Nationalism Essays

1). Discuss the problem of ‘conceptual ambiguity’ in the study of nationalism.

The issue of conceptual ambiguity in the context of studying nationalism is a fundamental problem due to its foundational nature in explaining political phenomena. In other words, without the luxury of a universal understanding of specific terminology, the study of nationalism can be fragmented by the presence of a plethora of intellectuals all defining nationalism (among other terms) in their own ways.

There are many inherent reasons behind the difficulty in providing adequate definitions for nationalism and its related terms. As in certain other social sciences, international relations has a definite limit in the amount of objective study that can be performed upon its various constituent nuances (e.g. nationalism). Since there is no way of measuring nationalism on some sort of scale without including subjective if not arbitrary parameters, it is difficult to look down onto a system from a macro level and describe nationalism as a characteristic of a specific social group. Additionally, difficulty in defining nationalism may also be attributed to the dynamic entity that is the nation. What would have been considered a nation or a nationalistic state 200 years ago may not be afforded the same description in modern times.
Related terms, such as national identity, national interest, national sentiment, etc. could be viewed in the same light; without an objective definition of the nation or of nationalism, it is difficult to attribute certain qualities to them. Furthermore, without a definitional basis for these secondary terms, it is difficult to search for qualities to use in identifying a nation, so it is difficult to have either without its compliment.

Thus, the intuitive problem with conceptual ambiguity in terms of nationalism’s impact upon conflict is that, while there are convenient terms to use to explain the dynamics of certain institutions and groups, the terms often lack the foundation and acceptance to hold much intellectual and academic weight, depending upon which author or school of thought defined the aforementioned terms.

The implication of such a problem is the fact that while many analyses have been performed and many conclusions have been drawn, the validity of the results is shaky at best within the broader context of the whole study of nationalism. While certain scholars or even entire schools of thought may put stock in the work of one scholar, the inherent contradiction is that many of those people may have radically different views on what the author or theorist is writing about in the first place.

In my view, there are five key terms in studying nationalism that need clear definitions: nationalism itself, a nation, national sentiment, national interest, and national identity. Before the final four terms can be addressed, a thorough definition of the concept of nationalism is vital. Thus, I submit the following definition of nationalism from which I shall derive the subsequent definitions.

Nationalism is the application of the belief that a group of people,
bound by a professed sense of collective identity will be made better off by joining together in some entity to seek self-determination.

This definition is based upon several characteristics of social groups. For example, people tend to unify with those they see as similar to themselves. Additionally, it is easier to join collective action if there is a sense of unity among those in the group.
Based on this definition, it becomes a bit easier to define the secondary terms in the study of nationalism. For example, applying the aforementioned definition of nationalism, one can define a nation as:

A population of members of a nationalistic group.

This definition, although brief, gives a clear representation of what a nation is, which is a group of people that hold the same nationalist ideas. Using the previous definitions, one can also define national sentiment, national interest, and national identity.

National sentiment refers to:
The feelings held by members of a nation.

National interest refers to:
The collective interests of members of a nation.

National identity refers to:
The self-acknowledgement that a nation exists. This includes the realization of the characteristics shared among members of the nation as well as the acknowledgement of a national interest and national sentiment.

By these definitions, one can approach a hierarchy of complexity, as the definitions build upon one another. This isn’t saying that any of these concepts appears before any others, as it is a reasonable claim, that once a nation exists, all of these concepts play roles as constituent parts of the national apparatus.

These definitions are better than the existing definitions of nationalism and related terms because instead of showing bias to a particular school of thought or vantage point, attempting to be overly academic, or being outright vague they actually get to the point, explain what the term means, and provide a concrete, objective statement.

However, to operationalize nationalism is an entirely different task. Not only must scholars settle on a set of definitions, but one must additionally come up with a method for identifying, comparing and possibly even categorizing nationalism. There are a few potential approaches to such a concept. For example, one could attempt to construct a scale by which groups could be compared. The problem with this is that most variables involved in the study of nationalism can’t really be pinned down. For example, it isn’t very practical to attempt to assign a value to cultural or linguistic unity. Thus, a quantitative approach to nationalism would have to be sought out in a different way.

In my opinion, the best method of attempting to quantify nationalism is to categorize types of nationalism as opposed to creating a horrifically arbitrary and unscientific mess of a scale to assign a meaningless value to something that defies mathematical logic. The emerging problem is how one is to create the categories in which to place types of nationalism. In a simplified model, one could classify nations by the unifying characteristic that gives them a national identity. Nations could be fit into neat categories such as those based on religious commonalities, linguistic commonalities, cultural commonalities, economic commonalities, etc. However, this isn’t plausible due to the obvious fact that no nation ever existed based on one shared trait. Thus, I will give up the ghost of a utopian system to classify something that can’t be—there are many concepts in social science that can be differentiated, in economics, psychology, anthropology, and so on. However, at a certain point we, as social scientists, run out of objective variables and characteristics that could be used to operationalize something that, on the surface, seems so divisible.

In conclusion, I have discussed the difficulty in defining nationalism and its related terms. Many scholars have submitted their own definitions and time and time again, they have been shot to hell. The dynamic nature of nationalism provides and elusive focus of study for one who attempts a long-winded, academic definition for something that defies scientific logic. Nationalism is an idea, it is a concept. It isn’t a tangible entity that we can observe in a microcosm and watch it grow. Thus, the study of nationalism calls for a more basic, yet adequate, definition that allows us to share the same concepts for which to study.
Attempts at operationalizing nationalism are just as detrimental to the long-term understanding of the concept as the “intellectualization” of its foundational terms. It is a waste of time to attempt to make an abstract concept easy to swallow by attaching an arbitrary number to it. Since nationalism is based upon other concepts, such as culture and sentiment, it is impossible to compare individual nations to other individual nations and say that one nation is more of a nation or more nationalistic than another.

The study of nationalism should be used to explain political and social phenomena, such as war and international relations, not to discuss nationalism for the sake of it. It is pointless to quantify an idea without attaching it to something of measure or of value. It is much more reasonable to study nationalism in the context of various types of conflict (or lack thereof) than to study nationalism in its own, muddled, academically trampled context.



2) Compare and contrast the primordialist and instrumentalist approaches to nationalism.

For the majority of its existence as a field of study, nationalism has been viewed from a very naturalist approach, one that delegated the existence of nationalism to human nature. Sociologists, psychologists and even biologists attributed the need for belonging to instinctive tendencies within the human species. However, in recent years, a less social approach has been approaching from the back of the pack, providing a challenging new vantage point from which to study the phenomenon that is nationalism. These two approaches are primordialism and modernism, also known as instrumentalism. The following is a survey of the tenets of each approach and an analysis on the usefulness of the approaches.

Primordialism is an umbrella of terms used to describe different schools of thought that generally attempt to evaluate nationalism in terms of social, psychological, biological, or philosophically naturalist views. Most of these schools of thought tend to agree that, to some degree, it is in human nature to bond together with others based on commonalities such as shared language, religion, kinship, culture, and “ethnicity”. While many of the sub-categories within the broader umbrella of primordialism differ greatly from one another, they share a “common belief in the antiquity and naturalness of nations” (Özkirimli 64).

It would be a crude assessment to attempt to attribute positive or negative criticisms to the whole of primordialism as a method for viewing nationalism. Instead, it is more appropriate to briefly discuss the sub-schools within the broad context of primordialism and what those different views bring to the table, so to speak. According to Özkirimli, the most extreme form of primordialist thought is naturalism. Naturalistic primordialism holds the view that nationalism is as instinctive and natural as sight and sound (Özkirimli 66). This view has been professed by classical nationalists, who view the nation and the presence of nationalism as eternal and linear. While this is likely the least scientific approach to nationalism, it has been popular among true nationalists for quite a long time. This view is often abused by instrumentalists, who will be discussed later.

What Özkirimli refers to as the sociobiological approach, which may also be referred to using almost any combination of sociological, biological, or psychological terms is, in reality, quite an anthropological approach to nationalism that implies the naturalness of nationalism based on the concepts of kinship and lineage. This application applies kinship to the idea of ethnicity which, to those who believe in the aforementioned idea, explains an instinctive tie to the nation. While this is more scientific than naturalism, the concept of ethnicity is ambiguous at best and can’t really stand on its own.

The culturalist approach views nationalism as a concept married to the notion that there is no social reason for nationalism. In fact, culturalists hold the view that the roots for nationalism are instinctive and that humans are inborn with a national attachment.

Thus, the various approaches within primordialism are relatively unscientific, but attempt to convey an emotional tie to the nation that has origins in some realm of human nature. The flaws with this approach are rooted in the assumption that virtually all nationalistic feelings are natural and that there are no external forces impacting the sentiment held by the population.
This brings our discussion to the approach of the modernists. This view, also known as instrumentalism, focuses more on the application of nationalism as a strategic device to be utilized for political gain, as a great manipulating force that can be used in order to corral a population into a desired position. True instrumentalists believe that nationalism comes from the state, not the other way around (Özkirimli 86).

According to some instrumentalists, notably Paul R. Brass, nationalism is actually a political movement. In contrast to the natural basis of primordialist thought, Brass sees nationalism as a political construct constantly reshaped to fit the needs of those pulling the puppet strings. (Özkirimli 109-111). This stunning modern portrayal of nationalism, while on the surface makes so much sense, totally downplays the significance of many intangible qualities in humans.
Some criticisms of instrumentalism rely upon differentiating the nation and the state. While in some cases, nationalism may be used for political gain, the opposite may also be true. By reducing the presence of rigidly defined groups, some states achieve less fragmentation. Another argument against instrumentalism is that it places too much emphasis upon the power of elites. The power of the elites only goes so far, and people have feelings and emotions that cannot be readily changed overnight by an all-powerful class of wealthy intellectuals in positions of leadership.

It is only when one considers one approach in contrast with another that they can truly value both. For example, instrumentalism seems undervalued when only primordialism is covered and vice versa. It is obvious that weight should be placed upon both schools. It is obvious that, to some degree, humans instinctively form groups based on some commonalities. However, it is also historically visible that leaders have used nationalist sentiment to achieve certain goals. In this context it becomes apparent that both approaches should be considered when studying any case of nationalism.

In Cottam and Cottam’s work, a modern application of primordialism is the view primarily applied to their study of nationalism. They view nationalism as an inherent social behavior and apply their image theory to explain fundamental social in/out groups as foundations for nationalist movements. For the conclusion they seek, their approach is very suitable. They are relatively fair, especially in comparison to many scholars, as they do bring up many tenets of instrumentalism and even include it as the second image in their noted image theory. However, it is quite apparent that their primary device for study is primordialism. The beauty in their work is that they found a balance between the approaches and provided a multi-dimensional analysis.

It is slightly easier to discern the approach of Pavkovic in that the book doesn’t only focus on nationalism, but, at great length, discusses historical and contextual information that allows for a greater understanding of the processes behind the fragmentation of Yugoslavia. In the work, various political utilizations of nationalism, such as genocide and invented identity, are revealed allowing for the reader to acknowledge a strong basis in modern instrumentalist thought. By the same token, a few references to primordialist thought are approached. For example, using common languages and religion (among the Muslims) as parameters for some sense of national identification following the fragmentation, Pavkovic concedes an inherent tendency to join a group that shares certain characteristics.

Thus, to some degree, both texts at least mention characteristics of both approaches. This is likely why they are ascribed academic viability, they don’t claim one approach to be perfect. While each author uses one approach more than the other, they do concede certain points that are difficult to deny. These approaches are likely the best to use in any empirical study of nationalism—it is foolish to attempt to describe any instance of nationalism using theory from only one school of thought.

In conclusion, primordialism ignores many known tenets of political science and instrumentalism ignores many known tenets of social science. Neither can stand alone as an approach to the study of nationalism. It is their interesting duality that is useful in discussing characteristics of nations and nationalism.


Works Cited
Özkirimli, Umut. Theories of Nationalism. New York: Palgrave, 2000.