Nationalism in Europe
2.1) What is Nationalism?
Definition
● Essentially contested concept
● In Europe, it has a pejorative connotation.
o Tendency to contrast “bad” nationalism with “benign” patriotism → Fine and Blurred
line.
o Contested relationship between nationalism and expansionism and irredentism1.
o Contested relationship between nationalism and Superiority, exclusion and social
Darwinism.
Nationalism as an Ideology
● “The belief that the nation (a stable community of people, based on a common history, language,
ethnicity, culture, .…) should be the organizational unit of a state; promotes right to national
self-determination.”
o What is a stable community??
● Thin Ideology: no political parties but attached to other Ideologies.
● Promotion of nation states - A political project
o Nations as the central organizing principle of the state
o States as the most effective organization of the nation and its protector.
● Relationship of “Popular sovereignty” and “National sovereignty”
o Vertical: Popular sovereignty = expression of “ruled by the people”
o Horizontal: Nation-states = international protection to popular sovereignty.
An ancient or modern phenomenon?
● 19th century: Primordial understanding of the Nation.
o Nations = updates of ancient tribes, ethnicities and language groups.
o Focus on the historical continuity between a group. “We have existed since …!”
o Intellectual investments in tracing historical roots, language families.
● But, European nationalism is best seen as a modern phenomenon
o For example France before the revolution
▪ Ancient regime: people we’re not subject to a country, but to a throne.
▪ Limited knowledge about language families.
o Industrialization led to a change in people’s mentality. In the big cities where no one
knew who you were, you had to forge your identity.
1
a policy of advocating the restoration to a country of any territory formerly belonging to it. Reclaiming lost
territory from a Nation's Past
, ▪ Standardization of language + shared public spheres.
▪ State centralization (Bureaucracy)
● th
20 century: Constructivist understanding of the Nations.
o Nationalism = a sociological condition, resulting from modernization. The transition from
agrarian to industrial society.
▪ Homogenization of education.
▪ Industrialization and improved communication (Newspapers only in one
language).
▪ Integration and industrialization of economic and labor markets.
o Nations replaced the village mentality that people had before leaving the house.
▪ Once you leave your village/tied network → need a new identity/framework
to relate yourself in the big city = new organisation
o Nationalism invents a past and historical continuity to bring people together. (Selective
process)
o Nationalism is not created by Nations, but Nations are created by Nationalism.
▪ The invention of nationalist traditions in the 19th century (some argue)
● “Nationalism creates nations, not the other way around” – Eric
Hobsbawn
● “Nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness, it
invents nations where they do not exist” – Ernest Gellner
Imagined Communities
● Benedict Anderson (1983)
o People see themselves as a community, but don’t know each other. It’s imagined.
o Critiques on other Historians
o “Nationalism creates Nations, not the other way.” – Eric Hobsbawm
▪ Nations are able to create myth to live by
▪ Everyone can relate to and this helps create unity, and so is Nationalism.
o “Nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness: it invents nations
where they did not exist.” – Ernest Gellner
▪ Nations don’t come out of nowhere but are a manipulation of the elites.
▪ Makes it seem like some nations exist, but others are invented. He disagrees,
every nation is invented.
● Instead, Anderson’s language of imagination
o Accounts for the role of narration and construction…yet, acknowledges the
contextualised and collective “thinking up” of a nation:
▪ A subjective experience through which people relate to others (like them) and
embrace their collective ID as something “real”
▪ This ID is not forged out of “thin air” but centred on myths and symbols all can
relate to
, Evolution of National Thinking
● 18th century philosophical works
o J.J. Rousseau (France)
▪ Social contract theory and concept of ‘Social sovereignty’
▪ We, the people ≠ the King → spread the idea of popular sovereignty
o J.G. Herder (Germany)
▪ Language as worldviews: shaping familiar frameworks with what the community
thinks and feels.
▪ Subjective turn: culture, language, thinking, feeling, literature and folk traditions
tie people together.
▪ Volk: nations as separated, distinct entities. Each nation is unique.
▪ People are bound together in an Unique group
● Print technology and national consciousness.
o 1500-1550s: Protestant Reformation
▪ Promotion of German print of copies of the Bible. Growing literacy rates
▪ Germans increasingly used an administrative language.
o Print capitalism
▪ Creation of print markets: only one fixed language.
▪ Standardized languages: unified fields of exchange and communication below
Latin and above the spoken dialect
● = community of fellow-readers; feelings of sameness
▪ Shared public spheres.
▪ Possibility to look into the past to create heroes and myths.
▪ New fixity of language
● Helped build an image of antiquity central to the subjective idea of
the nation
● Anti-French intellectual movement, after the Napoleon wars.
o 1806; Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation
▪ German states reduced to provinces of the French regime or puppet regimes
o 1815: German confederation: power lied into their relations with Austria, and its
symbolic prestige
2.1) What is Nationalism?
Definition
● Essentially contested concept
● In Europe, it has a pejorative connotation.
o Tendency to contrast “bad” nationalism with “benign” patriotism → Fine and Blurred
line.
o Contested relationship between nationalism and expansionism and irredentism1.
o Contested relationship between nationalism and Superiority, exclusion and social
Darwinism.
Nationalism as an Ideology
● “The belief that the nation (a stable community of people, based on a common history, language,
ethnicity, culture, .…) should be the organizational unit of a state; promotes right to national
self-determination.”
o What is a stable community??
● Thin Ideology: no political parties but attached to other Ideologies.
● Promotion of nation states - A political project
o Nations as the central organizing principle of the state
o States as the most effective organization of the nation and its protector.
● Relationship of “Popular sovereignty” and “National sovereignty”
o Vertical: Popular sovereignty = expression of “ruled by the people”
o Horizontal: Nation-states = international protection to popular sovereignty.
An ancient or modern phenomenon?
● 19th century: Primordial understanding of the Nation.
o Nations = updates of ancient tribes, ethnicities and language groups.
o Focus on the historical continuity between a group. “We have existed since …!”
o Intellectual investments in tracing historical roots, language families.
● But, European nationalism is best seen as a modern phenomenon
o For example France before the revolution
▪ Ancient regime: people we’re not subject to a country, but to a throne.
▪ Limited knowledge about language families.
o Industrialization led to a change in people’s mentality. In the big cities where no one
knew who you were, you had to forge your identity.
1
a policy of advocating the restoration to a country of any territory formerly belonging to it. Reclaiming lost
territory from a Nation's Past
, ▪ Standardization of language + shared public spheres.
▪ State centralization (Bureaucracy)
● th
20 century: Constructivist understanding of the Nations.
o Nationalism = a sociological condition, resulting from modernization. The transition from
agrarian to industrial society.
▪ Homogenization of education.
▪ Industrialization and improved communication (Newspapers only in one
language).
▪ Integration and industrialization of economic and labor markets.
o Nations replaced the village mentality that people had before leaving the house.
▪ Once you leave your village/tied network → need a new identity/framework
to relate yourself in the big city = new organisation
o Nationalism invents a past and historical continuity to bring people together. (Selective
process)
o Nationalism is not created by Nations, but Nations are created by Nationalism.
▪ The invention of nationalist traditions in the 19th century (some argue)
● “Nationalism creates nations, not the other way around” – Eric
Hobsbawn
● “Nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness, it
invents nations where they do not exist” – Ernest Gellner
Imagined Communities
● Benedict Anderson (1983)
o People see themselves as a community, but don’t know each other. It’s imagined.
o Critiques on other Historians
o “Nationalism creates Nations, not the other way.” – Eric Hobsbawm
▪ Nations are able to create myth to live by
▪ Everyone can relate to and this helps create unity, and so is Nationalism.
o “Nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness: it invents nations
where they did not exist.” – Ernest Gellner
▪ Nations don’t come out of nowhere but are a manipulation of the elites.
▪ Makes it seem like some nations exist, but others are invented. He disagrees,
every nation is invented.
● Instead, Anderson’s language of imagination
o Accounts for the role of narration and construction…yet, acknowledges the
contextualised and collective “thinking up” of a nation:
▪ A subjective experience through which people relate to others (like them) and
embrace their collective ID as something “real”
▪ This ID is not forged out of “thin air” but centred on myths and symbols all can
relate to
, Evolution of National Thinking
● 18th century philosophical works
o J.J. Rousseau (France)
▪ Social contract theory and concept of ‘Social sovereignty’
▪ We, the people ≠ the King → spread the idea of popular sovereignty
o J.G. Herder (Germany)
▪ Language as worldviews: shaping familiar frameworks with what the community
thinks and feels.
▪ Subjective turn: culture, language, thinking, feeling, literature and folk traditions
tie people together.
▪ Volk: nations as separated, distinct entities. Each nation is unique.
▪ People are bound together in an Unique group
● Print technology and national consciousness.
o 1500-1550s: Protestant Reformation
▪ Promotion of German print of copies of the Bible. Growing literacy rates
▪ Germans increasingly used an administrative language.
o Print capitalism
▪ Creation of print markets: only one fixed language.
▪ Standardized languages: unified fields of exchange and communication below
Latin and above the spoken dialect
● = community of fellow-readers; feelings of sameness
▪ Shared public spheres.
▪ Possibility to look into the past to create heroes and myths.
▪ New fixity of language
● Helped build an image of antiquity central to the subjective idea of
the nation
● Anti-French intellectual movement, after the Napoleon wars.
o 1806; Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation
▪ German states reduced to provinces of the French regime or puppet regimes
o 1815: German confederation: power lied into their relations with Austria, and its
symbolic prestige
