False Opposites in Nationalism

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False Opposites in Nationalism:
An Examination of the Dichotomy of Civic Nationalism and Ethnic Nationalism in Modern Europe.

by

Margareta Mary Nikolas

Master of Arts (European Studies)
Centre for European Studies
Monash University

11 March 1999

ABSTRACT:

This study is an examination of the exercise of nationalism as the assertion and/or reassertion of the mutual (political) sovereignty of a community in the form of a nation-state. My thesis aims to explore two theoretically different routes and forms of exercise of nationalism focusing specifically on modern Europe. These two routes are civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism. This classical dichotomy, I agree, is a misleading division for though the two are theoretically separate, in practice they are collaborators in the journey towards nationhood and in the pursuit of the establishment of a nation-state.

For nationalism to be successful it must involve an interplay of the principles of both civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism, rather than these components acting as mutually exclusive concepts. The nature of this interplay will be examined throughout the thesis and the collaboration will be explored via the two competing perspectives: that held by the modernists and that proposed by the ethnicists, both operating within the framework of modernity. The key distinction between the two is their focus and the point at which they identify a group imagining themselves as a community and society. Their respective cases will be critically examined with respect to those elements that determine that an interplay occurs.

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INTRODUCTION

The Exercise of Nationalism: Exploring its Civic and Ethnic Components

Nationalism is an umbrella term covering elements such as national consciousness, the expression of national identity, and loyalty to the nation. This study will examine the political and social exercise of nationalism as an ideology and subjectivity through the theoretical avenues of civic and ethnic nationalism as represented in literature. The exercise of nationalism is the assertion and/or reassertion of the mutual (political) sovereignty of a community in the form of a nation-state. The examination will be confined to nationalism in contemporary Europe. As an ideology it is a form of political expression; as a subjective element it defines the nature of the relationship of a person to a collectivity. The -ism in nationalism is a practice, a process of development, an activity, "a mechanism of adjustment and compensation"¹, acting as a vehicle of delivery for both the mass and elite within a community. In one of its modern expressions, nationalism is the self-identification of a community of people who see themselves as having an observable sovereignty and identification of a political unit housing a culturally homogeneous group. What this means is that there is a relative congruence of a political unit and a high culture where a certain kind of homogeneity is necessary for a cohesive nation-state.² The nation-state is a power body in which community and polity come together.

This thesis aims to explore two theoretically different routes and forms of the exercise of nationalism, focusing specifically on modern Europe: civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism. It will argue that though theoretically separate, in practice the two forms of nationalism are collaborators in the journey towards nationhood and in the pursuit of the establishment of a nation-state. This collaboration will be explored via two competing perspectives: that held by the radical modernists and that proposed by the ethnicist-modernists both operating within the framework of modernism. My own position also works within the framework of modernism recognising a change in the perception and role of culture from the premodern to the modern age, but it seeks to explore the theoretical consequences of an all-too-obvious claim: that culture in modernity contains both political components and ethnic components.

Nationalism is a part of the developmental process of modernity (and perhaps now post-modernity) for a group of people who regard themselves as culturally (which may mean politically or ethnically) homogeneous, exercising this in the form of a nation-state. The focus of the thesis will be on nationalism as not only a stage of development in modernity but an ongoing process of development within modernity³ indicative of the framework of modernity within which nationalism operates. The civic and ethnic components of nationalism are not the only pressures which push nationalism in a particular direction, but their representation in the literature on nationalism leads to the notion that they are two mutually exclusive forms of nationalism, existing on opposite ends of the nationalism spectrum.

Civic Nationalism versus Ethnic Nationalism
Civic and ethnic nationalism are the classifications to be used in this examination, but they are respectively analogous or highly similar to political, core or Western nationalism, and blood, peripheral, Eastern, or cultural nationalism. My argument is that civic and ethnic nationalism are not, as often presented, part of a dichotomy of nationalism set against one another but are two intermingling components of the one ideology and subjectivity of modern nationalism. The key distinction between the two is their focus, the point around which people begin to identify and imagine themselves as a community:⁴ that is, the inception of the national community relative to congruent state development and the conception of nationhood.

The idea is that civic nationalism is exercised in those areas where there exists a civil society. That is, a group of people who feel they belong to the same community, are governed by law and respect the rule of law. The sovereignty of the people is located in the individual (the citizen) whose national identity is a sense of political community within a demarcated territory defining the social space that houses a culturally homogeneous group. It requires that people and territory must belong together, and that the people are in possession of a single political will. It demands that one must belong to a nation, which in turn belongs to a state, and an individual has the option of choosing which nation she/he wishes to belong to and enjoys legal equality along with the other members of the nation. National dignity is derived from the individual/citizen who in turn defines the national community. There is a government that respects the law, rather than existing above the law, which indicates that civic nationalism is complementary to liberal democracy. Being such, civic nationalism as a social movement is said to be more democratic than the populism of ethnic nationalism. The mass are more inclined to be incorporated into a high culture (via education), which gives them the same right of political decision as the elite. The role of the elite then is to manage (rather than crudely manipulate) the mass.

Ethnic nationalism refers to nationalism as determined by descent. Attachments are inherited and not chosen, representing the exclusivist element of nationalism. Those groups who exercise nationalism clothed with the ethnic element are considered to be nations that have had to come to terms with the political developments of alternative civilisations elsewhere. Feeling the dominance and perceived superiority of these other nation-states (who would have their own demarcated territory that defines them), these more inferior-feeling groups may increasingly feel the need to become a part of this civilisation in order to survive, progress, modernise, and be successful. To achieve this and become equals in this new modern civilisation (as a part of the process of modernity), the people in these regions must unite as groups that would be politically recognised in the form of a nation-state. In the absence of institutions or other tools that may unite these people (such as class), these groups turn to themselves identifying their own unique characteristics that set them apart from foreigners in order to assert their sovereignty.

Ethnic nationalism "was active on behalf of a high culture not as yet properly crystallized, a mere aspirant or in-the-making high culture."⁵ These are the groups that needed a short cut towards a high culture necessary for modern development. Since there was not the required foundations and institutions in place in society, they had to create one from what they had. This was likely to be language, culture, skin colour, religion, etc., drawing what they could from the Volk (the people). Therefore the belief is that ethnic/blood consciousness rather than the civic/civil consciousness dominates the newly emerging political culture. The ethnic concept of nationalism incorporates a more collectivistic identity. Nationality is not voluntary but by birth and native culture, considered an inherent characteristic defined by descent as opposed to choice. These distinctions illustrate the lack of latitude in the classification of ethnic nationalism and its exclusivist nature. This can actually impede progress towards liberal democracy, even though it was probably first instigated as a drive towards it (or rather a drive towards modernity that contained the liberal democratic feature).

Therefore the difference between civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism is said to lie in the beginnings of the imagining of the community, relative to the actual development of a political unit. This is the classical division in political and sociological theory on nationalism. Many theorists use this dichotomy in their writings on nationalism. Plamenatz uses the unsophisticated categories of Western and Eastern nationalism, thereby creating two Europes.⁶ Kearney takes this division and carries it to a "postnationalist" level,⁷ whilst Conversi on the other hand has disputed this classical division only to create three more new ones: homeostatic, transactionalist, and the ethno-symbolist.⁸ Plamenatz views nationalism as primarily a cultural phenomenon where "the belief in progress is strong" though a recourse to non-progressive measures, particularly nationalism taking illiberal and undemocratic forms, is common.⁹ He labels the division of nationalism as Western and Eastern: Western nationalism demonstrated best by the nationalisms of France and England (and interestingly Plamenatz also includes Germany and Italy in the same category). They were nations that possessed a progressive culture and were conscious of that. They were equipped with the correct instruments with which to progress. The nations of the East however were drawn into a new civilisation needing to adopt new values, ideas and practices – i.e. Western ones – in order to be equals in this new civilisation of modernity.¹⁰ Theirs was an imitative and fiercely competitive nationalism, prone to hostility and illiberal behaviour, whose "ancestral cultures are not adapted to success and excellence by these cosmopolitan and increasingly dominant standards."¹¹ Nationalists of the East recognised both their "backwardness" and their need to overcome that.

More recently Kearney promotes the dichotomy claiming that by separating nationalism one can then gather what is good and progressive and develop that into a postnationalist model (particularly concerning Irish and British nationalism). All those who subscribe to the nation’s political principles or constitution exercise civic nationalism.¹² Ethnic nationalism on the other hand is inherited and the bond is blood rather than law. Kearney gives us Germany as an example of a nation-state that defines itself ethnically. In offering this example he goes on to suggest that the nation-states that developed in nineteenth-century Europe looked to Germany as a model and thus committed to ethnic nationalism. Plamenatz makes the same claim, though Germany appears on the other side of the dichotomy in his demonstration. The major difference between civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism according to Kearney is in the different sources of identity. Unfortunately he perpetuates the ethical falsehood that these categories generate by claiming that as one emancipates the other incarcerates, and if nationalism is ever to be good it should undergo a "decoupling" from ethnicity.¹³

Kearney’s central focus as mentioned is postnationalism. Though not explored in this study postnationalism is worth a brief comment. Kearney considers that the union formed between politics and culture at the onset of modernity should be redefined in postmodernity, with specific reference to Britain and the Republic of Ireland. Britain represents all that is positive in nationalism, the "civic, secular, pluralist, rational and multicultural" and Ireland the negative "irridentist, ethnic, primitive, reactionary."¹⁴ However, in this postmodern world there is, according to Kearney, a "revised Irish nationalism"¹⁵ that is a rational extension of the past, which is a consequence of postnationalism. Nairn also suggests that there is "a new civic nationalism" in Ireland that could easily be emulated by Scotland or Wales.¹⁶ Postnationalism in this context is the vehicle of "new paradigms of political and cultural accommodation"¹⁷ suggesting fresh separations of nationalism. Kearney seeks to do this by separating nation and state and by doing so separating culture and politics. Culture and politics are conjugal elements joined at modernity but Kearney seeks to divorce culture from politics calling this process postnationalism.

Turning to a more cultivated division in the literature, Rogers Brubaker offers a sophisticated approach to the splitting of nationalism in this way. He uses France and Germany to demonstrate two types of nationalism. The ‘type’ of nationalism in these two countries is determined by whether the national feeling emerged before or after the development of a nation-state. In France the national feeling occurred after the nation-state developed thus according to Brubaker national feeling grew out of the state and its institutions – an example of civic nationalism. But in Germany national sentiments preceded the emergence of a state and adopted the character of the Volk, meaning its development into a nation-state was not a political development but an ethnocultural one.[sup18][/sup] And so the division, according to Brubaker’s theory, is determined by the manner in which a society is bound. This will in turn determine the criteria for membership. Society in France is politically bound and membership is politically defined via the formal method of citizenship. In Germany, society is bound according to ethnicity and membership is along blood ties.¹⁹ These different criteria then differentiate the type of relationship an individual has with a state, and the relationship of society to state in modernity and thus the relationship to nationhood. The understanding of nationhood in France, according to Brubaker was political, in Germany it was ethnocultural.²⁰ In his own words:

In Germany the "conceived order" or "imagined community" of nationhood and the institutional realities of statehood were sharply distinct; in France they were fused. In Germany nationhood was an ethnocultural fact; in France it was a political fact.²¹

This study disputes the dichotomising use of this distinction. Civic and ethnic nationalism appear in the literature as two mutually exclusive concepts, however this study will suggest that the exercise of nationalism in modernity is an interplay of components of both civic and ethnic nationalism. The dichotomy is fallacious and misleading for it does not represent the true nature of nationalism as both political expression and cultural declaration, it perpetuates notions of Western and Eastern nationalism and ‘good’ and ‘bad’ nationalism. Certainly the two can be distinguished theoretically, and certainly we can find instances where one or other comes to the fore as the dominant expression of national allegiance, but the practice of nationalism, both politically and culturally, involves a criss-crossing of these two theoretical routes.

The Modernists and the Ethnicists
Recognising that civic and ethnic nationalism are theoretically distinct but intermeshing in practice, I will examine the theories presented by the modernists and ethnicists in explaining the process of nationalism within the framework of modernity. The modernist argument will be primarily drawn from Gellner who defines nationalism as "about entry to, participation in, identification with, a literate high culture which is co-extensive with an entire political unit and its total population."²² In addition to Gellner the modernists are represented by the theories of Tom Nairn, Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm, among others. It is the modernists, collectively, who offer the closest thing there is to a theory, or partial theory, of nationalism. Gellner is at the forefront stressing that nationalism is a sociological necessity based upon the kind of social structure and culture engendered by modernity rather than an awakening of a slumbering nation, as some of the primordialists (working outside the framework of modernism) for example would have us believe. Instrumental to the modernist theory of nationalism is the existence of the state. Nationalism is contingent upon the existence of a state, it is "parasitic on a prior and assumed definition of the state: it also seems to be the case that nationalism emerges only in milieux in which the existence of the state is already very much taken for granted."²³

John Hutchinson and Anthony Smith will be used as the ambassadors for the ethnicists. Hutchinson’s definition of the nation focuses primarily on the ethnic group, where their characteristics are more likely to be inherited. "The nation is thus an ethno-cultural community shaped by shared myths of origins, a sense of common history and way of life, and particular ideas of space, that endows its members with identity and purpose."²⁴ Who actually is an ethnicist, a primordialist or a perennialist is debatable. Tom Nairn classifies Anthony Smith as a primordialist thereby representing a ‘soft’ definition of primordialism where ethnicity transmitted by culture is the essence of a nation. But Smith regards primordialists²⁵ as far more radical, where the belief of ethnicity being the essence of the nation is one rooted in biology. Smith believes that the "proponents of this view claim that nations and ethnic communities are the natural units of history and integral elements of the human experience."²⁶He defines himself as an "ethno-symbolist". He is not a primordialist in that his theory does not essentialise the ethnie, but does stress its importance to both the nation and nationalism. His is more a culturalist position in response to the modernists; he is a modernist with ethnic claims, or a reflexive modernist.

Therefore in examining the arguments put forth by both the modernists and ethnicists I do not seek to disprove either camp, rather to show that both contribute to our understanding. Though the modernists and ethnicists appear to represent two opposing camps in explaining nationalism, I will seek to establish that both theories are encompassed by all European nationalisms, but to varying degrees. The core of nationalism in modern Europe is the modern nation-state, which does have pre-modern claims. That is, though there has been a definite change in the perception and role of culture with the onset of modernity, as espoused by modernists such as Gellner, the ethnic rationale is still very important to the motivations and perpetuation of nationalism, as emphasised for example by Smith. Each of their theories state a particular route towards nationhood as paramount (the civic one for modernists and the ethnic one for ethnicists). But by showing that these routes are crossed by a network of connections this thesis will argue that both theories must compromise.

Identity
The psychological influences of nationalism and the idea of nationalism as pathology will also be mentioned but not deeply discussed. Rather a reflection on the rational and non-rational elements of nationalism will be explored, incorporating notions of pathology. In the literature ethnic nationalism is represented as the reactionary element of nationalism, and the emotionalism more fervently attached to this classification means that it is perceived as the more non-rational element of nationalism. This is not to suggest that non-rationality is exclusive to ethnic nationalism alone. Non-rationality, irrationality and a-rationality are all present throughout the theoretical spectrum of nationalism; it is just more concentrated on the ethnic end. The ethnic component of nationalism allows for a greater "retreat from rationalism"²⁷ though nationalism itself demonstrates "national belonging can be a form of rational attachment"²⁸ important to all members of society.

The acquisition of a national identity and the act of nation formation are processes and not occurrences of nationalism as stipulated by Connor.²⁹ Nationalism is a "compulsive necessity for a certain socio-political form".³⁰ It can be progressive and regressive, constructive and destructive. It may initially emerge in a society as a part of its developmental process, but it does not disappear after this, rather it becomes imbedded in the functioning of that society in the future. It is a pursuit and manifestation of a national identity, or rather the pursuit of a national identity trying to manifest itself politically, exercising a collective psychological need made political: the politics of identity as opposed to the politics of interest. Nationalism "corresponds to certain internal needs of the society in question, and to certain individual, psychological needs as well. It supplies peoples and persons with an important commodity, ‘identity’." ³¹

Nationalism is essentially a mass movement, volatile and dynamic, given direction and governed by the elite who in turn is fuelled by the mass. There exists an interdependence between the elite and the mass, their behaviour and relationship will determine (or be determined by) the character of the nationalism, that involves a particular interplay of civic and ethnic nationalism (though these are not the sole components). The character of a nationalism will be predominantly determined by the initial motivations for its emergence, whether it be a ‘natural’ process of a nation’s development, or a reaction to another nation’s development. And whether the inception of the national consciousness occurred within a politically demarcated territory, or is separate to state development. Theoretically the nature of the emergence of the nationalism (i.e. whether it is classified as civic or ethnic) will determine the ongoing nature of the nationalism and the national character of the people it possesses. The national character provides for a sense of self whilst the political culture creates the political environment in which the national character is to assert itself. Each nationalism is subjective, but nationalism is the objective exercise of it.

Conclusion
Nationalism is not the rite of passage to modernity, but goes beyond this. It is a cultural and political reaffirmation of a group within modernity and towards post-modernity. Collectivities are dynamic and new or altered high cultures always have the potential to still emerge. The exercise of nationalism is a result of a set of social conditions that produce a situation where the pervading culture is the high culture. This does not just effect the elite minorities but the entire population and ‘constitutes very nearly the only kind of unit which men willingly and often ardently identify’ in modernity.³² Nationalism as a function of modernity (and post-modernity) is used by the elite as a vehicle for social mobility - a method of redefinition. It is the role of the elite as intellectual awakeners to mobilise the mass, and by doing so nationalise them, either through management or outright manipulation. This process sees the birth of a new high culture, whether via education or by inherited characteristics, which either replaces some previously dominant cultural group or creates a new one ‘recreated by political will and cultural engineering, based on elements drawn from a distant past.’³³ The elite governs and the mass follow, but the elite must be moved from below.

The route towards nationhood has in theory been divided into two possible categories: the pursuit of a national identity as housed in a nation-state; or the exercise of national identity as the (re)assertion of a culture as being politically legitimate. This thesis is not seeking to disprove these routes to nationhood rather to show that in the exercise of nationalism these routes are not exclusive roads. Rather, regardless of the inception and conception of nationhood by a community of people, the actual process of nationalism involves an intermeshing of both forms. This is the theme throughout.

The following chapters will first explore the dichotomy of civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism set up in theory, and the interplay of the two in practice. The arguments of the modernists will be critically examined followed by the arguments of the ethnicists in Chapter Three. Chapter Four will derive the finer points from both perspectives demonstrating that in examining the exercise of nationalism both the modernists and the ethnicists working within a modernist framework make valid and important contributions to the theory of nationalism. From this it will be demonstrated that civic and ethnic nationalism are not mutually exclusive elements but that in practice they are collaborators in each nation’s own nationalism. The focus here will be limited to that of modern Europe.

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CHAPTER ONE

Ethnic Nationalism and Civic Nationalism

The discrimination between civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism is common in writings on nationalism and nations, whether it be as the civic-ethnic division, the political-cultural, or the Western-Eastern division. Writers, both modernists and ethnicists working within the paradigm of modernity, such as Hans Kohn, Liah Greenfeld, John Plamenatz, John Hutchinson, Ernest Gellner and Anthony Smith have all included this distinction in their writings. The historical differences in the development of the nation-state between the West and the East in Europe have enforced these theoretical-cum-practical divisions. In fact the East-West divide is less a geographic divide than an historic one. I am not disputing this historic divide, but my argument is that this divide does not justify the theoretical schism in writings on nationalism, nor does this divide extend to perpetuating the notion of two types of nationalism in practice. A "definitional antithesis" does exist but this should not lead, as it has done in literature, to the "set of analytical cliches" of which it does¹ denying ‘civic’ nations of ethnic virtues and denying those nations categorised as ‘ethnic’ of ‘civic’ virtues.²

According to modernists (with the exception of Benedict Anderson), Britain and France, as the first examples of modern nation-states in Europe, developed the rational, civic, political units of modernity and followed later with the development of a unique national consciousness housed within this.³ The nation-states of the East however, such as Germany and Russia, began as more fluid apolitical units whose national consciousness developed first, only later to seek to enclose it within a political form, in aspiration of the progress achieved by the West.⁴ These two separate routes to the nation-state are apparently the original examples of the exercise of the two separate types of nationalism.

The argument behind this discrimination poses that though the end result for both sides was the modern nation-state the routes they took differed, which would terminally ordain the manner in which these nation-states expressed themselves as a unit of modernity. That is, the formation of a nation would determine the national expression of a community. Therefore the basis of the nationalism is determined by whether the national feeling among the population emerged before or after the development of a nation-state. And since every nation-state is inherently nationalistic⁵ the timing of this development will in turn determine the motivations of continuity of the nation-state, thus its nationalism. This chapter will initially present the principles of civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism separately and then provide suggestions of how the interplay of the principles of each is necessary to certify the success of the practice of nationalism. I shall conclude by examining culture (high culture and popular culture) as the common ground forming the foundation for both the categories.

The first thing we need to do is briefly examine the relationship between civic and ethnic nationalism and the connection to cultural homogeneity. The proposal by those whom I will term the dichotomists (those who divide nationalism into two types) is that both civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism pursue mutually exclusive forms of cultural homogeneity. Within civic nationalism cultural standardisation is achieved via a particular level of communication and education, what Gellner labelled the ‘high culture’ and which we will use here. In communities where these tools are unsuccessful or unavailable the elite draw elements from the people developing a populist movement driven by the seduction of myths and symbols deliberately forming a shared memory and shared destiny with which to unite the people. The minimal appearance of high culture is compensated with an over-zealous popular culture. They manufacture a social glue from the Volk in the absence of other instruments. Cultural standardisation is then achieved through the ethnie and so the theoretical aim of ethnic nationalism is ethnic homogeneity.

In this modernist view, the ‘true’ exercise of nationalism within modernity is a social condition where political practice is married with a cultural phenomenon. Culture "introduces a mode of transmission of traits or activities from generation to generation which is no longer dependent on being inscribed into the genetic constitution of the members of the group."⁶ This means the association of culture with geneticism is completely removed in modernity. The removal of this dependency indicates the cultural break that modernity heralded and which modernists argue is crucial to the understanding of the functioning of nationalism. Ethnicity is perceived as linked to this genetic constitution of culture, or at least the perennial component of it. This explains why (as a consequence of this cultural break) modernists such as Gellner rule out the necessity and relevance of ethnicity in determining nationalism.

The problems is that ethnicity is not just an example of a continuum in culture from premodern times. It is both a part of culture and a part of politics within modernity. Gellner removes it from the core of nationalism, whilst still acknowledging that it may influence the nature of nationalism.⁷ But if ethnicity influences nationalism then will it not in some way determine the nature and character of nationalism, and thus the exercise of nationalism? Gellner tells us that "[n]ationalism is a political principle which maintains that similarity of culture is the basic social bond."⁸ Ethnicity is an element that can provide this required similarity of culture, though not to the extent of crowding out the civic elements of nationalism in order to possess one of its own. The proposal by some more extreme ethnicists⁹ is that ethnicity possesses its own form of nationalism absent of any civic elements. This would mean a nationalism that is unsuccessful and unfulfilled. By contrast, it is the argument of this thesis that nationalism is a political and cultural phenomenon, and embedded in this is the influences of ethnicity. The ethnic rationale is as much a component of nationalism as the civic. Both demonstrate methods by which culture is unifying.

One particular practical example is the Basque lands of Spain whose nationalism may be categorised as ethnic nationalism, but also possesses representations of civic nationalism. Membership of the Basque society is based on descent but the nationalism would not exist were it not for the strength of some of the principal features of civic nationalism. The nationalism is most virulent in regions where economic development and prosperity is greatest – a decidedly civic feature. In fact the epicentre of Basque nationalism has shifted this century, and particularly since the 1970s, in an eastward direction following the movement of economic wealth. This is a direct reflection of the importance of heavy industry and the generation of wealth.¹⁰ It is the significance of the components of civic nationalism and the existence of a civil society that is vital for this nationalism to have survived and to continue. The institutions that are integral components to the development and functioning of a civil society are also necessary components of Basque nationalism in Spain. Hence the more potent regions of Basque nationalism are not necessarily those that carry particular historical significance, or are the cradle of its inception according to myth, as ethnic nationalism would suggest.

The argument can be generalised. Nationalism in Europe, particularly that exercised in the second half of this century, is proving not to be compatible with the civic-ethnic dichotomy. The dichotomy itself is far too normative. The ethnic rationale in nationalism is becoming more and more prominent, however it still does not solely define nationalism, but it is certainly demonstrating that it is not just a method of classification nor an apolitical component. Not only has culture, and with it ethnicity, been politicised in modernity, ethnicity itself has become a form of politics, not unto itself, but in conjunction with the civic elements of the politics of nationalism.

The Difference – Civic Nationalism
Civic nationalism in its classical modern form represents the pursuit towards attaining a unified culturally homogenous group housed within already existent specific political boundaries. The starting point for civic nationalism is the state, and nationalism is the pursuit by this state of its own nation congruent with its territorial borders. Until this is achieved nationalism will remain a noisy component of society. In pursuing the establishment of a nation the role of the state is elevated, for it is no longer just a territorial region but a unit whose function is to house and protect its culturally homogeneous inhabitants. The political nation-state then is the starting point for civic nationalism and pivotal to its definition. The nation-state, as the nucleus of civic nationalism and the focus of the modernist camp, is defined by Gellner as:

the protector, not of a faith, but of a culture, and the maintainer of the inescapably homogeneous and standardizing educational system, which alone can turn out the kind of personnel capable of switching from one job to another within a growing economy and a mobile society, and indeed of performing jobs which involve manipulating meanings and people rather than things. ¹¹

The principles of civic nationalism – the state-to-nation route – were those that provided the first modern notion of the nation-state and the first experience of nationalism. ¹²

The focal point of civic nationalism is the nation-state promoting the belief in a society united by the concept and importance of territoriality, citizenship, civic rights and legal codes transmitted to all members of the group. Significantly, all the members are now equal citizens and equal before the law. No longer are the mass a part of the ‘low’ culture and the elite a part of the ‘high’ culture, rather modernity has eliminated these cultural cleavages and formed a new ‘high culture’. What the onset of modernity signified was a cultural break with the past, which subsequently meant an end to these cleavages. Public culture of this type is one that is a product of the modern world – the culture that emerges from factors such as advanced communication and education, rather than the vernacular characteristics of the people, or an ethnic group. This means that nationalism is "about entry to, participation in, identification with, a literate high culture which is co-extensive with an entire political unit, and its total population."¹³The social glue is provided by a commonality based upon shared traits not of the genealogical type but a fraternity of shared language, experiences, rules, law, food, education, etc. The fraternity requires no common paternity but a bond formed out of exposure to these same elements.

In practice, however, this civic model of nationalism cannot succeed without more substantial elements of the above principles. Citizenship for example is more than just a legal identity and a matter of common rights and codes within a society. It is about allegiance, participation and residence within the territory, and a feeling of solidarity and affiliation towards the community. As Smith points out, the will to participate in this community could only be found among those who were themselves residents and, just as importantly, whose parents were residents also.¹⁴ This is an important point, as nationalism in this form – where the emphasis is on an historical community based not only on an individual’s residence but their own ancestry, and hence their own genealogy - moves beyond the structure of civic nationalism in its pure form and towards that of the principles and characteristics carried by the theory of ethnic nationalism.

Within civic nationalism, citizenship can be elected and is what determines one’s nationality. But this does not rule out nationality determined by other elements and it is difficult to locate an example of where it might actually do so. Britain and France, historically, are the main contenders for where citizenship determines nationality, but more contemporary examples demonstrate just how much their nationalism can deviate from the confines of civic nationalism as they place importance on the ethnic rationale. In Britain, for example, in order to obtain a British passport by someone who is not born in Britain nor is a citizen one need only to prove that one’s grandparent is/was a British citizen, which lays weight to the importance of ancestry. But the true importance of genealogical descent is pushed even further. Recently a young woman seeking a British passport in the above mentioned manner was refused because she was adopted and so her grandparents were not her biological grandparents, thus she had no real genealogical ties to Britain and hence no claim to a passport.¹⁵ Of course there are numerous such examples throughout Europe, but they have been generally attributed to the more central and eastern nation-states. The point here of course is that though a nation-state may have taken one particular route towards their formation and development they are not confined to these principles. In fact in order to survive, in order to practice nationalism successfully, they must move beyond the boundaries of civic nationalism set up by theorists.

The components of civic nationalism are not new. Notions of citizenship and territoriality existed in many cases in premodern times as with the existence of the state and notions of patriotic consciousness. The pursuit of uniting these components into one entity, the territorial association of citizens that share one public culture,¹⁶ is what differentiates it with past examples. Citizenship is the foundation of civic nationalism that "conveyed the sense of solidarity and fraternity through active social and political participation."¹⁷ It is perceived as the political definition of nationality.¹⁸ However, the exercise of civic nationalism where the emphasis is on territory, and the actual practice of citizenship, indicates a shift away from the authority and sovereignty of citizenship based solely on social and political participation. The exercise of nationalism requires a communal attachment that transcends the sovereignty of the citizen for nationalism requires more than just social and political participation, it necessitates social and political attachment also.

An attachment to a specific land and to a specific community is necessary for there to be a will to participate socially and politically. But the particular attachment by a community is usually not one randomly chosen (though an individual may choose their nationality, their attachment or feeling is not often a rational choice); it is the feeling of nationality by a whole community (rather than just focusing on an individual) from which the attachment must derive from and is something that must develop over time. So where an individual may choose their nationality and be embraced by their new nation-state as one of their own (a citizen), the exercise of nationalism by the whole community is not one selected, but one developed. This means that this affiliation by a whole people, this sense of kinship, is something inherited and was felt in some form by the parents and grandparents of the current generation.¹⁹ This suggests that citizenship, as nationality in practice, does not exist in its pure definitional form as it possesses concepts that move beyond the rational notion of choice.

Ethnic Nationalism
The principles of civic nationalism represented the first experience of the nature of nationalism as a movement, it is the principles of ethnic nationalism, however, that have become the more powerful and vigorous elements of nationalism this century. Ethnic nationalism lends popular appeal to the nationalist movement drawing its ideological bonds from the people and their native history. Subsequently, in its ideal state this second route to nationhood is undertaken under the power of popular mobilisation. Appealing to elements ‘naturally’ unique to a group gives the movement an emotional allure. The elements that are at the core of ethnicity and ethnic nationalism - memory, value, myth and symbolism²⁰ - draw from blood ties, bonds to the land and native traditions inferring that ethnic nationalism represents that which is subjective within nationalism. Nationality is embodied in the individual whereas in civic nationalism the individual "can move in and out of pre-existing national space."²¹

This path towards nationhood possesses a different grounding than civic nationalism and thus occupies a different perspective of the nation, and a different structure of national identity. This is due to the different core conceptions of each ideal. Ethnic nationalism is presented as a nationalism that perceives the nation as a community bounded by genealogical descent. The national identity in turn draws its characteristics from the ethnic identity, myths and memories make up national identities imprisoned in the community’s ancestry. Thus national identity is defined as a perennial feature within the theory of ethnic nationalism, and is a reflection of the populist nature of ethnic nationalism.

In explaining populism, Anthony Smith claims that he approaches the definition in the same manner that Tom Nairn does by describing it as a coalition between the masses and the elite.[sup22][/sup] It is a product of their interaction and contingency upon one another, i.e. they are dependent upon one another to progress. In the birth of ethnic nationalism the mass is left out of the high culture - it is only the elite who can participate, manipulating the masses rather than managing them, in order to mobilise them. But this mobilisation must take place in response to the demands of the mass - the demands for progress. Hence the contingency. Mobilisation could only take place with the tools available or via methods that would compensate for the tools unavailable such as the necessary economic and political institutions. The use of compensatory tools often meant the use of the uniqueness of the people themselves - characteristics that they regarded as distinguishing themselves from others. "The peripheric elites had no option but to try and satisfy such demands by taking things into their own hands."²³ Elite manipulation then serves to crystallise mass discontent.

However, this mobilisation towards progress and as a process of development was a reactionary measure against the dominance (and nationalism) of the ‘Western’ or civic nations, as proposed by the theory of ethnic nationalism. The foreign element of the ‘West’ was made attractive by the dignity it lent to the people and became a necessity for the preservation of communities. Reacting against this foreign element meant that it was also reacting against the progress it was aspiring towards.²⁴ Therefore this drive towards progress, the motivation of nationalism, was consequently then a reaction to other dominant forces (perhaps even other civic nationalisms), particularly as the concept of the nation for these type of nationalisms is predominantly an imported idea. The presentation of ethnic nationalism, or similar nationalisms, as reactionary is one promoted by writers such as Greenfeld and Nairn, though the nature of the reaction varies amongst writers. Greenfeld labels this importation as ressentiment – a reaction to external elements as a result of repressed existential envy.²⁵ Thus it is not just the importation of ideas but a reaction to the mere implantation of foreign ideas. And as Nairn identifies, this meant that nationalisms which were born out of reaction are marked by profound ambiguity and ambivalence.²⁶ Hutchinson is another writer who has occasionally suggested ethnic nationalism to be a reactionary nationalism, construed as negative.

This borrowing of ideas however meant that these groups had to fit their social character into the desired foreign social form. This necessitated a level of invention in order to create a history that made their aspirations appear natural and legitimate and intrinsic in their inherent development. This required mobilising the masses not just in response to their demands, but to meet their demands by issuing a history to them. Just as they needed a shortcut towards a high culture they also needed a short-cut to a history which would lend the necessary legitimacy to this nationalism. "The new middle-class intelligentsia of nationalism had to invite the masses into history; and the invitation card had to be written in a language they understood."²⁷ Forcing this process of development and creating a high culture and history due to necessity suggests that the role of the elite in more ethnic-flavoured nationalisms was more conscious and manipulatory. This further suggests a requirement to rise above the law, which is why ethnic nationalism is seen to sometimes act as a bulwark to liberal democracy and lend itself more easily to authoritarian rule. Being vulnerable to these influences also impacts on the character of nationalism and the psychology of the group.

Nationalism has a great psychological depth. It appears to individuals of all types who are members of a nation and evokes emotion beyond that which may be considered just patriotic. The psychology of nationalism is important for the group as a unit for what it inspires and motivates from the group. Exploring the psychology of nationalism is important for the group as a unit for what it inspires and motivates from the group. Exploring the psychology of nationalism and what it may or may not promote exposes those nationalisms classified as ethnic to be regarded as potentially or actually pathological.²⁸ It is a careless assumption that it is a ‘natural’ part of human behaviour to fight and resort to violence in order to defend territory and family, and that ethnic sentiments are intrinsic in the human psyche. Scholarly theories do steer away from such assumptions, unfortunately to such as extent that psychological understanding of nationalism is little explored.²⁹ One still has to account for the emotion provoked by nationalism, the will of people to partake in nationalistic behaviour and the loyalty it demands. This, complementing the structural components of the theory of nationalism, helps to explain its perpetuation, and more importantly the national character and national consciousness of each group which distinguishes it from the next. Perhaps then we may understand better the national consciousness of areas such as the Balkans, rather than reducing it to a consequence of ‘ancient ethnic hatreds’; or the passion behind the Irish Republican movement without declaring it as simply religious xenophobia.

National consciousness in Eastern Europe formed prior to the politicisation of the community (including both the elite and the mass). Due to this different point of inception the focal point of nationalism has meant a greater emphasis is placed on the components of the prepolitical time – namely the ethnie. Under the theories that dichotomise the practice and ideology of nationalism they are sentenced to practise ethnic nationalism. What this means is the recognition and "demand that the natural divisions within the nation – sexual, occupational, religious and regional – be respected, for the impulse to differentiation is the dynamo of national creativity".³⁰ This is paramount in the exercise of nationalism by those nation-states whose political formation was preceded by its national formation. But does this condemnation mean that the ‘Eastern’ nation-states will always practice only ethnic nationalism, with no access to the civic components of nationalism merely because of their conception? Hutchinson believes so when he states that cultural nationalists reject "the ideal of universal citizenship rights of political nationalism"³¹ for the nation is a living whole and continuous. Politics cannot give justification or legitimisation to this. It was not that the nationalists of the East "rejected" these ideals, but that these ideals developed at a different time, at a different pace, and consequently took on a slightly different form to that of the West. To Hutchinson the nation in Eastern Europe, and thus the nation-state, was not a political fact but an ethnocultural one.³² It was an ethnocultural fact in search of political legitimacy. If we are to succumb to distinctions this was the nationalism of the East.

The emphasis on the ethnie and the belief in its continuity from agrarian to modern times is the main distinction between the two ideals of civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism. The ethnic rationale has little weight in theories of civic nationalism and is also not supported by the modernists (to be explored in the next chapter). Whereas the primordialists and perennialists see no break between the agrarian and the modern age and see nations as built upon the pre-existing structures of ethnic identities. By recognising continuity with the past greater importance is attached to history. Ethnicists working within the modernist framework acknowledge a change in culture with the onset of modernity but rather than regarding it as a cultural break perceive it as the politicisation of culture, therefore still acknowledging the importance of history and of the ethnic rationale. The principles promoted by civic nationalism, principles born out of modernity, demonstrate a definite cultural break with the pre-modern age. Within the ideal of civic nationalism the national identity stems from the concept of an ideology based on the imagined political community united by their public culture, and not by native history.

Interplay
Though the starting point for various nationalisms is varied civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism became overlaying dominant ideologies such classifications exclusively applied are false. In practice it would mean that the actual exercise of nationalism would ultimately fail in attaining and reaffirming the goal of a nation-state. The ‘pure forms’ of civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism stem from different reference points and different concepts of the nation. For example, observing ethnic nationalism in this scenario and using the position of the primordialists (and temporarily stepping out of the modernist framework), the theory suggests that the ethnic groups of the past would naturally evolve into nations as a part of the ‘natural’ process of a community, or an extension of kinship ties. The process of nationalism however lends a twist in the conception for it implies the desire to detain a nation within a state. The nation-state having a civic quality in order to achieve this civic quality would mean adopting characteristics of civic nationalism. In this way ethnic nationalism – in practice as a mongrelised form of its theoretically pure self – accommodates to the concept of abstract territoriality in order to satisfy its goals. An interplay is necessary for the nationalism to be successful.

Similarly, as mentioned above, civic nationalism must draw from the characteristics of ethnic nationalism to confer popular appeal, drawing upon myths and symbols, and recognising the importance of heritage in the will to belong and participate both socially and politically in a group. So in order to be accomplished and fulfilled each nationalism in practice must borrow from one another. Thus in various combinations the first route of nationalism, civic nationalism, "joined hands"³³ with the second route of nationalism, ethnic nationalism. These borrowed elements are not just elements of influence but are essential components necessary to make the nationalism work.

Civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism as demonstrated may be analytically different but in practice they are intermeshing. Every individual nationalism is a hybrid construct, a synthesis of the civic and the ethnic. This means that each nationalism is civic and ethnic to some extent in that they carry different elements and characteristics of civic nationalism and different elements and characteristics of ethnic nationalism. Using France and Germany again as representations of the classical division, France representing civic nationalism and Germany ethnic nationalism, they are each perceived as archetypal examples of each respective category of nationalism. Though decidedly civic in principle or ethnic in flavour they are not purely such. The sophisticated dichotomists do not dispute this dilution, but they rarely follow through the consequences of the interplay. Brubaker himself acknowledges that each nation-state does not represent a purely political or purely apolitical understanding of nationhood. In Germany for example political authority was so limited that it could not enter into the understanding of nationhood, this responsibility was thus carried by ethnicity.³⁴ But this was only at the period of nation formation. As Germany developed to form one united national unit its political authority also developed. Initially in Germany identification with the instruments and institutions of the state were absent, as modernity progressed they developed and were integrated in the overall understanding of nationhood, even if led by the ethnocultural conception. Nationhood in Germany was then perhaps predominantly an ethnocultural concept at its inception, but the understanding, and more importantly the exercise of nationalism in Germany was never purely ethnocultural or just a dilution of it, but an interplay of the dominant ethnocultural feature of nationalism with its civic components. Likewise in France, the inception of nationhood was never purely political, though its foundations were based on political understanding. For France as a nation-state to progress and for its members to practice its nationalism – for the members to possess the will to partake in it – the emotive features possessed by ethnicity as a form of culture were necessary. France and Germany perhaps exercise different variations of nationalism, but the fact remains that they both do exercise and partake in nationalism. They both partake in this ideological movement in order to progress in modernity, thus rather than examining what differentiates the two nation-states, there is something that both France and Germany possess that makes their nationalism successful. This similarity is the successful interplay of the pressures on nationalism, which include the civic components and the ethnic components.

The degree of concentration of each category of nationalism varies widely. It is these variations in the make-up of each nationalism that distinguishes them from one another, and consequently sentences the ideology of nationalism to no clear-cut theory. Thus the ideological movement of nationalism is a hybrid of the civic character and the ethnic character of nationalism, meaning a hybrid of history and culture, the territorial and the genealogical, the engineered and the discovered. Writers who dichotomise nationalism use various European examples to demonstrate the schism, in much the way that Brubaker does with France and Germany. But by over-focusing on the differences in nationalisms within Europe, and attempting to categorise them, often the similarities are overlooked. It is the similarities that make nationalism successful and why, contrary to literary opinion,³⁵ has still failed to fade away. The more fervent type of nationalism experienced in the latter half of the twentieth century in Europe has been categorised as ethnic nationalism.

Modernity has meant that culture has been politicised. Claiming that one nationalism is cultural and another political (or ethnic and civic, or Eastern or Western) refutes this unmistakable link. I am not disputing that the nation-states we know today formed in different ways – this is not the thesis – different routes do and did exist unique to each community. What I am stressing is that nationalism is the same sport on both sides of the fence – the civic and the ethnic, the political and the cultural, are all components of this game and not exclusive to any particular side, regardless of how the game originally emerged. Certainly, as we are witnessing towards the end of this century, some nationalisms concentrate more heavily on some components than others – but without all the components together there would not be a nationalism.

Perhaps the most challenging nationalism with which this may be difficult to reconcile is the case of the Balkans today, particularly the former Yugoslavia. Serb nationalism has infiltrated destruction in Bosnia and now in Kosovo (though Croat nationalism, Bosnian nationalism and Kosovar/Albanian nationalism has been just as potent at times). These nationalisms and their violent consequences are attributed to perennial conflicts in the region based on ethnic divisions. However, these conflicts were never perennial. Past prejudices were not motivated by ethnic or religious difference but were "largely a socio-political one, involving the exercise and abuse of local political power for the sake of political gain."³⁶ Ethnic divisions did not become issues of tension and conflict until they were politicised and in the Balkans this did not occur until the nineteenth century. Therefore the nationalisms in the Balkans were not the consequence of perennial ethnic tensions. The conflict-ridden nature is attributed to the manipulation and exploitation of ethnic divisions and history and the creation of myths and cults for ideological purposes. Nationalism in this case is not the ideology itself but acts as a vehicle by which the ideology can survive. The nationalism then is a modern phenomenon in the Balkan region and without elements of the civic components of nationalism it would not survive nor would this nationalism have been so successful.

As I will argue later in more detail, the exercise of nationalism would not exist in the Balkans, and in other regions of Europe were it not for the interplay of both the civic and ethnic components of nationalism. The interplay of the ethnic and civic components of nationalism is centred on the need for cultural homogeneity. A community enclosed in a political space must be united by uniformity in culture and this is what the intermeshing of the ethnic and civic components strive towards in order for a successful exercise of nationalism.

Culture
The ground linking modern civic and ethnic nationalism is culture: not ‘culture’ understood as a perennial unchanging base, but culture as emphasising a changing form of social relations. A common culture is a necessary feature of nationalism (both civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism), and is also the link between the modernists and the ethnicists. It is the concept of what this common unifying culture represents and what it is comprised of that differentiates the two camps and leaves them unable to reconcile their respective perspectives. Adopting Ernest Gellner’s definition of culture it is "a shared style of expression in words, facial expression, body language, style of clothing, preparation and consumption of food, and so forth."³⁷ According to him there are two types of culture, those that are "patterns of conduct transmitted through emulation" and those that are the "interaction of genetic endowment with the environment".³⁸ This second type of culture is disregarded by most modernists for it is not one from which a ‘high’ culture can emerge, an essential component of nationalism in the modernist framework. Therefore the two types of culture exist on different planes and only one is politically and socially relevant in modernity. There certainly is a clear distinction between cultural transmission and genetic transmission, and it is cultural transmission that makes nationalism possible. It is this, and not genetic ethnicity, that perpetuates the phenomenon.³⁹ But can this cultural transmission be organic?⁴⁰ Perhaps not, but surely if culture is transmitted then some of its characteristics can be reproduced from pre-modern times with remnants of its ‘genetic’ base. Existing remnants may not have been eliminated with the onset of modernity, but they have certainly been politicised. A "specific genetic base is required before culture is possible: once it is possible, it permits developments unconstrained by the usual rules of governing genetic change."⁴¹

What Gellner recognised as linking a people together was not some genetic, biological or ethnic trait that make a people physically similar, but rather culture, or more specifically, a ‘high’ culture that made people socially alike and was capable of creating and maintaining a political bond. What differentiates high cultures from each other is decided by the development of a group and their specific response to the introduction of modernity. In particular, this may be a consequence of whether the population is at the core of industrialisation or a peripheral society. Their historical development and experiences act as a precursor to how nationalism will be exercised. The method of elevation of both the elite and the mass to a high culture, that is the elected educational process, is what inevitably distinguishes one high culture from the next. Societies are different due to the different circumstances of a political/cultural nature experienced by them. Therefore, societies are not ‘essentially’ different but their reactions to "questions forced upon" them generate differences.⁴²

The politicisation of culture has meant that what were once purely cultural concerns in the past have in the modern age become social and political concerns, involving territory, economy and society. And if we align ourselves momentarily with the primordialists and agree that the nation is a ‘natural’ formation, then modernisation has meant that the nation is not just a community of people sharing the same culture but now a population that are bounded in political space as well. This belief however does not require the primordial conviction that nations are ‘natural’ formations. Whether what existed before modernity is a nation or not is debatable, what is more important is what carried through into modernity and how these inherited elements do or do not effect the way in which a nationalism is exercised.

The politicisation of culture is the abdication of "the realm of culture" in preference to politics. Politics is now no longer just the domain of the elite and intelligentsia but open to all members of a society.⁴³ Former "objects of history" are now "subjects of history", and the passive are now participants.⁴⁴ They now all form a ‘high culture’. The politicisation of culture has meant a collective change of attitude in each population sharing the same culture. The change in attitude that represented the "conjunction of culture with politics" is demonstrative of the core of nationalism and a key element in the process of nationalism itself.⁴⁵ These changes may be produced either via substantive changes in the economic, political and religious atmosphere of society, or more covertly by the manipulation of the elites, and most likely as a combination of these factors.⁴⁶

Those components of a people that are reproduced in modernity will undoubtedly be elements unique to a people, namely their ethnic elements. This also bonds a people by their shared features of an ethnie embedded in a culture within modernity. The ethnie is a feature of culture that may or may not serve to be the unifying homogeneous component. At the times when the ethnie is a dominant feature of culture it may sometimes be confused as overriding culture and being the unifying feature of a community of people. This is when a nationalism is considered ethnic, and when other components of a culture, particularly if there are signs of a ‘high culture’, are overlooked. In the latter half of this century this classification of nationalism has been mainly attributed to the nation-states of Eastern Europe. In Eastern Europe, particularly since the end of the Cold War, changes occurred in a variety of ways and found vents through a variety of outlets, whilst "simultaneously exciting tensions along latent axes such as those of an ethnic nature".⁴⁷

The Balkans in particular has leant itself as an example of the virulent nature attributed to ethnic nationalism. Certainly the battles and wars fought since 1989, the movement of peoples under the term of ethnic cleansing, and the fragmentation of the former Yugoslavia itself has provided ample evidence. However, were it not for the civic components of nationalism the nationalisms exercised in the former Yugoslavia would not have been successful. And by success I mean success in the establishment of political units as a motivation and consequence of the action of the nationalisms. Croatian nationalism would not have achieved a Croatian nation-state if it did not consider also the importance of democratic development and an economy independent of the Yugoslav regime. The nation-state of Bosnia-Herzegovina, though propped up by the international arena, would not have been imagined two decades ago but is a civic and ethnic response to the nationalism encountered by both the Croats and the Serbs on either side of it.

As a consequence of the nationalisms exercised in this region, some only emerging as a response to the hostile and imposing nature of other nationalisms, we now have the establishment of individual nation-states, fulfilling the goals of most of the nationalisms exercised in this region. The absence of a specifically ‘Yugoslav’ culture – ethnic or other – despite a whole generation growing out of it, meant it was vulnerable to the other nationalisms that existed within it, and ultimately overcame the state of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia, as the name itself suggests (‘land of the South Slavs’) was never one nation in one state, but many nations and potential nations sharing the one state-space. The violence during its break-up can be attributed not to the classification of ethnic nationalism but directly to the clash of nationalisms as they competed for state space and asserted their own cultural homogeneity (along ethnic lines) which often conflicted with that of their neighbours.

By allowing culture to possess such elements as ethnie introduces matter that may extend beyond the definitions of reason and rationality – in extreme cases giving its mystique quality. As a representative of the modernists Gellner reconciles the issue of nationalism as a "spell" by housing it in his definition of culture (i.e. a high culture). He sees nationalism embedded in the social life of the modern age, and the "raw material" of this social life is culture and organisation.⁴⁸ Culture is found universally and perennially, which cannot be said about nations, states or nationalisms.⁴⁹ Therefore not only is culture a raw material of nationalism, it was present prior to modernity. But it is a ‘high’ culture that Gellner’s theory asserts is the necessary condition of nationalism. High culture is achieved only via advanced communication and literacy attained through education. This ‘high’ culture must be homogeneous and it is from here that the political bond is formed and a nation born. Nationalism is the homogeneity of one high culture (which encompasses public and popular culture), or the act of creating a high culture by a population that does not yet have one.⁵⁰

The nature of the culture prior to the onset of this change will influence the nature of the nationalism should it emerge. For this reason it becomes important to locate the "state of the cultural identity" of the population prior to their politicisation. That is, in order to identify a unique national identity, and thus locate the character of a nationalism, the key is the group’s cultural identity prior to being politicised. And the key to discovering this is by using what cultural remnants remain, which is most probably the population’s ethnic component. As Smith states:

Hence it becomes important to enquire into the ‘state of cultural identity’ of a given community on the eve of its exposure to the new revolutionary forces, in order to locate the bases of its subsequent evolution into a fully-fledged ‘nation’. ⁵¹

Modernity meant that equivalent identities were necessary in order to elevate or catch up to meet other advanced populations at the level they were at. This was to be done collectively and these identities were to be decided "along whatever fault-lines were available."⁵² This would include cultural fault-lines that may be ethnic. The identity of a community would be determined by the unifying feature of their culture, which would define their national identity representing the nationalism they exercised. National identity is the dominant and operative identity under modernisation.

Conclusion
The interplay of the characteristics of civic and ethnic nationalism can be viewed through either civic or ethnic spectacles. For example, ‘citizenship’ is the unifying force under civic nationalism and once possessed it is assumed there is a sense of solidarity among the people. In practice however possession of the rights that citizenship pertains and participation in the community is attached to a greater menagerie of elements.

Core elements of ethnic nationalism are used to build on the foundations of civic nationalism in order to fulfil its goals. The main goal is the formation of a nation within an already existing state. To achieve the cultural homogeneity sought after by civic nationalism requires shared values and the use of myths and symbols, particularly if the state lacks a dominant ethnie from which they can establish a political community. Similarly delivering ethnic ties to the form of a nation is accomplished by the establishment of a state. That is, by seeking to encompass a particular national group within a demarcated territory, thereby practising nationalism on an ethnic base using some civic ingredients. Therefore, all nationalisms are in some way a combination of both engineering and discovery – an intermeshing of the classifications of civic and ethnic nationalism. Alone they are unsuccessful.

Due to the disparity of the nationalisms practised throughout the world, especially in Europe, and the difficulty in providing a comprehensive theory on the exercise of nationalism has led to the acquiescence to this misleading division. Let us now identify the arguments presented by the modernists and the ethnicists in the next two chapters in observing the ideology and practice of nationalism. This may bring to light the reason why this division is perpetuated in the writings on nationalism, even though it does not represent its contradicting nature.

[NatVox]

CHAPTER TWO

Nationalism as Perceived by the Modernists

The last chapter examined the fallacious dichotomy of civic and ethnic nationalism and how culture is the central unifying force within both classifications. It is culture that demonstrates how the two classifications are in practice intermeshing, even if their perceptions of culture differ. When explored as separate entities of nationalism the arguments presented by both civic and ethnic nationalism are quite convincing. In this chapter we will examine the arguments presented by the radical modernist camp in nationalist discourse, a discourse whose potency is congruent with the strengths of civic nationalism. My approach in this chapter is to demonstrate that the generally convincing modernist argument is weak in terms of its over-specificity on the determinants of nationalism and its over-generalisation concerning the consequences. It is also weak in its inability to explain nationalism beyond the terms of rationality and reason (i.e. failing to explain the non-rational emotive factor of nationalism), thus falling short of being a comprehensive theory.

There are a number of writers that may be classified as radical modernists (‘modernists’ as a shorthand description). Ernest Gellner’s theory of nationalism is arguably the most comprehensive; Tom Nairn provides the Marxist spin on nationalism; and Benedict Anderson, who views the onslaught of modernity, and with it nationalism, as a process that has taken many stages over a lengthy period of time, being a product of capitalism. In no way does this mean that each of their theories is equivalent. Gellner focuses on civic society from the perspective of liberal pluralism. Tom Nairn is more critical of the materialist aspect of nationalism and views the uneven development of capitalism as a cause for the continual rise of nationalism. His is a more internationalist perspective, and his theory occasionally criss-crosses from the modernists to the ethnicists. Benedict Anderson recognises the social construction of nation-states and presents them as "imagined communities".

Despite their differences however it is possible to recognise a common framing set of assumptions amongst these theorists. Firstly, they all recognise a cultural break between premodern and modern times; there is an elevation of the members of a community to being both social and political participants; nations are viewed as political units that are products of industrialisation and capitalism; and finally they all view nations as social constructions. As Gellner tells us, "[n]ationalism is neither universal and necessary nor contingent and accidental, the fruit of idle pens and gullible readers. It is the necessary consequence or correlate of certain social conditions".¹ It is predominantly Gellner’s theory and representation of nationalism that this chapter will address. Modernists adhere to the notion that divisions are not inherent in human nature but are the social product of modernity. Indeed divisions are not inherent in human nature, but neither are the workings of modernity equal and identical throughout humanity. The different reactions to modernity at different points in time have created differences in culture within politics. In modern Europe it is these different reactions that have developed divisions based on differentiation in experiences and history – not just in geography.

There is no clear formula of social conditions that generate nationalism beyond a united cultural base that, with the advent of major changes (such as industrialisation), strives towards nationhood. According to the modernists, particularly Gellner, this striving is in order to locate a congruence of nation and state – the principles of national self-determination. With no formula each nation or potential nation follows its own unique path toward nationhood, which may perhaps explain the absence of a clear theory of nationalism. The modernists fall short of providing a theory for a number of reasons. Anthony Smith (an ethnicist modernist who will be examined in the next chapter) provides us with a few weaknesses in the modernist argument.

1. Their generality means they cannot be easily applied to specific areas or cases.
2. Their materiality is overemphasised and misleading.
3. Nationalism as a product of modernisation overlooks the "persistence of ethnic ties and cultural sentiments". Modernists in fact disagree at the degree, if any, of connection between ethnic ties and cultural sentiments. ²

The latter point is perhaps the most important when criticising modernisation theory for though the modernists do present a valid exploration of nationalism, their conscious expulsion of the ethnic rationale in their theory leaves nationalism under modernisation theory unfulfilled. It is the first point however that is the key to locating what form the structure for the modernists and what these elements mean to nation formation and the reproduction of nationalism. The modernists are able to locate the causes of nationalism but are not successful at locating the reproduction. This chapter will begin then by examining these structural elements, the changes they have undergone and how this represents changes in subjectivity as perceived by the modernists. Other elements also to be explored include time and consciousness, and culture and ethnicity, as perceived by the modernists.

Structural Elements in Modernist Theory
Modernists rely heavily on the determinants of nation formation – those elements they believe underwent and were a part of the structural changes contributing to the nation-state, as we know it. I have already pointed out the framing set of assumptions in modernist theory: an underlying structural change, nations as political units and social constructions, and nations as products of modernity. The structural elements that comprise these framing assumptions include the market, the economy, industry, capital, and print capital. Their relationship to one another is varied and complex, likewise their respective relationship with the nation-state and nationalism is also complex. Together they introduced tools which allowed groups to proceed onto a new level of co-existence which included new levels of communication, new perceptions of time (including history and memory), and new perceptions of land and territory. In all its various manifestations this served to elevate groups to a ‘high’ culture.

These new perceptions instigated a change in the nature of the subjectivity, which in turn provoked a cultural/structural shift. This is the premise of the theory of the radical modernists. The cultural shift in particular is the basis of Gellner’s theory where culture becomes a more self-conscious active element that is now politicised due to this structural shift. This politicisation is a consequence of the change in subjectivity and elevates all members of a community now bounded by political borders to a new role of political participants, mass and elite alike. But this is where Gellner, in particular, over-generalises the consequence of these changes. Not all communities are politically bounded, and though they are now self-conscious communities they seek self-determination, but nationalism is not just national self-consciousness/determination but rather it is the determination of the unit by others.³ Gellner places great emphasis on this political reality, and on the notion that not only are self-conscious communities to be recognised, but also that these same communities are to be culturally homogeneous. Therefore the nation is considered a culturally homogeneous unit, and the nation and the state are required to be congruent – a necessity of industrial society. However this, as Smith’s first point of criticism addresses, cannot be easily applied to specific areas or cases.

In Europe there is perhaps no case of a nation-state that is culturally homogeneous and where the nation and state are completely congruent. Members of a community who consider themselves as one group are in reality not likely to be politically enclosed in the one physical space, there may be many communities existing in the one physical space. In Great Britain there are effectively four culturally distinct communities in the one political space – the Welsh, the Scottish, the Irish and the English. In addition members of these four culturally distinct communities exist beyond the political physical space of Great Britain. Diaspore communities reside in other regions of the world with strong allegiances with the homeland, whether it is Irish communities in the Unites States or the English in Australia. Throughout Europe there are numerous examples of communities that ‘spill-over’ from the political space that encloses the majority of their community to neighbouring political units. German communities are common in many areas throughout Eastern Europe, Russian minorities exist in the Baltic States and in Ukraine, Hungarian minorities reside in Romania and in rump Yugoslavia. These are communities who are self-conscious of their nationality, which may or may not be equated with ethnic categories. Whether these communities consider themselves a part of the greater society in whose political space they reside will determine whether they pose a national threat through the desire to attain their own nation-state or join the nation-state of origin. Additionally, these communities must be recognised by the host society as members of their society. Estonia for example does not recognise the national minority of Russians as citizens of Estonia but as foreigners in their land.

The progression of a group from considering themselves (and being recognised by others) as a community to being a self-conscious society is the subjective change that the modernists view as vital to the understanding of nationalism, and is pivotal in the structural change that accompanied modernity. It is the move of a group from Gemeinschaft (literally community) to Gesellschaft (society) – the great sociological dichotomy. These changes are determined by the structural elements introduced and brought to significance by modernity. Capital and industry, two such structural elements, have proliferated throughout the globe over the past two centuries, they have landed in different ways and in different places at different times, meaning they have effected different groups in different ways. As structural elements of modernity the introduction of modernity therefore varied from region to region, depending on the formation of the structural change and how they were received. Whether a group pursued modernity, or modernity infected it will also determine the temper of nationalism within particular societies.

Modernist theory contends that nations can only exist in modern societies, that is, in a Gesellschaft, and the process towards attaining this generates nationalism. Gellner believes any existence of nations prior to the modern era is merely accidental. It is only in modernity that concepts like the nation, and the nation-state can exist and where activities such as nationalism can take place. They are born out of the transition from the premodern agrarian era to the modern more urban one as societies develop and emerge through the rubric of industrialisation.⁴ The emerging new society would be centred on a literate high culture, assimilating any newcomers into it. If industrialisation is not thorough enough in assimilating the smaller groups into the larger more dominant ones, then there is the potential for another nationalism to emerge. Particularly if there is a lack of consensus on what culture(s) the political borders of a state do house.

An interesting example of a nationalism that did not completely submerge into the dominant society, but nor is it seeking to establish its own complete state is Scotland. National autonomy does exist and the nationalism that is practised is consciously civic in character; comparing its nationalism to that of its neighbours, Ireland and Wales, Scottish nationalism appears less ‘ethnic’. Some explanations for this is that industrialisation was more thorough in Scotland than it was in Ireland and Wales. More specifically, agrarian change was more rigorous in Scotland so as to disembowel peasant society, thus removing the "blood-and-soil" feature from their nationalism.⁵ In this case, according to modernisation theory, industrialisation was thorough enough to involve the Scottish society in the larger more dominant British one. They subscribed to the literate high culture of Britain. Thus Scottish nationalism still exists, but within the workings of Great Britain.

The modernists restrict nationalism to being "a series of adjustments demanded by entry into the era of modernity"⁶ but what is their fuel and what gives them strength? And why do they not go away? This is what the modernists do not have a handle on and do not clearly address. The modernist thesis contends that economic forces are responsible for modernity and modernity is responsible for nationalism. Therefore by deduction economic forces are responsible for nationalism. Clearly with industrialisation, a force of economics, the character of politics, and that of political activity, has changed. The root of this change is situated in the changes in subjectivity and thus structural changes that gave rise to new factors of significance. With the rise of capital industry there has been the emergence and rise of a middle and working class that have become new actors in the social arena, consequently altering the nature of the political arena. Industrialisation has meant that politics has progressed to become "a non-elite, then a majority, concern".⁷ By politics now becoming a majority concern and moving beyond an elite-only venture, these majorities have formed together in culturally homogeneous and politically aware groups where there social concerns are similar and thus as a group they can aspire for the same goals.