ethnomethodology: General speaking countries of Europe, conversely, the term overcoming the old split between intra- and extra- ethnology was initially adopted by VoW lkerkunde, while European fields of research in continental anthro- many university departments and programs pre- pology. viously called Volkskunde acquired new names— cultural studies, European ethnology, cultural anthro- See also: Anthropology; Boas, Franz (1858–1942); pology, among others. Their name change signified a Case Study: Methods and Analysis; Ethnography; shift towards the problem-oriented study of contem- Fieldwork in Social and Cultural Anthropology porary German, Swiss, or Austrian society informed by new developments in social theory as well as in international anthropology (Greverus 1978). In France, the ‘ethnologie contemporaine de la France’ Bibliography represents a new orientation of anthropological in- Boas F 1940 Race, Language and Culture. MacMillan, New quiry into French society with a strong ethnographic York flavor (see Cuisenier and Segalen 1986). In the post- Cuisenier J, Segalen M 1986 Ethnologie de la France. Presses socialist and postcommunist countries of Eastern Universitaires de France, Paris Europe, new orientations being established could Fabian J 1983 Time and the Other. How Anthropology Makes Its build on the fact that prior to 1989, the discipline of Object. Columbia University Press, New York Geertz C 1973 The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected Essays. ethnography had integrated scholars working within Basic Books, New York and outside of Europe. Abandoning the name eth- Gerholm T, Hannerz U 1982 Introduction: The shaping of nography that dates back to the 1929 rejection of national anthropologies. Ethnos 47(I-I): 5–35 purportedly ‘bourgeois’ ethnology by Moscow and Giordano G, Greverus I M (eds.) 1992 Anthropologizing Leningrad anthropologists, in the Czech Republic and Europe Continued. Anthropological Journal on European in Slovakia, at Polish and at Hungarian universities, to Cultures 1(2): 7–112 cite a few examples, ethnology, cultural anthropology, Giordano G, Greverus I M, Stummann F J (eds.) 1990 or combinations of both have been chosen as new Anthropologizing Europe. Anthropological Journal on Euro- designations for anthropological inquiries at home pean Cultures 1(1): 7–139 Graebner F 1911 Methode der Ethnologie. Carl Winter’s. and abroad. Also, in Southern Europe, regional Universita$ tsbuchhandlung, Heidelberg, Germany anthropologies are developing that combine research Greverus I M 1978 Kultur und Alltagswelt. Eine EinfuW hrung interests in their home countries and regions with the in Fragen der Kulturanthropologie. C H Beck, Munich, most advanced theoretical developments in inter- Germany national anthropology (for a European survey see Kaschuba W 1999 EinfuW hrung in die EuropaW ische Ethnologie. Giordano et al. 1990, Giordano and Greverus 1992). C H Beck, Munich, Germany These new directions on the European continent have Kuper A 1983 Anthropology and Anthropologists. The Modern British School. Routledge, London and New York been entering into a dialog with a Europeanist special- Š Š ization developing in American cultural anthropology Kuper A 1988 The In ention of Primiti e Society. Trans- formations of an Illusion. Routledge, London and New York and British social anthropology since the 1970s. Levi-Strauss C 1975 Anthropologie. DiogeZ ne 90: 3–30 As early as 1955, a Europe-wide conference of Marcus G E, Fischer M M J 1986 Anthropology as Cultural ethnologists and folklorists in Arnhem, Netherlands, Critique. An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. recommended to use the name ‘European ethnology’ University of Chicago Press, Chicago internationally for all disciplines concerned with the Moore F W (ed.) 1961 Readings in Cross-Cultural Methodology. anthropological study of European societies. This Human Relations Area Files Press, New Haven, CT suggestion was taken up by the founders of a European Radcliffe-Brown A R 1951 The comparative method in social association, the Socie! te! Internationale de Folklore et anthropology. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute d’Ethnologie, in 1964 and a Europe-wide journal 15–22 Schmidt W 1924 Werden und Wirken der VoW lkerkunde. Josef Ethnologia Europaea in 1967. Still, it is obvious that Habbel, Regensburg, Germany inconsistencies in disciplinary names will persist be- tween and within European societies. However, at the G. Welz turn of the new millennium in many continental European societies, ethnology not only continues to be widely used as a disciplinary designation, but has been adopted and even reinvented to suggest a new direction taken in the anthropological investigation of European cultures past and present (Kaschuba 1999). Ethnomethodology: General As social and cultural anthropology are redefining themselves as the analysis of cultural complexity in a Ethnomethodology is a mode of inquiry devoted to global framework, European ethnology promises to the study of the practical methods of common sense bring this new anthropological approach to the study reasoning used by members of society in the conduct of European societies and their cultures of late of everyday life. The significance of this seemingly modernity, and might ultimately prove capable of mundane subject matter resides in the fact that

4865 Ethnomethodology: General practical reasoning is what enables societal members voluntaristic theory of action as a basic frame of to make sense of the circumstances in which they find reference, but he was also deeply influenced by the themselves, find ways of acting in relation to those phenomenological writings of Alfred Schu$ tz and circumstances, and thereby contribute to the pro- the teachings of Aaron Gurwitsch. (Sometime later, duction and maintenance of an intelligible social the ordinary language philosophy of Ludwig Wittgen- world. Ethnomethodology, as the study of such stein would become another source of inspiration.) reasoning practices, is thus concerned with the very The phenomenological enterprise directed Garfinkel’s foundations of social order. attention to certain fundamental pretheoretical prob- It should be clear from this brief definition that lems posed by Parsons’ theory of action, problems ethnomethodology is not primarily a theory of social which were not adequately addressed within the life, nor is it a methodology for the study thereof. It is Parsonian framework. What would later come to be in the first instance a discipline of inquiry devoted to a known as ‘ethnomethodology’ is in large part the distinctive order of phenomena, one that is sometimes result of Garfinkel’s sustained effort to confront these understood to be orthogonal to the concerns of problems by empirical means (see Parsons, Talcott mainstream social science. However, these phenomena (1902–79); Phenomenology in Human Science). have important theoretical, methodological, and sub- Parsons had sought to develop a theory of social stantive ramifications, and in the course of elucidating action that would solve the Hobbesian problem of them ethnomethodology has had a major impact order while retaining purposive human agency within across a range of social science disciplines. Although it its framework. At the same time, he wished to avoid originated within sociology, ethnomethodology’s the limitations and pitfalls of strictly utilitarian think- sphere of influence extends to anthropology, cognitive ing, which cannot account for the ends toward which science, communication, linguistics, psychology, and action is oriented, and which treats intrinsic rationality the philosophy of the social sciences. as the sole standard governing the selection of means. Although a few studies appeared in the late 1950s Parsons’ solution centered around the role of moral and early 1960s, the nascent approach crystallized and values in social action—he proposed that, through attracted widespread attention in 1967 with the pub- socialization, such values become internalized and lication of Harold Garfinkel’s Studies in Ethno- incorporated into the actor’s personality, where they methodology. This was a time of great intellectual guide both the selection of ends of action and the ferment in the social sciences, and ethnomethodology normative means by which they are sought. Insofar as contributed in no small way to the revolutions that such values are also institutionalized within a society challenged prevailing theoretical perspectives and and are shared by societal members, patterned activity methodological approaches. In the domain of socio- and social cohesion will be the natural result. logical theory, ethnomethodology helped end the Parsons’ theory places primary emphasis on the dominance of the structural functionalist paradigm motivational wellsprings of action, and in so doing it associated with Talcott Parsons, and led to a major has relatively little to say about how concrete actions reconceptualization of the theory of action and its are managed and coordinated in real time. Thus, as relationship to social structure. It was also an impor- Heritage (1987, p. 228) has observed, it is less a theory tant impetus behind the broad-based social con- of action per se than a theory of the dispositions that structionist movement that revolutionized theorizing give rise to action. Correspondingly, Parsons’ theory about subjects ranging from deviance to gender. In fails to give serious consideration to the knowledge methodology, ethnomethodological studies challen- and forms of reasoning that actors themselves bring to ged the scientistic pretensions of positivistic research bear in the course of producing and recognizing actual methods, and fostered greater sensitivity and self- conduct. This insensitivity to actors’ endogenous per- reflection among methodologists of various stripes. spectives is exacerbated by Parsons’ decision to define Finally, ethnomethodology inspired numerous re- rational action in terms of an exogenous standard search initiatives that revitalized a wide range of social based on consistency with the application of science subfields, including the study of language and scientific\logico-empirical methods. Any deviation social interaction, the inner workings of bureaucratic from this standard is regarded as the embodiment of and people-processing institutions, and the construc- ignorance and error, in which case actors’ own tion of formal scientific knowledge. explanations of their actions may be dismissed in favor of a ‘scientific’ explanation cast in the language of norms and values. 1. Intellectual Origins Garfinkel recognized that Parsons’ motivational solution to the Hobbesian problem of order implicates The origins of ethnomethodology can be traced back an analytically prior cognitiŠe problem of order, one to seminal research conducted in the late 1940s by that cannot be resolved without due consideration to Harold Garfinkel in the course of his graduate work in the common sense knowledge and practical reasoning sociology at Harvard University. Garfinkel was a employed by actors themselves. How do actors analyze student of Talcott Parsons and he took Parsons’ their circumstances, determine which features are

4866 Ethnomethodology: General relevant for present purposes, and grasp what those were recurrent. Subjects would either (a) ‘normalize’ features ‘mean?’ How do they know what forms of the anomalous event by reinterpreting it as consistent behavior will be recognized as normatively appro- with the prior definition of the situation, (b) ‘demonize’ priate under those circumstances? How in other words the event by treating it as a motivated and morally is the fundamental intelligibility of action and cir- suspect departure from normality, or (c) reconstitute cumstance accomplished? It is questions like these that the environing situation so as to make it congruent Garfinkel sought to answer. with what is ostensibly taking place. These outcomes demonstrate forcefully that inter- 2. Garfinkel’s Classic Studies actants make sense of a given action by considering not only the intrinsic properties of the action itself, but Although Garfinkel’s central analytic questions were also its relationship to the broader social environment inspired by phenomenology, his way of addressing in which it is embedded. The meaning and import of them was distinctively his own. He eschewed highly any particular action is thus thoroughly context- interpretive methods involving introspection or free- dependent. This would be a trivial matter if contexts wheeling Šerstehen in favor of a rigorously empirical were autonomous and stable—‘the’ context of an approach based on close observation of social action could then serve as an archimedian vantage behavior. Since the methods of reasoning of interest point from which to disambiguate that action. Con- are those embodied in social activities, they are texts, however, do not have such transcendent prop- publicly available to both lay members of society and erties—the relevant context at any given moment is professional analysts and are, at least in principle, derived primarily from the actions through which it is eminently observable. composed, and even a single incongruous action can Analyzing such methods of reasoning-in-action, dramatically alter the context that is understood to be however, is intrinsically difficult because they are so in play. Practical reasoning is thus a dynamic and deeply taken for granted. As an omnipresent resource reflexive process whereby the sense of particular for the management of social life, practical reasoning actions and environing social situations are ongoingly is not ordinarily an object of conscious reflection in its adjusted and reconciled with one another. By im- own right. Its very familiarity renders it elusive and plication, the experiential reality and temporal per- resistant to analysis. sistence of any social situation—whether a game Garfinkel’s ingenious solution to this problem of tic-tac-toe, a course of counseling advice, or a entailed seeking out extraordinary situations in which person’ssexualstatus—restsuponafoundationofsuch the sense-making process is foregrounded, exagger- reasoning practices. ated, and hence rendered conspicuous. For the most part, these situations were engineered by Garfinkel 3. Theoretical Implications and his associates through a series of experiments and quasi-experimental demonstrations. The situations Garfinkel’s findings amount to a major recon- often involved social actors encountering anomalous ceptualization of the fundamental locus of social events—typically, particular social actions—that are order. Most social science theories view social life as incongruous with a pre-existing or default ‘definition organized by structural entities (e.g., social insti- of the situation.’ In one such experiment, subjects were tutions, cultural symbol systems, structures of race, engaged in a game of tic-tac-toe by experimenters who class, and gender, etc.) that stand outside of the flow of would erase and reposition the subjects’ mark before events in everyday life and exert a more or less placing their own mark on the grid. In another determining influence on the course of those events. experiment, subjects were told to ask yes\no questions Such theories embody what might be thought of as a of a counselor but, unbeknownst to them, the top-down conception of social order. Garfinkel, in ‘answers’ were given according to a random schedule. contrast, offers a thoroughly bottom-up conception, Elsewhere the focus shifted to incongruities that arise and this theoretical inversion is a natural consequence naturalistically rather than experimentally, and to the of his decision to treat social order as a cognitive practices of social actors rather than observers—an rather than a Hobbesian problem—not a problem of example is the study of ‘Agnes,’ a person whose how conflict is avoided and solidarity maintained, but masculine genitalia and biography were at odds with a problem of how the social world, whatever its her claim to female status. Across these examples, character, becomes intelligible and accountable to its incongruity and its management served to throw members. From this vantage point, every orderly processes of practical reasoning into sharp relief. feature of social life is an ongoing contingent ac- The results revealed that interactants would strive complishment, the result of members’ concerted effort to render the situation as coherent and intelligible, to make those features recognizable to one another invoking a wide range of background assumptions, and the basis for subsequent action. contextual knowledge, and other elements of common This theoretical inversion has further implications sense—often in the form of natural language for the theory of action, and in particular for the role accounts—to this end. Three patterns of response of social norms (as well as rules, conventions, etc.) in

4867 Ethnomethodology: General the conduct of action (Heritage 1984, 1987, Wilson conduct. Rules and allied phenomena fail to capture 1971). In the traditional Parsonian view, norms the elaborate judgmental work necessary to implement regulate action by specifying what courses of action the rules in concrete circumstances, and more generally are appropriate under given circumstances. This view to perform competently the tasks intrinsic to each presupposes that situations, norms, and actions are setting. These previously unexamined professional independent entities, with each situation standing competencies and discretionary judgements became outside of the actions contained within it, and pre- the focus of close scrutiny and sustained analysis, defined norms constraining those actions to unfold shedding new light on the complex inner workings of along situationally appropriate lines. However, people-processing institutions. Garfinkel’s findings about the nature of practical The findings have important implications for our reasoning suggest that this viewpoint is fundamentally understanding of organizational decision-making and misguided. Far from being independent entities, situa- its products. The institutions under examination tions, actions, and norms stand in a co-constitutive or routinely generate official designations of persons reflexive relationship to one another. Correspond- (e.g., ‘criminal,’ ‘juvenile delinquent,’ ‘qualified wel- ingly, actors are knowledgeable agents at the very fare recipient,’ etc.) and their actions (e.g., ‘burglary,’ center of this process, with the capacity to alter or ‘assault,’ etc.). Such designations do not result from transform the ‘definition of the situation’ through workers mechanically applying clearly defined criteria their actions, and to decide upon the sense and to each case, but involve various ad hoc considerations applicability of the norms deemed relevant to that guided by common sense knowledge of what outcome situation. Thus, the experiential reality of social would be normal and reasonable under the circum- norms, like every other organized feature of social life, stances. Insofar as the resulting designations form the rests upon a foundation of practical reasoning where- basis for calculations of official statistics (on rates of by action is produced and rendered intelligible in crime, mortality, poverty, etc.), these studies also cast normative terms. This does not mean that norms are doubt on the validity of official statistics and their inconsequential for social organization, but their value for social scientific research (see Bureaucracy, primary significance is constitutive rather than Sociology of ). regulative—norms play a crucial role as a resource for imputing meaning and motivation to situated behavior (see Action, Theories of Social; Norms). 4.2 Science and Technology Ethnomethodologists have also ventured into the 4. Contemporary Research InitiatiŠes laboratory to explore the highly technical compe- tencies that underlie the creation of scientific and Following Garfinkel’s classic studies, ethnomethodo- mathematical knowledge, and the production and use logical research developed in a number of fruitful of technological artifacts. This line of research is most directions. While some researchers continued to eluci- closely associated with the later work of Garfinkel date the generic properties of practical reasoning (e.g., himself and his immediate associates (e.g., Livingston Pollner 1987), most shifted toward examining such 1986, Lynch 1993). It is reminiscent of Edmund reasoning as it is applied in various specialized Husserl’s later writings on the European sciences in domains of social life. At the same time, the pre- that a primary objective is to elucidate the unexplicat- dominant research methods employed by ethnometh- ed foundations of scientific knowledge. However, odologists underwent a corresponding shift away from where Husserl’s enterprise was essentially philosophi- quasi-experimental designs and toward more natu- cal in character and retained a phenomenological ralistic methods involving the direct observation of concern with transcendental consciousness, the ethno- ordinary conduct. The resulting corpus of studies methodological approach proceeds empirically by resists easy summary, but three prominent lines of examining publicly available details of situated ‘work- work will be distinguished. bench’ practices. Much research in this vein is concerned with the genesis and reproduction of technical discoveries ranging from physical objects to mathematical 4.1 People-processing Institutions theorems. Such discoveries are arrived at, accountably Ethnomethodologists first explored various organiza- validated, and made intersubjectively available tional environments involved in people processing: through complex courses of practical reasoning and schools, public welfare offices, police departments, embodied activity that receive scant attention in and so on (e.g., Cicourel 1968, Sudnow 1965, Wieder scientific texts. This may seem surprising, given that 1974). These studies repeatedly documented the in- scientists are supposed to document their own meth- adequacy of codified rules, formal procedures, and ods so as to permit replication, but scientists’ meth- informal norms as explanations of organizational odological descriptions—like all abstracted accounts

4868 Ethnomethodology: General of situated action—are necessarily incomplete. Ethno- organization of turn taking, action sequences, lexical methodologists thus seek to recover the mundane choice, the relationship between talk and nonvocal praxiological foundations of discovering work, and in activities, and the collaborative management of vari- so doing they re-specify discovered objects as locally ous interactional activities (e.g., giving advice, deliver- produced and naturally accountable achievements. ing good and bad news, telling troubles, etc.). More Furthermore, the very concept of discovery is trans- recently, researchers have applied the analytic re- formed by this research. If physical and mathematical sources of CA to various phenomena that intersect objects are unavoidably intertwined with situated with, and can be informed by, the study of talk-in- practices, then the discovery of any such object is at interaction. These include how talk is organized in the same time the discovery of a substrate of practices various institutional settings, and how it serves as a through which that object may be accountably pro- medium for the accomplishment of occupational tasks duced and reproduced within concrete situations. such as medical examinations, classroom lessons, Ethnomethodological studies of science and tech- journalistic interviews, trial examinations, and so on nology hold the promise of yielding findings that (e.g., Boden and Zimemrman 1991, Drew and Heri- represent recognized contributions to the various tage 1992). Researchers have also begun to explore technical disciplines being studied. Indeed, the prac- how the study of talk-in-interaction can illuminate tical value of ethnomethodology is increasingly recog- linguistic phenomena such as grammar (Ochs et al. nized in computer science, software engineering, and 1996), as well as medical disorders such as aphasia that human–computer interaction (Suchman 1987, Button manifest themselves at the level of speech (Goodwin 1993) (see Technology, Anthropology of; Truth and 1995, Heeschen and Schegloff 1999). Credibility: Science and the Social Study of Science).

See also: Conversation Analysis: Sociological; Par- sons, Talcott (1902–79); Science and Technology Stu- 4.3 Talk and Social Interaction dies: Ethnomethodology Perhaps the most widespread contemporary variant of ethnomethodology is what has come to be known as conŠersation analysis. This burgeoning field was de- Bibliography veloped by Harvey Sacks, originally Garfinkel’s stu- dent and colleague, in collaboration with Emanuel Atkinson J M, Heritage J (eds.) 1984 Structures of Social Action: Schegloff and Gail Jefferson (e.g., Sacks 1992, Studies in ConŠersation Analysis. Cambridge University Press, Atkinson and Heritage 1984). Cambridge, UK Boden D, Zimmerman D H (eds.) 1991 Talk and Social Structure. Conversation analysis (henceforth CA) involves the Polity Press, Cambridge, UK study of practical reasoning as it is put to use in the Button G (ed.) 1993 Technology in Working Order: Studies of conduct of spoken interaction. The domain of Work, Interaction and Technology. Routledge, London interaction—what Erving Goffman referred to as the Cicourel A V 1968 The Social Organization of JuŠenile Justice. interaction order—is more general than any of the Wiley, New York specialized institutional domains investigated by Drew P, Heritage J (eds.) 1992 Talk at Work. Cambridge ethnomethodologists, for interaction lies at the heart University Press, Cambridge, UK of virtually all of these institutions and extends as well Garfinkel H 1967 Studies in Ethnomethodology. Prentice-Hall, to informal encounters between persons. Moreover, in Englewood Cliffs, NJ the history of the human species, interaction developed Goodwin C 1995 Co-constructing meaning in conversations with an aphasiac man. Research on Language and Social long before other societal institutions came into being, Interaction 28: 233–60 and is in this respect ‘the primordial site of sociality’ Heeschen C, Schegloff E A 1999 Agrammatism, adaptation (Schegloff 1988). theory, and conversation analysis: on the role of the so-called CA differs from other lines of ethnomethodological telegraphic style in talk-in-interaction. Aphasiology 13: research not only in substance but in methodology. 365–405 Conversation analysts rely exclusively on audio- and Heritage J 1984 Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Polity Press, video-recordings of interactional data, and transcripts Cambridge, UK that capture the details of interaction as it actually Heritage J 1987 Ethnomethodology. In: Giddens A, Turner J occurs. Such data have numerous advantages—they (eds.) Social Theory Today. Polity Press, Cambridge, UK, can be examined repeatedly, analyzed at an unpre- pp. 224–72 Livingston E 1986 Ethnomethodological Foundations of Math- cedented level of detail, and reproduced in published ematics. Routledge, London works so that readers can independently assess the Lynch M 1993 Scientific Practice and Ordinary Action: Ethno- validity of analytic claims. methodology and Social Studies of Science. Cambridge Uni- The resulting research enterprise has generated an versity Press, Cambridge, UK impressive array of interlocking and cumulative find- Ochs E, Schegloff E A, Thompson S A 1996 Interaction and ings on a wide range of subjects. These include the Grammar. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

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Pollner M 1987 Mundane Reason: Reality in EŠeryday and immigration in numerical terms—generally refuses its Sociological Discourse. Cambridge University Press, Cam- immigrants German citizenship unless they are already bridge, UK Š ethnic Germans (Brubaker 1992). Other countries Sacks H 1992 Lectures on Con ersation. Blackwell, Oxford, UK vary on the same dimension, but it is important to Schegloff E A 1988 Goffman and the analysis of conversation. In: recognize that the difference is one of proportion and Drew P, Wootton A (eds.) ErŠing Goffman: Exploring the Interaction Order. Polity Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 89–135 ideological emphasis (Calhoun 1997, Sassen 1999). As Suchman L A 1987 Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Smith (1986, p. 149) has remarked, ‘all nations bear the Human Machine Communication. Cambridge University impress of both territorial and ethnic principles and Press, Cambridge, UK components, and represent an uneasy confluence of a Sudnow D 1965 Normal crimes. Social Problems 12: 255–76 more recent ‘‘civic’’ and a more ancient ‘‘genealogical’’ Wieder D L 1974 Language and Social Reality. Mouton, The model of social cultural organization.’ Not all scholars Hague accept the distinction or hold it to be sharp; those who Wilson T P 1971 Normative and interpretive paradigms in do use it often attribute ethnonationalism to countries Š sociology. In: Douglas J (ed.) Understanding E eryday Life. that are ‘late modernizers’ (Bendix 1964, Nairn 1998, Routledge, London, pp. 57–79 Schwarzmantel 1991). Two enduring debates have shaped social science S. E. Clayman scholarship on ethnonationalism. First, is ethno- nationalism an ancient (or historically nonspecific) phenomenon, possibly rooted in ‘primordial’ social relations, or is it distinctively modern? Relatedly, is it vanishing, enduring, or recurrent? Second, is ethnicity basic to nationalism in general, perhaps even an Ethnonationalism: Cultural Concerns explanation for nationalism, and is ethnonationalism thus its ‘normal’ form? Much nationalist ideology has Claims to national identity based on race, kinship, claimed definitive ethnic roots; social scientists are language, or common culture are described as ‘ethno- more divided on the question. Beyond these broad nationalist.’ Such ethnonationalist claims have been questions of orientation, research focuses on a variety widespread throughout the modern era. They some- of issues from the cultural content of ethnonationalism times extend beyond the construction of identity to the to explanations of its occurrence, forms of public reproduction of enmity, demands that members place performance, dynamics of leadership and mobiliz- the nation ahead of other loyalties, and attempts to ation, and reasons for violence. purge territories of those defined as foreign. As a result, ethnonationalism is often associated with ethnic violence and projects of ethnic cleansing or genocide. However, ethnic solidarity is also seen by many as 1. Modernity Šs. Primordiality basic to national identity as such, and thus to the notion of the nation-state. While this notion is as A long-running debate in the literature on nationalism much contested as defended, it remains influential. pits arguments that it is an extension of ancient In such usage, ethnonationalism is commonly op- ethnicity (Smith 1986, Armstrong 1982, Hutcheson posed to civic nationalism. The latter is understood as 1994) against those who argue that it is essentially the loyalty of individual citizens to a state based purely modern (Gellner 1983, Hobsbawm 1990, Greenfeld on political identity. Habermas (1998) has theorized 1992). Majority scholarly opinion tends toward the this as constitutional patriotism, stressing the extent to latter view, though explanations differ. ‘Modernists’ which political loyalty is to a set of institutional variously see nationalism rooted in industrialization arrangements rather than a prepolitical culture or (Gellner 1983), state-formation (Tilly 1990, Mann other extrapolitical solidarity. Ethnonationalism, in 1993), the rise of new communications media and such usage, refers precisely to rooting political identity genres of collective imagination (Deutsch 1966, and obligation in the existence of a prepolitical Anderson 1991), and the development of new rhet- collective unit—the nation—which achieves political orics for collective identity and capacities for collective subjectivity by virtue of the state. The legitimacy of the action (Calhoun 1997). While many favor specific state, in turn, is judged by reference to the interests of factors as primary explanations, most recognize that the nation. several causes are interrelated. The contrast of ethnic to civic nationalism is heavily Many nationalists but few scholars see nationalism influenced by that of Germany to France (Kohn 1967, as ubiquitous in history and simply the ‘normal’ way Alter 1989). The contrast has been enduring, of organizing large-scale collective identity. Most and has resulted in different understandings of citi- social scientists point rather to the variety of political zenship. France has been much more willing, for and cultural forms common before the modern era— example, to use legal mechanisms to grant immigrants empires and great religions, for example—and the French citizenship, while Germany—equally open to transformations wrought by the rise of a new kind of

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