Post War Nationalism

8 Key excerpts on "Post War Nationalism"

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  Nationalism in Europe since 1945

  • André Gerrits(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  The Debate on Nationalism 7 the post-war history of the continent, which is to mobilize political support and to strengthen and legitimize political power. In communist Eastern Europe, nationalism was officially consid-ered a typically capitalist, bourgeois political sentiment, a remnant of the past which communism would soon eliminate. In Eastern Europe, lack of academic freedom made serious research into the contemporary relevance of nationalism impossible. In Western Europe, academic interest in nationalism was largely determined by the perceived political relevance of nationalist thought, and this was generally considered to be low during the first post-war dec-ades. With relatively few albeit important exceptions [4; 16; 49], it took until the end of the 1980s before nationalism became a sta-ple of academic study. And from the 1990s, research on national-ism exploded. Historians and political scientists alike, inspired by the collapse of communism, which offered fresh opportunities for historical research, and the perceived role of nationalism in the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, took a renewed interest in the topic. Academic interest followed real-world change. In the aftermath of the Second World War, few researchers [26] foresaw a continuation of nationalism in Europe. German scholars, in particular, living in their defeated and divided homeland, her-alded the end of nationalism and the national state. In a lecture in Münster in July 1953, the prominent historian Theodor Schieder signalled that ‘the era of the national state in Europe was over’ – ‘this is an undeniable historical truth’ [146: 285]. Others were equally insistent, and not without a touch of regret: ‘How much the role of nations has meanwhile changed’, Eugen Lemberg [107: 10] wrote, just five years after the end of the Second World War. ‘Sovereignty and self-determination hardly exist anymore ….

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  Migration, Memory, and Diversity

  Germany from 1945 to the Present

  • Cornelia Wilhelm(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Berghahn Books

    (Publisher)

  The post-postwar period is hence in full swing and its character cannot yet be fully ascertained. This chapter’s modest goal is to probe trends in something that is still very much becoming. In the first section I shall reconstruct the historical foundations of nationalism and citizenship in Germany since the turn of the nineteenth century. Its premise is that the usual emphasis on ethnonationalism is incomplete; to properly understand the trajectory of inclusion and exclu-sion policies in Germany, one needs to attend to a second vector, i.e., a statist logic that is centered upon presumptions regarding loyalty or dis-loyalty to the state. In the second section, I will examine more closely how these two vectors have converged to determine stances toward nation, citizenship, and immigration in the postwar. The third section will turn to the post-postwar and evaluate two major policy initiatives, i.e., the citizenship and naturalization reform law of 2000 and the search for an immigration and integration policy. In the concluding section, I shall dis-cuss continuity and change with special emphasis given to the distinction between incremental and out-of-type change. Historical and sociological research on German nationalism typically emphasizes its groundedness in an ethnocultural conception of the nation. 2 As a political movement, German nationalism was the unlikely child of romanticism and Napoleon: romanticism fixed the nation as Nationalism and Citizenship during the Passage from the Postwar to the Post‑Postwar | 235 a zone of substantive cultural homogeneity; Napoleonic occupation spurned its politization. The flipside of the anti-French militancy of early German nationalists was the call for a unified German nation state, which by default made the movement an enemy of the authorities of the many existing German states. The semantics of Kulturnation (cultural nation), however, are much older.

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  Political and Civic Leadership

  A Reference Handbook

  • Richard A. Couto(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Though it is important to understand the dimensions of nationalism in the contemporary moment—when various ideological and material shifts have complicated and challenged its rele-vance—it is equally crucial to understand nationalism as a historical phenomenon. As Ernest Renan (1882/1996) has observed, part of the work of nationalism is forgetting over time—whether forgetting older injustices to forge common national grounds or forgetting how what appears as “civic” or peaceful patriotism today has roots in both symbolic and physical forms of violence. This chapter therefore addresses historical patterns of nationalism as well as considering its role in current contexts of public leadership. 490 In this chapter, various dimensions of nationalism are explored in detail. The first section explores the meaning of nation and nationalism, charting the diverse and at times competing interpretations that have been advanced to define these terms. One of the major debates in the literature on nationalism is between those who see it as an extension of ancient ethnic identities and those who see it as distinctively modern. We argue here that, although some features are much older than others, the pattern we now recognize as nationalism is distinctive to the modern era. The second section of the chapter will discuss how nationalism figured in the formation of a new kind of political community linked to the rise of the modern state. Future directions for the study of nationalism as it pertains to political and civic lead-ership in the 21st century are then presented, focusing in particular on issues arising from patterns of globalization and cosmopolitanism. Finally, following a brief conclusion, we offer a list of key texts for further reading. The Modernity and Diversity of Nationalisms At its most basic, nationalism is the predilection of an indi-vidual or community for its own nation.

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  Nationalism in the Twenty-First Century

  Challenges and Responses

  • Claire Sutherland(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  The second section of the chapter goes on to look at some theoretical approaches to contemporary nationalism. So-called ‘neo-nationalisms’ (McCrone 1998) are shown to be adaptable in articulating the link between the individual and the collective in the pursuit of legitimacy. The discus-sion looks at how contemporary nationalisms are different to nineteenth century forms, in order better to understand their response to the cosmopolitan 26 Nationalism in the Twenty-First Century challenge. The chapter’s final section then turns to postcolonial theory, and its impact on nationalist ideology. A large proportion of the globe was under European imperial domination by the nineteenth century, with colonial powers only gradually withdrawing between the end of World War I and as late as 1980 for the likes of Zimbabwe (and 1990 for Namibia, controlled by Germany and then South Africa). It is therefore important to investigate colonialism’s lasting impact on nationalism in successor states, not only in former colonies, but also former colonising powers. The evolution of post-war attitudes towards British citizenship and identity, for instance, had much to do with migrants arriving in the UK from the Commonwealth. The chapter concludes that contemporary nationalisms do indeed differ from older variants, and not least because of their need to respond to the cosmopolitan challenge. Nevertheless, nationalist ideologues continue to mobilise followers using appeals to primordial symbols or claims to represent an ancient nation, and demand recognition on that basis. This, in turn, can affect their relative openness to newcomers, or their protectiveness of traditions. The nation’s puta-tive origins therefore continue to be relevant to contemporary nationalist ideology. Theories of Nationalism One ongoing debate within nationalism theory divides ethno-symbolist and modernist scholars.

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  After the Nation?

  Critical Reflections on Nationalism and Postnationalism

  • K. Breen, S. O'Neill, K. Breen, S. O'Neill(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Although many of these arguments are pitched as historical explanations, rather than ethical analyses, of nationalism, viewed normatively their import is quite clear: it is a dan- gerous doctrine and a frequently malignant political force. In recent years, the debate has taken a somewhat different turn. While critiques of nationalism for its irrationality or militarism are still expressed, especially as regards ‘ethnonationalism’, the focus of concern has been less the origins or character of nationalism and more whether it is currently viable, whether , in short, the nation-state remains the primary unit of political concern or is instead being eclipsed and ren- dered increasingly marginal by contemporary events. In line with this shift, since the 1990s there has been a growing number of authors who contend that we are now in a ‘postnational’ or ‘postnationalist’ age (for example, Archibugi and Held, 1995; Habermas, 2001; Held, 1995; Sassen, 2003; Soysal, 1994; Tambini, 2001). Drawing from a number of disciplines – sociology, comparative political science, international political economy, and political theory – they argue on the basis of empirical, theoretical, and normative reflections that the high point of the nation-state is over and that the time has come to celebrate the rise of new socio-political formations and possibilities. There is a need for conceptual clarity here, since ‘postnational’ and ‘postnationalist’ have importantly different potential meanings (Geoghegan, 1994). The term ‘postnational’ may be taken to suggest that the nation-state and national identities no longer matter, that they Keith Breen and Shane O’Neill 3 have no political significance. This is a very strong view to which few subscribe. By contrast, the term ‘postnationalist’, which best captures the nature of the debate, does not imply a denial of national identity or its endurance.

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  Nations and Nationalism since 1780

  Programme, Myth, Reality

  • E. J. Hobsbawm(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTERS e2fe> The apogee of nationalism, 1918-1950 If there was a moment when the nineteenth-century 'principle of nationality' triumphed it was at the end of World War I, even though this was neither predictable, nor the intention of the future victors. In fact, it was the result of two unintended developments: the collapse of the great multinational empires of central and eastern Europe and the Russian Revolution which made it desirable for the Allies to play the Wilsonian card against the Bolshevik card. For, as we have seen, what looked like mobilizing the masses in 1917-18 was social revolution rather than national <>elf- determination. One might speculate on what effect a victorious all-European revolution might have had on the nationalities of the continent, but such speculation is idle. Except for Soviet Russia, Europe was not reconstructed on the basis of the Bolshevik policy on the 'national question'. Essentially the continent became, for the first and last time in its history, a jigsaw puzzle of states defined, with rare exceptions, both as nation-states and as some kind of bourgeois parliamentary democracies. This state of affairs was extremely short-lived. Inter-war Europe also happened to see the triumph of that other aspect of the 'bourgeois' nation which was discussed in an earlier chapter: the nation as a 'national economy'. Though most econo- mists, businessmen and western governments dreamed of a return to the world economy of 1913, this proved to be impossible. Indeed, even had it been, there could have been no return to the economy of freely competitive private enterprise and free trade which was the ideal, and even part of the reality of the world economy in the heyday of British global supremacy. 132 NATIONS AND NATIONALISM SINCE 1 7 8 0 By 1913 capitalist economies were already moving rapidly in the direction of large blocks of concentrated enterprise, supported, protected, and even to some extent guided by governments.

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  Nationalism and Social Theory

  Modernity and the Recalcitrance of the Nation

  • Gerard Delanty, Patrick O′Mahony(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  eight debating the limits of nationalism: possibilities for postnationalism I n this concluding chapter, drawing from the materials developed in the book so far, we offer an interpretation of the current status of nationalism. We have argued that nationalism emerged under the conditions of modernization and connected the political project of modernity – the radical project of elites, state formation, etc. – with the cultural project of shaping new identities and new forms of thinking and meaning. In this, as structuralist accounts have always argued, the social project of modernity played a crucial role. Nationalism was thus one kind of reaction to the particular constellation of social, political and cultural forces that shaped modernity. The current situation differs from the past in one major respect: the political project of modernity is less connected with the cultural project. Consequently, under the conditions of globalization, the dynamics of modernity have produced a different field of conflicts which are characterized by greater fragmentation. A POSTNATIONAL WORLD? The current situation of nationalism can thus be seen in terms of processes of decoupling, two of which can be specified: • the decoupling of nation and state • the decoupling of citizenship and nationality. Rather than speak of the end of the nation-state and with it the end of citizenship, we need to see how the forces previously contained within the parameters of the nation-state are being released into a global, but very uncertain world in which different logics of openness and closure come into play. the decoupling of nation and state With regard to the first process of decoupling, it must be firmly stated that neither nation nor state is coming to an end. Globalization is undermining the project of modernity in the specific sense of the dis-embedding of the political project of the state from the cultural project of nationhood.

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  The SAGE Handbook of Nations and Nationalism

  • Gerard Delanty, Krishan Kumar, Gerard Delanty, Krishan Kumar(Authors)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Although this is, in Kohn’s work, the least developed of the themes to be consid-ered here, some highly suggestive statements point to problems that are – as I will argue – of 46 decisive importance for further development of comparative approaches. The Idea of Nationalism was written during World War II and completed when the victory of the Western – Soviet alliance was in sight. Kohn’s comprehensive interpretation of modern history, developed through an analysis of nationalism, is therefore comparable to other works of a similarly ambitious character, writ-ten in the later stages or the aftermath of the war. As the title of the book suggests, the history of ideas provides the main thread of the narrative; but the ideas in question are of the kind that Max Weber had in mind when he referred to ideas channelling and mobilizing interests. They are, in other words, what French historians have called ‘ idées-forces ’. This understanding of nationalism as an active world-historical force, rather than a reflection of pre-existing nationhood, foreshadows influ-ential ideas of later authors. But Kohn did not take the extreme ‘constructivist’ view that nationalism creates nations. As he puts it, ‘nationalities are the products of the living forces of history’ (Kohn 1945: 13); this is a first and strong indication of the need to analyse processes of nation formation. ‘Nationality’ is, in this context, synonymous with what later authors would call nationhood or national identity, and definitely not to be understood as something inferior to a nation. As products of history, nations or national identities are ever-changing, under-determined and indefinable in strictly objective terms. Nationalism, as a conscious attribution of meaning, gives them the profile and momentum needed for action on a historical scale. For Kohn, the nationalist infusion of mean-ing into group identities produced by history was one of the three main currents of modern history.

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