Internal Colonialism

The Celtic Fringe in British National Development

Michael Hechter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351511926
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Recent years have seen a resurgence of separatist sentiments among national minorities in many industrial societies, including the United Kingdom. In 1997, the Scottish and Welsh both set up their own parliamentary bodies, while the tragic events in Northern Ireland continued to be a reminder of the Irish problem. These phenomena call into question widely accepted social theories which assume that ethnic attachments in a society will wane as industrialization proceeds. This book presents the social basis of ethnic identity, and examines changes in the strength of ethnic solidarity in the United Kingdom during the 19th and 20th centuries. As well as being a case study, the work also has implications, as it suggests that the internal colonialism of the kind experienced in the British Isles has its analogues in the histories of other industrial societies. Hechter examines the unexpected persistence of ethnicity in the politics of industrial societies by focusing on the British Isles. Why do many of the inhabitants of Wales, Scotland and Ireland continue to maintain an ethnic identity opposed to England? Hechter explains the salience of ethnic identity by analyzing the relationships between England, the national core, and its periphery, the Celtic fringe, in the context of two alternative models of core-periphery relations in the industrial setting. The "diffusion" model suggests that intergroup contact leads to ethnic homogenization, and the "internal colonial" model, suggests such contact heightens distinctive ethnic identification. His findings lend support to the internal colonial model, and show that, although industrialization did contribute to a decline in interregional linguistic differences, it resulted neither in the cultural assimilation of Celtic lands, nor the development of regional economic equality. The study concludes that ethnic solidarity will inevitably emerge among groups which are relegated to inferior positions in a cultural division of labour.

Part I
The Problem

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

The city was a confederation of groups that had been established before it. . . . We should not lose sight of the excessive difficulty which, in primitive times, opposed the foundation of regular societies. The social tie was not easy to establish between those human beings who were so diverse, so free, so inconstant. To bring them under the rules of a community, to institute commandments and insure obedience, to cause passion to give way to reason, and individual right to public right, there certainly was something necessary, stronger than material force, more respectable than interest, surer than a philosophical theory, more changeable than a convention; something that should dwell equally in all hearts, and should be all-powerful there. This power was a belief.

NUMA DENIS FUSTEL DE COULANGES

HOW do societies pass beyond tribalism? How do they encompass new, culturally divergent groups and yet, in the course of history, emerge to be nations?

Nationalism is often held to be a great, even predominant, social force in the modern world. While in earlier historical eras individuals thought of themselves as members of solidary groups like families, clans, or communities, nowadays almost everyone has a nationality. And nationality clearly has special significance among all of an individual's statuses. For it is in the name of this status alone that individuals are permitted, and at times encouraged, to take the lives of other persons: for example, those having a different nationality. The state of war is considered tolerable only when hostilities occur between social units called nations. Civil wars, or conflicts defined, by at least some participants, as taking place between members of the same nation, are tragic occasions which are quickly put out of mind, and rarely glorified.

In most other types of conflict, the hostile use of the means of violence by ordinary citizens, such as those who are regularly inducted into the military, is strongly sanctioned. In no society are workers encouraged to kill their bosses, or wives their husbands. In no society are the adherents of one religion regarded as justified in committing violence against individuals of another faith. These are all egregious affronts to any social order. When these acts occur with regularity, the social order is seen to be threatened. In this Hobbesian world, society, as such, ceases to exist. The concept of nationality is used to delineate societies, as separate entities, from one another. For the nation, in essence, is a socially constructed boundary which serves to designate societal membership to some groups and not to others. In the modern era, nationality is the concept which best expresses that sense of relatedness which holds between individuals in society.

But what exactly constitutes this sentiment of nationality? The classical sociological answer to this query was framed by Emile Durkheim. Durkheim posited that there is, at the basis of every social order, a set of commonly held values and orientations to social action, or norms, which together make up the conscience collective. It is through the action of the conscience collective that separate individuals become, in effect, socialized, or made fit for collective life. The conscience collective is a primitive in what is loosely termed the culture of any group.

This conception of the social order lies at the heart of much sociological theory and research. But to hold that there is a conscience collective at the foundation of every society is necessarily to raise questions for the study of social change.¹ If processes of development are to be understood, the conscience collective cannot usefully be conceived to be a static attribute of social groups. It, too, must be a variable; it must have its own dynamics which correspond, in some way, to changes in the social structure. This must be true, since the size and scope of solidary social units has changed greatly in the course of history. To draw the point most forcefully, there are primitive societies not much larger than several extended families. Yet, at the other end of the development continuum, several advanced industrial societies effectively span entire continents.

Most modern states were initially composed of two or more distinct cultural groups. In the course of their development, effective bureaucratic administrations arose in certain regions of the territories later to become the modern States of Western Europe. It was in these core regions—Castile in Spain; Île-de-France in France; first Wessex, then London and the Home Counties in England—that strong central governments were first established. Each of these small areas had, to varying degrees, distinct cultural practices from those of outlying, peripheral, regions.¹ These included differences in language, kinship structures, inheritance systems, modes of agricultural production, patterns of settlement, legal systems or the lack thereof, religious beliefs, and, most generally, styles of life. As the core regions of the developing states advanced economically and technologically, their political influence and control extended outwards to the eventual boundaries of our modern states. National development is a process which may be said to occur when the separate cultural identities of regions begin to lose social significance, and become blurred. In this process, the several local and regional cultures are gradually replaced by the establishment of one national culture which cuts across the previous distinctions. The core and peripheral cultures must ultimately merge into one all-encompassing cultural system to which all members of the society have primary identification and loyalty.

It is clear that the assimilation of peripheral cultures has occurred more thoroughly in some societies than in others. The persistence of separatist political movements among groups within such societies as Canada, Belgium and the United Kingdom suggests that the successful incorporation of peripheral groups occurs only under certain conditions. The specification of these conditions is of ultimate concern in this study. Due to the meager body of empirical research in this area, it is even difficult to precisely state the types of conditions —or to use another language, variables—which facilitate national development. Despite this, however, much has been written of a theoretical and speculative nature about national development, and this literature can serve as a starting point for further investigation.

In this book, varying theoretical discussions have been condensed and simplified into two alternative models of national development. I am well aware that this kind of model-building is frowned upon in historical circles. Traditional historiography demands that the facts should tumble forth, free from the artificial constraints imposed by models. Yet, the writing of history itself requires the use of some kind of intellectual framework, whether implicit or explicit. The historian's decisions about topics, units of analysis, and theories of social action constitute frameworks for the selection and organization of data. Whatever framework is chosen should be appropriate to the problem at hand.

This study seeks to explain the social origins of ethnic solidarity and change, on the basis of aggregated data. These data do not lend themselves to analyses bearing much resemblance to those of the traditional historian. They cannot be used to account for the actions of specific individuals, or even specific elites. They cannot aid our understanding of why particular events occurred when they did. Hence, this study may not pay sufficient attention to microscopic detail for some readers. Rather, it is primarily concerned to account for shifting relationships between large aggregates of people. For this purpose, it makes a good deal of sense to employ explicit models rather than implicit ones. This forces the investigator to express clearly his concepts and explanatory mechanisms. It also helps him extract sets of logically consistent expectations from theoretical discussions which are, too often, vague and logically inconsistent. Given adequate data, these models may then be put to an empirical test.

It is sometimes objected that such models are so crude that only a schoolboy could possibly subscribe to them. The models in this book in no way encompass the complexity of social life. They do not explain everything, nor do they attempt to do so. However, as will become apparent, they do explain some things, to some degree. The great advantage in using models is that they may be falsified, whereas descriptions can only be amended. The models employed here are painfully preliminary. Good models exist that they might later be superseded: in this way, knowledge is cumulated. There is no doubt that these particular models may not appeal to many an historian, but given the purpose of this inquiry, and the quality of available data, I feel they are the best that can be constructed at this point.

What, then, do they look like? The first model is widely held among scholars of political development and modernization. I will refer to it as a diffusion model of national development. This model has components derived from the work of the nineteenth-century social theorists, from contemporary structural-functionalists, and from political scientists deeply concerned with communications theory.

The diffusion model is to a certain extent evolutionary. In it there are seen to be three important temporal stages occurring in the process of national development. The first stage is pre-industrial. In this period, the core and peripheral regions exist in virtual isolation from one another. Events in the core have but slight influence in the periphery, and the corollary situation holds as well. A very small proportion of the acts occurring between individuals in each region involves actors from the other region. Not only are the core and the periphery mutually isolated; there are many significant differences in their economic, cultural, and political institutions.

In so far as economic systems are concerned, regional differences may exist with regard to the type of production, for example, arable versus pastoral economies; the extent of markets and nucleated settlements; the standard of living; and the type of stratification characteristic of the respective territories. Cultural differences may occur on the dimensions of language, religion, values towards work and leisure, and life-style. In consequence of these variations, socialization practices will differ in core and periphery. Last, political structures may vary from relatively centralized forms of rule, to looser types of political organization and authority.

The second stage in national development occurs after the initiation of more intensive contact between the core and peripheral regions. Often this is assumed to occur at the onset of industrialization. The kernel of the diffusion perspective concerns the consequences of industrialization and the concomitant increase in core-periphery interaction. As a rule, the diffusionist view holds that from interaction will come commonality. The type of social structure found in the developing core regions will, after some time, diffuse into the periphery.¹ Since the cultural forms of the periphery were evolved in isolation from the rest of the world, contact with modernizing core regions will transform these cultural forms by updating them, as it were. For a time, it has been argued, the massive social dislocation associated with industrialization and the expansion of core–periphery interaction may heighten the sense of cultural separateness in the periphery. This is because individuals and groups in the periphery are, at first, likely to cling to their customary social patterns as a refuge from the chaos of rapid social change. This is an understandable reaction of dismay in the face of an uncertain future.

But such 'traditional' behavior will tend to decline as the new routine of industrial life becomes perceived as more and more satisfactory in promoting the general welfare, and as initial regional differences become muted following industrialization. In the long run, the core and peripheral regions will tend to become culturally homogeneous because the economic, cultural, and political foundations for separate ethnic identification disappear. Many attributes of the regions themselves will converge following industrialization. In the third, and final, stage of national development regional wealth should equilibrate; cultural differences should cease to be socially meaningful; and political processes will occur within a framework of national parties, with luck, in a democratic setting, thereby insuring representation to all significant groups.

These aggregate changes in regional characteristics are mirrored by a profound convergence in the performance of individual roles. Industrialization necessarily involves a change from diffuse role performances and functions to specific roles and functions. That is to say, industrialization causes structural differentiation. Face-to-face interactions are increasingly replaced by social relationships which are largely impersonal. Statuses which are ascribed to individuals become less important than those which are achieved. Individuals are liberated from the constraints of traditional c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSACTION EDITION
• PREFACE
• Part I The Problem
• Part II Core and Periphery in the Pre-Industrial Era
• Part III The Consequences of Industrialization
• APPENDIX
• INDEX