INTRODUCTION

• Nationalism has been one of the most powerful historical forces shaping the self-definition of individuals.

• It is a complex phenomenon, with no uniformity in historical experiences or universality of conceptualization.

• Different forms of nationalism have emerged due to specific historical conditions and the social structure of each country.

• The study of nationalism involves examining the socio-economic and political forces that shape these specific forms.

• The broad framework of relationships within which nationalisms can be understood and explained is crucial for understanding their development.

NATIONS AND NATIONALISM

• Nationalism refers to the self-definition and self-consciousness of ‘a people’ as a unified entity, with a focus on how people identify as one (e.g., as an ethnic community) and the purposes this oneness serves (e.g., self-determination).

• Nationalism involves expressions of solidarity among people and recognition of this solidarity by others.

• Scholars of nationalism agree that it involves:

  • (a) Integration among members of a nation

  • (b) An idea of the whole (nation) or collective identity

  • (c) An understanding of membership in the whole and its relationship with other nations.

• Nationalism is about the self-definition by a people as a nation, the awareness of their distinctness from other nations, and the imperative from which this self-definition arises.

• Social solidarity, collective identity, and a sense of individual self-relationship with the whole are key to a nation’s identity and recognition.

• The way social solidarity, collective identity, and political legitimacy interrelate is crucial to understanding nationalism.

• Benedict Anderson describes nations as ‘imagined communities’ to conceptualize nationalism, where communities are distinguished by the style or manner in which they are imagined.

• Nationalism involves imagining collective identity and social solidarity in specific ways.

• Nationalisms vary in content and form, depending on the historical context.

• Anthony D. Smith defines nationalism as an ideological movement for self-government and independence for a group that conceives itself as a nation.

• The core content of nationalism is the ideal of independence, with the following logical corollaries:

  • Securing fraternity and equality among co-nationals by integrating them into a homogenous unit.

  • Unification of extra-territorial co-nationals into a single nation-state.

  • Stressing cultural individuality and national differentiation.

  • Economic autarchy and self-sustaining growth.

  • Expanding the nation-state to maintain international power and status.

  • Renewing the cultural and social fabric of the nation through institutional changes to maintain international parity.

• Nationalist movements select goals from these corollaries based on circumstances.

• Recurrent themes in nationalism include:

  • Communal fraternity, popular sovereignty, self-help, self-purification, roots, and belonging.

  • A new sense of human dignity in a national state, the ideals of participation, and self-realization through the nation-state.

  • The return to the communal Golden Age and identification with nature and the ‘natural man’.

• Smith identifies three key notions in modern nationalism:

  • Autonomy (collective),

  • Individuality,

  • Pluralism.

• These concepts form the modern ideal of independence, with autonomy associated with Kant and collective autonomy stemming from Rousseau and Fichte.

• The group should be free from external interference and internal divisiveness, and should set its own rules and institutions according to its needs and character.

• The group is self-determining, as its individuality gives it peculiar laws. Only the assembly of all citizens can make laws for the community; no individual or outsider can legislate.