Nation and Identity

[yllica]

An interesting book, I'll post more later:

Nation and Identity
Ross Poole; Routledge, 1999

Introduction
p1 – 8
Nationalism has played an enormous role in world history over the past few hundred years. It continues to do so. For many—I suspect for most who open this book—it is indelibly associated with some of the worst aspects of modern history. Large numbers of otherwise decent people have carried out unbelievable atrocities for no better reason than their nation required them to. Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes have crushed dissent, eliminated opposition and trampled on civil liberties in the name of the nation. The rhetoric of national identity is used to stand in the way of civilised policies towards refugees and immigrants. Yet, as we recount the horrors, we should also be—perhaps uncomfortably—aware how much we take the nation for granted in our day to day life. Without thinking about it, we pick out one stretch of territory and one collection of historical narratives as ours, and we recognise one group of people as fellow members of our nation. And even the horrors have another side. Nations have called forth heroism and sacrifice as well as murder and torture. People have risked their lives to restore democracy and civil rights in their own country, when they could easily have chosen comfortable exile elsewhere. Programmes of health reform, social welfare and environmental repair have gained political support because they appeal to a sense of national identity.

Nationalism has always been of interest to historians and social theorists. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it also received considerable attention from philosophers. But for most of the twentieth century, it has been all but ignored by philosophers. Students of moral and political philosophy might attend lectures, read the recommended texts and complete their degrees without coming across the concepts of the nation, national identity and nationalism. The overwhelming consensus among philosophers was that nationalism was not worth talking about. For example, Robert E. Goodin and Philip Pettit’s A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy (published in 1993) was intended to provide—in the editors’ words—a ‘synopsis of the “state of play” in contemporary political philosophy’. 1 The second of its three sections was entitled ‘Major Ideologies’ and it included articles on Anarchism, Conservatism, Feminism, Liberalism, Marxism and Socialism. There was no article on Nationalism. Goodin and Pettit differed from most of their predecessors in that they felt it necessary to explain this omission:
Nationalism—still less racism, sexism or ageism—does not figure, on the grounds that it hardly counts as a principled way of thinking about things. 2 That nationalism was lumped together with racism, sexism and ageism, together with the claim that it ‘hardly counts as a principled way of thinking about things’, suggests that it is the expression of prejudice, a form of unreason, not a coherent—let alone morally defensible—outlook on the world. 3

However, even at the time Goodin and Pettit made the claim, the collective wisdom was crumbling. Yael Tamir’s Liberal Nationalism (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993; second edition 1995) was published that very year, and David Miller’s On Nationality (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995) and Margaret Canovan’s Nationhood and Political Theory (Cheltenham, UK, and Brookfield, VT, Edward Elgar, 1996) followed close on its heels. All these books argued that some forms of nationalism were morally defensible, and, indeed, that a form of national community was presupposed by much of the liberal thinking which dominated mainstream political philosophy. While these arguments have not received universal assent, there is no doubt that nationalism is back on the philosophical agenda. Very few would now claim that nationalism was not worthy of philosophical discussion. In the past five years there have been a number of anthologies, special issues of journals, and articles and chapters by distinguished philosophers on nationalism and related subjects. 4

In retrospect, it is clear why nationalism was emerging as a central issue for political philosophers, even before Goodin and Pettit compiled their Companion. The debate between liberals and their opponents on the meaning and value of ‘community’ had reached a point where it was almost inevitable that someone was going to notice that nationalism was the form of communitarian thinking most influential in the modern world. Multiculturalism had already emerged as a significant political issue within all liberal-democratic countries, and political philosophers had become uneasily aware of the extent to which mainstream political and legal institutions operated through an established public culture. Nationalist movements, claiming the right of self-determination, emerged in the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Italy and Spain, as well as in Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. Philosophers were forced to consider, not merely the constituents of a liberal and democratic order, but how the borders of that order were to be determined. Indeed, despite the editors’ rejection of nationalism as a ‘Major Ideology’ worthy of philosophical attention, at least two of the contributors to the ‘Special Topics’ Section of Goodin and Pettit’s Companion offered some discussion of nationalism. 5

However, if the letter of Pettit and Goodin’s judgement was being overturned even as they wrote, something of its spirit lives on. Mainstream political philosophy remains dominated by various forms of liberalism. In the debate about nationalism, those who remain sceptical of its philosophical and moral credibility do so on the grounds that even the most benign forms of nationalism offend against some central tenets of liberalism, whilst those—such as Tamir and Miller—who argue for nationalism make it clear that the form of nationalism they defend is one which is compatible with liberal principles. If nationalism is to gain an invitation to the companionable world of political philosophy hosted by Goodin and Pettit, it will be because it has shown itself to be acceptable to the already invited guests. Tamir puts this bluntly: her project is ‘to “translate” nationalist arguments into liberal language’. 6 No doubt this reflects the balance of power within academic philosophy (if nowhere else). However, it is not at all clear that it is the most appropriate approach. Despite the best intentions of some authors, it draws a line between those nationalisms which are compatible with liberalism (the good ‘civic’ nationalisms) and those which are not (the bad ‘ethnic’ ones), and focuses on the former. 7 However, it may be that we will better understand the variety of nationalisms—including the ‘good’ ones—if we approach the phenomenon as a whole. It is also one of the strongest arguments presented by pro-nationalist theorists—and one which will find echoes in this book—that many characteristic liberal positions presuppose the existence of a political order based on the nation. If this argument is correct, then it is not only nationalism which must present itself in a form acceptable to liberalism, but liberalism which must also find a form appropriate to its nationalist underpinnings. If liberal principles are dependent upon the nation, then liberalism is hardly the appropriate tribunal to assess its moral credentials.

There is another respect in which liberalism does not provide the appropriate perspective from which to view nationalism. Liberals take for granted a certain conception of the moral agent—the person—who may be held responsible for what he or she chooses to do, possesses certain rights and obligations, is the subject of certain moral emotions, and enters into relations with other agents on the basis of mutual recognition and respect. Other identities—citizenship and nationality, for example—are treated as derivative, to be justified, if at all, from the perspective of the person. Where this perspective defines our conception of morality, the responsibilities which go with other moral agendas—those of national membership, for example—may well seem alien and unjustified. Even Yael Tamir, who is concerned to emphasise the importance of national identity in our lives, does not question the priority of personhood. 8 Yet it is only when we recognise that liberal personhood is only one of the moral identities which are available to us, that we can come to terms with the significance of these other identities. Membership of the nation, for example, is a specific form of individual existence and carries with it a certain conception of agency, of relationship with others, and appropriate forms of activity. From this perspective, the demands of the nation are not alien intrusions, but forms of individual commitment and, indeed, of individual fulfilment. If we are to come to terms with the moral force of nationalism, we must take seriously not only the likelihood that it involves values which are different to those of liberalism, but also the possibility that our national identity may be no less fundamental than our identity as persons.

One way to diminish the temptation to give liberalism priority over nationalism is to conceive of them both historically. They are in fact almost coextensive. Both doctrines emerged in a self-conscious form in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Western Europe and the European colonies in the Americas. In both cases, it is possible to trace the roots a few centuries earlier, liberalism to the sixteenth century and nationalism perhaps a century earlier. 9 In the nineteenth century and later, both were exported to the rest of the world, nationalism with rather more success than liberalism. That both liberalism and nationalism originated in early Western modernity has suggested to some that they are the effects of more basic causes—capitalism, the market, industrialisation, or whatever. Marxists, for example, are tempted to conceive both liberalism and nationalism as mere epiphenomena of the market, while Ernest Gellner—we shall see in Chapter 1—conceived of nationalism as an effect of industrialisation. There is, however, no good reason to draw the connections as tightly as this, and many reasons not to. All we need to recognise is that both doctrines developed as men and women tried to make sense of the changes which were taking place and to work out how to respond to them, how to organise social and political life, what responsibilities men and women had to each other and to the State, and so on. These ways of conceiving the world have been embodied in the institutions and practices of almost all Western societies—and a good number of non-Western ones as well. Neither liberalism nor nationalism are comprehensive moral doctrines (in the way that some religious codes aim to be comprehensive); both leave large areas of human life for the operation of choice or other moral codes. It is for this reason that both liberalism and nationalism have proved remarkably flexible in their choice of partners—including, occasionally, each other.

By and large, I will not be concerned to discuss the historical conditions which have engendered liberalism, though I will make some gestures in this direction in Chapter 3. 10 But I do wish to look at the historical conditions which have encouraged and sustained the nationalist project. Indeed, I do not think that it is possible to evaluate any form of morality without some understanding of the social context within which it is practised (I provide a justification for this approach in Chapter 2, in the section entitled ‘National identity and moral philosophy’). For this reason, this book contains a much more explicit encounter with historical and sociological theories of nationalism than is usual in works of philosophy, even those of Tamir, Miller and Canovan which are explicitly concerned with nationalism. I will suggest in Chapter 1 that in the conditions of the modern world, nationalism became an almost inescapable political project. It was not a historical accident which more enlightened political strategies might have avoided: it was the very condition of a coherent political and social life. This argument has profound implications for the moral evaluation of nationalism. It may be that we wish to reject the changes which have engendered nationalism. But failing heroism of this magnitude, the onus is placed on the critic of nationalism to propose an alternative. However, this is not the end of the story. For I will suggest in Chapter 5 that the conditions which have sustained nationalism are themselves undergoing transformation, and that it is now possible to envisage—however tentatively—the end of nationalism. If, as I will have argued, nationalism has been central to the social and political life of modernity—and also the unacknowledged foundation of much political theory—this is no small matter, and I end the book by speculating briefly on the future.

However, the main role of the first and last chapters of this book is to characterise the historic moment of nationalism and thus to define the conceptual space within which it is possible to pursue a number of philosophical questions about it. Which is not to say these chapters do not raise philosophical questions of their own. For example, the concepts of imagination and culture employed by theorists of nationalism are not ones which philosophers can afford to neglect or take for granted, and I try to say something about these in my discussion. A discussion of globalisation in Chapter 5 leads naturally to the issue of cosmopolitanism. However, the bulk of the philosophical discussion takes place in Chapters 2, 3 and 4. In Chapter 2, I address the concept of identity. This term is inescapable in discussions of nationalism (indeed, in social and cultural studies generally), but is employed in a variety of different senses, none of which bear much resemblance to the way in which the term is deployed in philosophy. Part of my project in this chapter is to construct a concept of identity which does justice both to the requirements of social theory and those of philosophy. My other aim in this chapter is to bring out the centrality of this concept to issues of moral commitment, responsibility and agency, and ultimately to the question of moral justification. That the concept of identity is important for social theory and political philosophy is relatively uncontroversial; what I hope to establish in this chapter is that it is also central to moral philosophy.

In Chapter 3, I take up the relationship between liberalism and nationalism in terms of a concept which is central to both, that of freedom. Here it is convenient to introduce another player, the tradition of civic republicanism. This tradition is in fact a good deal older than both liberalism and nationalism, so its conception of freedom can reasonably claim a historical priority, if nothing else. But more significant to my argument is the issue of political priority. I argue, following Philip Pettit and Quentin Skinner, that some version of the republican emphasis on active citizenship is necessary for a liberal society; but also, and here disagreeing with Pettit and Skinner, that the only viable form of republicanism in the modern world is a nationalist one. I further suggest that a serious concern with the negative freedom valued by liberals should lead them to a consideration of the political and cultural conditions of this freedom, and thus ultimately to a more positive—and nationalist—understanding of this concept.

In Chapter 4, I put some of my own nationalist cards on the table, and discuss multiculturalism and indigenous rights, especially as these issues have surfaced in my own country, Australia. I argue, against currently fashionable views, that there are good liberal and democratic reasons to subordinate the claims of multiculturalism to those of national identity. However, I sharply distinguish the issue of multiculturalism from that of indigenous rights. I argue for a much stronger form of recognition of indigenous people than of other cultural minorities not only on the grounds that it is due to them, but also because our national identity demands it of us. This issue is perhaps the most morally significant issue confronting postcolonial societies today. It presents a challenge to the national self-understanding of the countries involved; but it also requires that self-understanding if we are to marshal the moral resources necessary to confront it.

As this book engages with the work of historians and social theorists as well as that of philosophers, it runs the risk of leaving readers from all sides unsatisfied. The historian’s demand for revealing detail will not be satisfied by the schematic history of nationalism offered here; the sociologist may well find the explanation of nationalism lacks the nuance and caveat necessary to deal with troublesome counter-examples; while the philosopher will be aware that I move quickly over issues which have received enormous attention in the professional journals and often use a house-painter’s brush where a draftsman’s stylus would be appropriate. I try to make some amends in the Bibliographical Essay at the end of this volume where I indicate where the issues discussed may be pursued further (though this may well risk further irritation by its failure to mention some favoured authors). However, a synoptic approach is essential to the enterprise. I see no adequate way of dealing with the moral issues of nationalism which is not informed by a sociological and historical understanding of the phenomenon. On this issue—as almost all others—philosophers must be prepared to incorporate something of the historian’s, anthropologist’s or sociologist’s understanding into their approach. Nationalism arose in certain specific circumstances, and, if we are to assess its claims to provide a way of organising social and political life, we need to know what these circumstances were. However, historians, anthropologists and sociologists also have much to learn from the concerns of philosophers. The reason that nationalism has proved such a potent force in the modern world is that it has been experienced by many as a moral imperative. Even the social scientist will not get very far in understanding nationalism unless he or she is prepared to understand and evaluate that imperative. Unless the investigation of nationalism is also informed by a moral concern, it will not yield an adequate understanding of it.

1 Goodin and Pettit, ‘Preface’ to A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford and Cambridge, MA, Blackwell, 1993), p. ix.

2 Goodin and Pettit, ‘Introduction’ to A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, p. 3.

3 There was a brief entry on nationalism in Paul Edwards (ed.), Encyclopedia of Philosophy vol. 5 (New York, The Macmillan Company & The Free Press; London, Collier-Macmillan, 1965) by Stanley Benn. Benn distinguished a moderate nationalism, which is more or less equivalent to democratic self-determination, from ‘blood and soil’ nationalism, which ‘it would be absurd to treat as if it invited serious rational criticism’.

4 For a glimpse of the literature now available on nationalism and related themes, see the bibliographical essay, ‘The state of the nation’, at the end of this volume.

5 See Will Kymlicka, ‘Community’, and Allen Buchanan, ‘Secession and Nationalism’, both in Goodin and Pettit (eds), A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy. It should be noted that Buchanan emphatically rejects the claims of national self-determination to provide a ground for secession.

6 Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993; second edition 1995), p. 14.

7 David Miller explicitly rejects the idea of ‘sanitising’ nationalism by focusing on ‘good’ versions of it; however, his defence of nationalism inevitably does just that. See On Nationality, op. cit., pp. 9-10.

8 Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism, op. cit., ch. 1, entitled ‘The idea of the person’.

9 At least this is the argument of Liah Greenfeld’s Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, MA and London, Harvard University Press, 1992), ch. 1, an argument which I endorse below.

10 See my Morality and Modernity (London and New York, Routledge, 1991) for some suggestions as to how such an account might proceed.