Political Theories for Students

N a t i o n a l i s m

Religiously taught and inspired, Herder drew from the Bible, secular humanist principles, and the humanitarian writings and philosophy of the Renaissance and the European Enlightenment periods in developing his theory of nationalism. He found the Hebrew people particularly interesting, for he viewed them, according to Barnard, as the “oldest example of a Volk [people] with a developed national consciousness and of an ‘organic’ community in which so- cio–political organization grew naturally out of the socioeconomic functions of its members.” This concept of “Volk” was key to Herder’s understanding of nationalism. The character of a Volk, in Herder’s mind, was shaped in particular by language, which brought people together into a community and allowed them to express their innermost spiritual qualities in a natural way. Herder saw language and ethnicity as needing to correspond to a political, territorial state. Consequently, mixtures of ethnic communities living in the same territorial region would not form as vital or cohesive a state as a single language community would.

In some ways, Herder’s conception of nationalism overlaps with “civic nationalism.” He believed that self–government and the choice of individuals to be governed by a state were essential. However, in his theory of “linguistic nationalism,” Herder assumed that when a state coincided with an ethnic community, legislation would not need to be coercive, since laws would flow naturally from the social awareness of the Volk. While he valued the creation of individual states, each corresponding to a specific Volk, Herder also viewed the respect of different peoples for each other and for international cooperation as extremely important. Thus, the right of one particular ethnic community to self–determination could be exercised only if self–governance did not prevent another Volk from governing themselves. Rather than advocating a formal world government structure, however, Herder believed international cooperation could best be achieved through looser associations of nations where mutual interests would be advanced by peaceful cooperation.

Historical events in Europe just after Herder’s death created new boundaries for major European states and inspired further thought among political philosophers on the nature of the nation and the phenomenon of nationalism. Between 1806 and 1807, the French army under the leadership of Napoleon defeated Prussia. During these same years German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) delivered a series of lectures, “Addresses to the German Nation,” advancing the idea that common “civic” values are the basis for nations; that is, a liberal citizenry

is fundamentally based on shared respect for individual freedoms and liberties and that government is created of, by, and for those governed. Having grown ever more dictatorial and autocratic, Napoleon’s rule eventually came to an end. Crowning himself Emperor of France, Napoleon eventually met his downfall at the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium in 1815, where the Prussian army halted Napoleon’s murderous, self– annihilating campaign. In the same year, the German Confederation was formed, linking thirty–nine German feudal states (thirty–five monarchies and four free cities), a significant step toward the unification of Germany to take place in 1871 under King Wilhelm I (1797–1898).

Throughout the nineteenth century, dramatic political changes continued to occur in Europe, sparked by the growing number, size, and economic importance of capitalist industries and the appearance of a solid middle class. Political and economic discontent grew at mid–century, especially among the lower– level aristocrats and the bourgeoisie—the newly appearing middle class consisting largely of businessman and businesswomen—who saw their interests inadequately represented in the governing structures of Europe. In 1848 economic problems, discontent by the middle class over their lack of opportunity for political participation, and growing nationalist movements led to revolutionary attempts to establish a new political order. To a substantial measure, the growing influence of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Friedrich Engels’ (1820–1895) writings on socialism and communism as alternatives to capitalism inspired political insurgencies and economic riots in many European cities that year. Though the revolts failed to establish more liberal, socialist governments, nationalist movements gained momentum throughout Europe from the tumultuous events of that year.

Building Nations

Following the French expulsion of Austrians from power in Northern Italy by 1859 and the uniting of southern Italian city–states under the leadership of Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882), Italy became a single kingdom in 1861 under Victor Emmanuel II (1820–1878), acclaimed by popular vote. Ten years after Italy was united, King Wilhelm I was crowned emperor of the new German Empire, at the conclusion of the Franco–Prussian War. The unification of Prussia and the thirty–nine German states and cities of the German Confederation culminated the campaign to unify Germany into a single state by the military conquests of Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of Prussia. Nation building in Europe was at a high point. A decade later, on March 11, 1882, French philosopher

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Ernest Renan (1823–1892) lectured on “Qu’est–ce qu’une nation?” (“What is a nation?”) at the Sorbonne, Paris’ premier university. His lecture, published in Paris by Calmann–Levy later that year, explored questions of the essence of national identity and national unification movements and marked out new theoretical territory in developing a civic conception of nationalism.

Around this time, concepts of national identity became ever more exclusive, with the criteria for supposed membership in national groups growing increasingly specific and focused on culture and “race.” The growth of anti–Semitism in France and Germany during the late 1870s reflected growing popular sentiment toward what it meant to be a member of a nation, this time in a cultural and racial sense. In terms of political party activity, nationalism was becoming an increasingly dangerous phenomenon by the 1890s, especially for those deemed unworthy of inclusion as members of the nation. The growth of anti–immigrant parties such as the “Know–Nothing Party” in the United States and the Dreyfus Affair of the 1890s in France—a case of anti–Semitic action directed against Captain Alfred Dreyfus (1859–1935), a French general staff officer who was convicted of treason despite insubstantial evidence—marked the dangerous turn nationalism was taking in both Europe and America.

For the African continent, the most significant event of the nineteenth century arguably was the 1884–85 Conference of Berlin, involving the heads of several European states, among them France, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, and Spain. At this series of meetings, the participating European countries established their “rights” to stake out colonial claims and extend their political and economic control in Africa. Only Liberia, colonized by freed American and Caribbean slaves beginning in 1822 and made independent in 1847, and Ethiopia, historically an independent kingdom (except under Mussolini’s Italian occupation from 1936 to 1941), escaped the ravages of the European imperialists in the decades that followed the Berlin Conference. What came to be known as the “Scramble for Africa” had begun, with dire consequences for the indigenous nations across the African continent, from the Arab Maghreb in the north to the Cape of Good Hope in the south.

At the close of the nineteenth century, an international conference in Europe offered the promise of a future world where national sovereignty would be better respected and nations would cooperate in peace. In 1899 this First International Peace Conference was held in the Belgium city of The Hague to establish the fundamentals of multilateral diplomacy and light the way for a future world federation of nations working

collectively toward peace and security. Although the principal goals of the Hague Peace Conference of 1899 and the Hague Conference of 1907—including goals for disarmament—have not yet been realized a century later, the Hague Conference represented a new step forward in seeking the means to settle differences without violence, putting forth a greater respect for the rights of all.

World War

Unfortunately, the resolve to create a more peaceable means to settling disputes did not prevent the outbreak of a massive war in Europe a few years later. From 1914 to 1918 the First World War raged across Europe. Engendered by nationalistic claims to territory in the Balkan Mountains region of southeastern Europe, the war entangled Europe’s major states in what came to be the bloodiest war in history. Toward the close of the war, President Woodrow Wilson of the United States gave his “Fourteen Points” speech before a Joint Session of the U.S. Congress on January 8, 1918, outlining his recommended program to resolve the problems associated with the First World War and to prevent future outbreaks of violence among nation–states. As his fourteenth point, Wilson recommended the following: “A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.”

Although the cease–fire, or Armistice, of November 11, 1918 ended World War I, the peace agreement formally concluding the First World War was the treaty signed at the Palace of Versailles just outside of Paris on June 28, 1919. While the Treaty of Versailles reinforced Wilson’s plan to create the League of Nations headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, it simultaneously laid the groundwork for future wars. By requiring the German state to pay costly war reparations, the Treaty of Versailles virtually guaranteed that Germany would face severe economic problems in the years to come. The war reparations and consequent downslide in the German economy, further undermined by the Wall Street stock market crash 1929, fostered sufficient discontent among the German people that the charismatic political actor Adolf Hitler managed to take the reins of power in Germany. Capitalizing on the desire of the German people to rekindle their national pride and to carve out a significant place for themselves in Europe and the world, Hitler’s popularity in Germany grew rapidly during the difficult times of the 1920s and early 1930s. The attention given by the German National Socialist Party (“Nazi” Party) to Germany’s economic troubles,

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coupled with rising racist sentiment and the growth of nationalist ideology and rhetoric, appears to have made Hitler’s extremist party more successful in gathering public and electoral support than other extremist parties of that time. Although his popularity had begun to decline when he was named German Chancellor by President Hindenburg of Germany on January 30, 1933—a move largely the result of political infighting—his promotion to Chancellor placed him in a political position where he could wreak increasing havoc on the peoples of Germany and the rest of Europe.

Between 1939 and 1945 the Second World War devastated Europe and the Asian Pacific region as ul- tra–nationalist leaders sought to enlarge their political jurisdiction and create societies that matched their plans for advancing their own peculiar perspectives on what best constitutes a nation. The 1930s saw the build–up of Hitler’s genocidal campaign by the Nazis, a disastrous attempt to rebuild the German nation by exterminating those Hitler and his cohorts considered “non–Aryan” and consequently “racially inferior”: essentially, all who were non–white, non–Protestant, and non–German—specifically, minorities such as Jews, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, Roman Catholics, and the mentally and physically disabled—were targeted. Even before Hitler’s sudden rise to power, Italian military commander Benito Mussolini had begun his fascistic campaign to heighten Italy’s position in Europe, and his own position as well. As Hitler’s popularity in grew and Germany built itself into a state to be reckoned with, Mussolini struck out on his own nationalist, murderous campaign across Italy, the Balkans, and North Africa, based on the ideology that the Italian state could reclaim the former glory of the Roman Empire. Japanese Emperor Hirohito (1901– 1989) did likewise with his genocidal treatment of the peoples of China, Korea, and other countries in Southeast and East Asia as he sought to increase the power of the Japanese state.

The United Nations Before the Second World War had fully ended, a new international organization of sovereign states, the United Nations (UN), was founded in hopes of preventing future wars by encouraging cooperative efforts of nation–states acting together to foster peace and development through a system of collective security. An event of lasting international importance was the conference held in October 1945 in San Francisco, involving the political leaders of the five principal states of the Allied Alliance that had fought in World War II—the United States, France, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China. The leaders of these states gathered to write a charter

for a new international organization, one that despite its shortcomings would be vastly more effective than the failed League of Nations. Whereas the League had lacked the power to enforce its members’ decisions and could not stop the rise of Hitler or the other Axis leaders, the UN was designed to provide measures by which states could reinforce directives to nations failing to comply with standards of international law and behavior. Additionally, the new UN ideally would promote peaceful economic and social development in all parts of the world, for the benefit of all.

It is worth noting here that one problematic aspect of the United Nations has to do with its composition as a collective body of states rather than of individual nations, nationalities, or peoples. Most of the member states of the UN actually comprise a mixture of nations—for example, Great Britain’s population includes not only the English but also the Scottish, Welsh, and Irish minorities along with members of many other nations who voluntarily immigrated or were brought to Britain’s shores. Other nationalities such as the Kurds, the Palestinians, and the Basques lack their own nation–states as well as UN representation. These stateless peoples have been at a decided disadvantage in international arenas like the UN, a problem many hope eventually will be overcome as more nations are granted their own territorial states and as international recognition and representation are granted to at least some stateless peoples, including the indigenous nations often called “First Nations” or the “Fourth World.”

The Cold War Despite the good intentions of those who created the United Nations, the “Cold War” that was waged between the United States and its democratic allies and the Soviet Union and its communist allies from the late 1940s until the break–up of the Soviet Union in 1991 all but prevented the UN from achieving many of its goals for several decades. Pitting democratically governed states whose economies were primarily capitalist or mixed (socialist blended with capitalist) against totalitarian, communist states, the Cold War monopolized the political attention and the military and economic resources of much of the developed world for over four decades. Since the weapons of mass destruction developed in the arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States included myriad nuclear missiles and other highly destructive arms, direct warfare could not be conducted between these two superpowers. Instead, many proxy (substitute) wars came to be waged between “Western bloc” colonies (developing nation–states influenced and financed by the United States) and those of the “Eastern bloc,” influenced and financed by the So-

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viet Union. These wars entailed the deaths and maiming of countless civilians and combatants in the very parts of the world that suffered most from poverty, malnutrition, poor health, and underdevelopment.

Third World Independence

During the Cold War period, however, not all political events in what came to be known as the “Third World” (less–industrialized, less economically developed regions) were unwelcomed by their peoples. Beginning in the early 1950s and extending through the 1960s, numerous African nations achieved their independence from the European imperial powers that had colonized them and had deprived them of their rights, their land, and their economic resources. Nationalist independence movements in many African colonies developed momentum as one after another of Europe’s former colonies liberated themselves from their former rulers. In a relatively quick succession of declarations of independence, the newly established African states typically agreed to set their territorial boundaries along the lines of those established arbitrarily by the European imperialists during the Scramble for Africa. This meant, however, that many tribal and ethnic groups came to be divided across two or more countries, despite their common heritage and culture. The implications of the construction of national boundaries by the Europeans in the nineteenth century and of the subsequent legal reinforcement of these boundaries upon independence in the 1950s and 1960s were that in many countries, interethnic warfare would be waged toward the end of the twentieth century as ethnic groups sought to establish their authority to govern themselves and improve their economic and social lot.

In both Africa and Europe a substantial rise in internal strife within states appeared toward the close of the twentieth century. From 1981 through the early 1990s, popular democratic uprisings took place in Eastern Europe and brought the end of communist rule. The Polish Solidarity (Solidarnosza) movement, started in 1981 among striking shipyard workers in the Polish city of Gdansk on the Baltic Sea, climaxed with the electoral victory of President Lech Walesa (1943–) in 1990 and the inauguration of a democratically elected parliament. The execution of communist dictator Nicolas Ceausescu of Romania and his wife in October of 1989 marked the culmination of dramatic public protests against Ceausescu’s autocratic rule and the triumph of the Romanian people, among the most impoverished in Europe during the years of communist rule. Perhaps most exhilarating for both Western and Eastern observers was the November 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall that had divided

East and West Berlin since 1961, culminating in the reunification of East Germany with West Germany in 1990. The democratization of other countries in Eastern Europe and the declarations of independence of many of the republics of the former USSR after its break–up in August 1991 similarly astounded the world at large. Many of these popular movements were stimulated not only by the desire to end autocratic communist rule but also by growing national movements that have sought to reclaim the ethnic and national identities of the people of Europe and Asia submerged under communism.

Problematic Nationalism

Not all nationalist movements in Europe in the post–Cold War period have been positive, however. In the southeast region of Europe, for example, violent warfare in Bosnia and Croatia in the early 1990s, spurred on by attacks from Bosnian Serbs supported by the Serbian Army of Yugoslavia, led to the first genocide in Europe since World War II, followed a few years later by genocidal war in Kosovo and revenge killings in Serbia. By creating a federated country in the Balkans—Yugoslavia—from previously separate states along the Adriatic Sea, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles had brought a mixture of ethnic and religious groups together into one federated nation–state that would survive the years of communist rule, only to crumble disastrously into brutal interethnic warfare and genocide in the early 1990s when communist control in Eastern and Southeastern Europe dissolved. Manipulated by unscrupulous political leaders wishing to hold onto power at all costs despite the end of communist rule, the peoples of the former socialist Yugoslavia witnessed and became victims of some of the worst interethnic fighting and atrocities of the twentieth century.

Political developments in other parts of Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Latin America in the post–World War II period have similarly represented the interplay of various forces, including autocratic repression as well as democratic, nationalist movements whose participants have aimed to express or reassert their ethnic identities and claims for civil governance by attaching their demands to a national state. Not all efforts have succeeded in realizing self–determination, but many nationalist leaders and activists have established themselves as viable political actors and forces to be reckoned with on the international stage. Increasingly during the 1990s and into the early twenty–first century, as an after–effect of the end of the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union for allies and influence, local conflicts have

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escalated into wide–ranging interethnic violence that has been difficult to control.

These “low–intensity” wars have killed and injured countless people, and conflict resolution efforts have been only minimally successful at quelling their violence. Not only have interethnic conflicts taken place in the developing world, but also in countries such as Northern Ireland and Cyprus, plagued with what sometimes appear to be never–ending conflicts (often labeled “intractable”) between ethnic and national groups. In many cases, the problems have centered on competing claims for the assertion of political authority at the state level by numerous stateless nations such as the Basque minority in Spain and the Palestinians in the Middle East.

Other nationalist challenges are perhaps less violent but more long–standing and equally hard to re- solve—for example, the struggle of indigenous peoples worldwide to secure their own territory and resources in the face of a dominant ethnic group that controls state governance. The case of the Saami of northern Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula of Russia is one such case where the level of direct violence in the late twentieth century was relatively low compared to the violence experienced by ethnic and religious groups contending for power in such places as Sri Lanka, Kashmir, and the Philippines. As with many Native American groups, the problems faced by the Saami and other indigenous minority nations stem from a state authority’s imposing its will through internal colonization and the negation of previous treaties and formal agreements—or at least from the perception by stateless peoples that this is taking place. In such cases no clear arbiter other than, perhaps, the United Nations or the International Court of Justice (the World Court) in The Hague exists to decide how such claims should be settled. Furthermore, what Norwegian peace theorist Johann Galtung has termed “structural” violence—violence indirectly wrought by oppressive social, political, and economic structures and discriminatory practices—afflicts indigenous communities worldwide but is particularly hard to correct since the violence is occurring at the systemic level.

THEORY IN DEPTH

Definitions of “Nation”:

Crucial to the concept of “nationalism” is the definition of “nation” and its distinction from the notion of “state.” To begin with, a “state” in a political sense

can be defined as a politically governed territory with distinct boundaries, having the sovereign authority to control its own domestic affairs and to represent the interests of its polity (i.e., those living within and governed by the political authority of the state) in deliberations and interactions with other states. The concept of the polity as a collection of persons sharing specific political values (such as the preservation of individual freedoms and liberties or the notion that all individuals in the polity should have the right to make political decisions together) or certain common characteristics (for example, language ties or a common cultural heritage) does not really come into play in the strict definition of a state. In contrast, the idea of the “nation-state” brings together the belief that territorial boundaries, political authority, and the composition of the population inhabiting the territory somehow should coincide, theoretically with the population all belonging to the same homogeneous nation. Few nation–states actually fit this strict definition, since nearly all states in the twenty–first century are composed of a multiplicity of peoples from many national groups.

In defining the nation, scholars have produced both culturally and civic–oriented definitions, although some, such as Anthony D. Smith, have attempted to combine elements of both. To Smith, a nation is a group of people who share the same geographical territory as well as certain common elements of history, culture, economy, and law.

In his 1882 lecture, “Qu’est–ce qu’une nation?”

(“What is a nation?”), Frenchman Ernest Renan described a nation as

a large–scale solidarity, constituted by the feeling of the sacrifices that one has made in the past and of those that one is prepared to make in the future. It presupposes a past; it is summarized, however, in the present by a tangible fact, namely, consent, the clearly expressed desire to continue a common life. A nation’s existence is, if you will pardon the metaphor, a daily plebiscite, just as an individual’s existence is a perpetual affirmation of life.

Benedict Anderson, in Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, defines a nation as “an imagined political commu- nity—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” Anderson is one of the key theorists of “constructed nationalism,” where nationalism is viewed as a socially constructed idea meant to serve the interests and needs of the members of a nation and those participating in nationalist movements. Presenting the view that nations are “imagined communities” created in the minds of those who live in them, Anderson’s book represents a departure from the views of the “primordialists” who considered nationalism an

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outgrowth of an innate human need for ethnic community.

Definitions of “Nationalism”:

Theories of nationalism range from explanations focusing on the why and wherefore of the formation of social movements that take on a nationalist tone to attempts to explain the basis of the concept of “nation” and campaigns to promote a nationalist agenda. Whether the motivation to identify with a “nation” is a biologically based, “primordial” given, characteristic of all populations, whether it is something cultivated by political philosophers and activists seeking to promote specific agendas under the guise of ethnic identity, or whether it is something in between continues to be hotly debated. Many theorists look at nationalism as having existed only from the seventeenth or eighteenth century onward and as having its origins in Western European philosophical thought. Others view nationalism as a phenomenon with a more ancient history and interpret the drives to create great empires among the peoples of antiquity as synonymous with attempts in recent times to forge nation–states aligned to the ethnic identity or political values of the inhabitants.

Most Western–trained scholars view nationalism as a modern phenomenon, but some continue to insist that nations and nationalism originated much further back in time. Disagreement also persists as to whether the desire to establish territorial states coinciding with national groups is biologically determined or is shaped by political actors. The “primordialists”—those who see the quest for ethnic identity and solidarity as rooted physically in the human animal—see ethnicity as related to the official announcement of the species and the preservation of one’s own community, however defined. In contrast, many “modernization theorists” tend to believe that the impetus for nationhood and the development of distinct national identities are integrally connected to the rise of capitalism and the end of political empires and monarchies that began with the period of the European Enlightenment in the seventeenth century. Other modernizationists view ethnic identity formation and the growth of nationalism as phenomena of the post–Napoleon era, beginning only in the early nineteenth century.

Civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism From the mid–twentieth century on, if not earlier, many scholars of nationalism came to view the range of differences in theoretical approaches to nationalism in a fairly dichotomous (i.e., two–category) way, distinguishing between “ethnic nationalist” and “civic nationalist” approaches. Michel Seymour, Jocelyne Cou-

ture, and Kai Nelson summarized the main differences between these two conceptualizations of nationalism in the introduction to their edited volume, Rethinking Nationalism. Aligned with the views of Ernest Renan, civic nationalists believe “that a nation is a voluntary association of individuals.” A good example would be the French Revolution. The ethnic nationalist’s approach is “based upon language, culture, and tradition, and thus appeals to more or less objective features of our social lives.” Nationalism in Germany during German Romanticism is ethnic nationalism, as are Johann Gottfried Herder’s views.

However, as the authors further note, “A careful reader of Renan and Herder will protest that this is an oversimplification of their views, for both authors integrate objective and subjective features in their characterization of the nation.” Consequently, theories of nationalism cannot accurately be categorized into two distinct groups, since the features of certain theoretical formulations of nationalism labeled “ethnic” may well overlap with aspects of a mainly “civic” nationalism.

Like Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), but contrasting with Johann Gottfried Herder—two of nationalism’s early theorists who wrote at the start of the nineteenth century—Renan viewed nations as resulting from political efforts to define a physical space for democratic governance by those who share similar civic values such as the preservation and promotion of individual rights, freedoms, and liberties. Cultural, linguistic, and ethnic identities do not predetermine national movements, Renan claimed. Instead, it is the political action of those who seek to unify a people based on a notion of shared experience and destiny.

Renan’s famous lecture at the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1882, “Qu’est–ce qu’une nation?”

(“What is a nation?”), raised questions about the origins of nations and the nature of their identity. After briefly examining the history of a number of nations, empires, and dynasties, Renan concluded,

Forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation, which is why progress in historical studies often constitutes a danger for [the principle of] nationality. Indeed, historical enquiry brings to light deeds of violence which took place at the origin of all political formations, even of those whose consequences have been altogether beneficial.

To Renan, nation building requires “that all individuals have many things in common, and also that they have forgotten many things.”

Renan saw nations as a relatively modern phenomenon, “brought about by a series of convergent facts.”

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MAJOR WRITINGS:

“Qu’est–ce qu’une nation?”

Ernest Renan’s lecture, “Qu’est–ce qu’une nation?” (“What is a nation?”), delivered at the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1882, examined basic issues touching upon nations and nationalism. Exploring the various circumstances through which nations have been formed, Renan developed his civic conception of nationalism. He concluded that common racial or ethnic characteristics do not necessarily produce separate nations. Renan maintained that “there is no pure race and . . . to make politics depend upon ethnographic analysis is to surrender it to a chimera. The noblest countries, England, France, and Italy, are those where the blood is the most mixed. . . . We touch here on one of those problems in regard to which it is of the utmost importance that we equip ourselves with clear ideas and ward off misconceptions.” Instead, Renan determined that a nation is built on historical events that have produced a common legacy for a group of people who share in the present the desire to bind themselves together as one. In his words, Renan asserted, “A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One lies in the past, one in the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present–day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received in an undivided form. . . . To have common glories in the past and to have a common will in the present; to have per-

formed great deeds together, to wish to perform still more—these are the essential conditions for being a people.” Renan concluded that a shared past and a continuing sense of wanting to live together in the present are the most–critical factors in the building of nations.

In his views of what constitutes a nation, Renan opposed Herder and subsequent philosophers who claimed that ethnicity, language, and culture have more to do with nation–building than do liberal democratic principles. Renan observed that during the French Revolution, Europeans believed that the political institutions appropriate for governing “small, independent cities, such as Sparta and Rome,” could be used effectively in larger nations—a serious misconception, to his mind. Renan found even more problematic the late–nineteenth century tendency to confuse race “with nation and a sovereignty analogous to that of really existing peoples is attributed to ethnographic or, rather, linguistic groups.” Taking a historical outlook on the construction of nations, Renan commented, “Since the fall of the Roman Empire or, rather, since the disintegration of Charlemagne’s empire, western Europe has seemed to us to be divided into nations, some of which, in certain epochs, have sought to wield a hegemony over the others, without ever enjoying any lasting success.” He discovered such nations to be a relatively recent phenomenon, not found in the great empires of the past such as the Persian Empire, the empire of Alexander the Great, China, or Egypt.

Sometimes unity has been effected by a dynasty, as was the case in France; sometimes it has been brought about by the direct will of provinces, as was the case with Holland, Switzerland, and Belgium; sometimes it has been the work of a general consciousness, belatedly victorious over the caprices of feudalism, as was the case in Italy and Germany.

In other words, a variety of events can lead to a nation’s emerging on the historical scene. Nonetheless, according to Renan, the determining factors in the creation of nations are not race, religion, culture, or language, as these may unite a people but do not oblige

persons to act together. As Renan said, “A community of interest is assuredly a powerful bond between men. Do interests, however, suffice to make a nation? I do not think so. Community of interest brings about trade agreements, but nationality has a sentimental side to it; it is both soul and body at once . . .” Renan admitted that geography, too, influences the formation of nations, although it, too, is not a determining factor. In the end, Renan concluded, “A nation is a spiritual principle, the outcome of the profound complications of history; it is a spiritual family not a group determined by the shape of the earth.”

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In Nationalism and the State, John Breuilly, too, identified nationalism as a modern phenomenon. Additionally, Breuilly sees nationalism as an evanescent phenomenon: appearing and then disappearing after serving its function. Instead of arising as a naturally occurring feature of nations defined as persons sharing a common culture, nationalism, according to Breuilly, is a politically pragmatic phenomenon: having accomplished its end, it then disappears.

Worth noting here is Michael Billig’s concept of “banal nationalism,” which he discusses in his book by the same name. Billig identifies patriotism as a banal, or everyday, form of nationalism, a pervasive phenomenon in nation–states that can quickly be kindled up into what Billig terms “hot nationalism.” This form of fervent, ultra–patriotic feeling—evident in the heated displays of patriotism by many Americans in response to the September 11, 2001 catastrophes—can sometimes produce significant, often harmful results such as the granting of excessive powers to a chief executive, the suspension of constitutional rights, and xenophobic attacks against those perceived to belong to “terrorist” religions or nationalities.

THEORY IN ACTION

In “The Promise, the Peril,” a special report appearing in the December 17, 2001, issue of Newsweek magazine, Marcus Mabry and his colleagues asked a critical question pertinent to scholars of nationalism: “How do you build a nation?” The authors suggest that Europeans and Americans accomplished nation building by “subjugation and might” during the days of imperialism. And they conclude that, since the end of the Cold War, the task of nation–building increasingly has been taken on by the United Nations. Clearly, the business of constructing a nation depends on contextual historical factors that vary significantly from case to case and over time. What worked to build a nation–state in eighteenth century Europe is not necessarily what works in the twenty–first century, particularly where nation–states were already constituted but were subsequently torn apart by ethnic violence, civil strife, or international warfare, only to be shaped again.

Nationalist theories range widely in scope and content, despite the certain amount of agreement that exists among scholars of nationalism as to what constitutes a “nation” and how a “nationalist” social movement can be identified and described. In many ways, nationalism would have assumed far less importance had there been no European colonization of

Africa, Latin America, and Asia. It was to the liberation struggles that appeared in response to the oppressive nature of European imperial control that theories of nationalism took on special importance, starting especially in the late nineteenth century. Nonetheless, the specific context of oppression may be less important to the creation of national movements than the reality of oppression itself. Without the appearance of national movements to liberate oppressed peoples, whether as an outgrowth of the development of liberal thought amidst autocratic rule in Europe in the late 1600s and early 1700s, in response to industrialization, or in relation to campaigns in Africa in the 1950s and 1960s to throw off the shackles of European control, theories of nationalism hardly would have flourished or become as finely nuanced as they had by the early twenty–first century.

As to whether nationalist theories are necessary to inspire oppressed peoples to work for their own liberation, the debate continues. Some theorists maintain that nationalist campaigns—that is, nationalism in ac- tion—cannot occur without there first being intellectuals who envision the possibilities of creating a new national identity and new political structures to match (essentially, a “top–down” stage in the process), followed by the cultivation of these ideas among the masses, then the emergence of capable political actors who can lead their people to press for recognition of their nationalist demands (“bottom–up,” or grassroots, stage). Whatever the case, it is obvious that virtually no nation–state in the world today could have been formed or would have achieved independence without some measure of motivated, concerted action on the part of historical actors seeking to secure an environment where their own national group could play a significant political role.

The Haudenosaunee

The Haudenosaunee, or Six–Nations Confederacy, known to the French as the Iroquois (a name resembling a common greeting used by Native Americans in the confederacy), overlaps the northeastern part of the United States. The case of the Haudenosaunee exemplifies the fact that Native American and other indigenous political systems can be based on a concept of nationhood differing somewhat from more Western European–based concepts of a nation.

Some scholars may doubt that Native American nations are true identity nations in the actual sense of the word. Among the Haudenosaunee, however, the concept of “nation” as an identity group clearly exists and has for centuries. Closely related to the spiritual history of the people belonging to each of the Six Nations, Haudenosaunee national identity implies mem-

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bership in both a constituent nation (for example, the Mohawks) and in a confederation of distinct but integrally connected nations.

The identity of each of the Six Nations was shaped by historical events that took place perhaps some one to two thousand years ago, if not longer. These events were originally recorded in wampum—sacred messages in beaded code created from black and white beads of shell—although most wampum was destroyed by the European colonizers of North America. Some of the earliest tales of the Haudenosaunee concern the origins of the confederacy that would later shape the course of American history not only through treaties, peaceable agreements, and battles between the indigenous nations and the European settlers, but also through the influence of the Haudenosaunee constitution and practices on the American Articles of Confederation and, to perhaps a lesser extent, on the U.S. Constitution.

Apparently responding to dissension and continual fighting among the five Native American nations of the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks, The Peacemaker, also known as Dekanaw- idah—a member of the Huron nation from the North American Great Lakes region—met with the Five Nations’ leaders somewhere between 1000 A.D. and 1450 A.D. He provided the confederate chiefs with a model for governance through a new constitution known as the Great Law of Peace (Great Binding Law or Gayanashagowa). According to the Great Law, each nation of the Haudenosaunee was to play an integral role in the affairs of the confederacy, which would be governed by the chiefs and the clan mothers through direct—that is, participatory—democracy, meeting regularly in clan councils and in councils of the entire league, or confederacy. The original political association thus formed consisted of five Native American nations, with the Tuscarora Nation joining the confederacy as the sixth nation in the early 1700s. Planting a Tree of Great Peace in the Onondaga Nation, centrally located among the other four nations, The Peacemaker designated the Onondaga Nation the “Keepers of the Fire,” the council fire around which the nations’ chiefs would meet to discuss affairs of mutual interest and determine domestic and international action.

In the Haudenosaunee confederacy, women as well as men have figured highly in political decision making. Each of the clans making up the Five (later, Six) Nations is guided by a woman, the clan mother, who is entrusted with monitoring the political decisions of those sitting in council and who can depose any leader deemed to be acting not in accordance with the Great Law of Peace. Additionally, Haudenosaunee

clan mothers have the responsibility to deliberate in their own councils, governing structures parallel to the chiefs’ councils, and to grant citizenship in the confederacy to other Native Americans through clan adoption. For example, the Wyandots of Ohio and the Delawares (the Lenni Lenapes) were adopted into the Haudenosaunee by this method. Furthermore, the clan mother of the Onondaga Nation has played a central role in the affairs of the Haudenosaunee. In the early twenty–first century, Clan Mother Audrey Shenandoah presides over the Haudenosaunee.

Effects of the outside world Despite the long tradition of deliberations and direct democracy practiced by the Haudenosaunee, the political integrity of Native America has been severely challenged by the presence of European Americans on native soil and by interference from the United States government and state governments in indigenous affairs. By the late twentieth century the majority of Native American tribes and nations were facing severe economic and social problems such as extremely high unemployment, alcoholism, inadequate health care, poorly equipped schools, and a lack of political autonomy, all this despite the numerous treaties they had signed over the centuries with the various states of the U.S. and the federal government. Nearly all of these problems stemmed from the policies of “internal colonialism” conducted against Native Americans by the United States government and by state governments as well. Systematically stripped of the rights to their own natural resources on Native American land and lacking an adequate economic base from which to operate and raise revenue, Native Americans have suffered severe discrimination and the dispossession of their land and resources.

In consequence, numerous casinos run by Native Americans on their reservations or lands sprang up at the close of the twentieth century and the start of the new millennium as an alternative means of generating revenue for the indigenous nations. Among the Haudenosaunee as with certain others in Native America, in 2001 internal debates raged over the appropriateness of building and operating gambling casinos on Indian land. These “Indian casinos” are sometimes seen as a panacea, or cure–all, to the economic troubles of Native America. For instance, Foxwoods Resort and Casino, operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation on their own sovereign territory within the state of Connecticut, is filled with slot machines and other games of chance and features well–known performers and athletes. Foxwoods has proven so lucrative that casino proceeds easily covered the

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construction of a Museum and Research Center that opened in 1998 on Mashantucket Pequot land.

Another case in point: the Oneida Nation, one of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee, grappled in 2001 not only with the question of whether its Turning Stone Casino in Verona, New York, was worth keeping and replicating but also with serious internal dissension. The controversy was brought on primarily by concern among many Oneidas that their traditional ways are being jeopardized and their political autonomy from the State of New York is being undermined by Turning Stone. New York State authorities increasingly have tried regulating gambling casinos on Native American land, despite prior agreements that the Haudenosaunee could operate their own economic concerns without state interference such as taxation and regulation. Disagreement over whether relying on casinos as a means of building greater economic wealth for the indigenous peoples of North America is a healthy course to pursue extends far beyond the Haudenosaunee. Numerous other Native American nations and tribes in the United States and Canada are facing similar debates and problems with the handling of casinos, some involving instances of corruption and murder sparked by conflicts over the rightful ownership and operation of these enterprises.

As some people—including many Native Amer- icans—see it, then, casinos may be flourishing at the moral, spiritual, and cultural expense of the very people they are meant to serve. Additionally, the casinos are viewed as a potentially dangerously one–sided way of generating income. Should a particular casino fail to attract sufficient clients, few other economic alternatives may be available to sustain newly created projects and the ongoing economic and social needs of Native Americans. Gambling addiction, added to the already prevalent problem of alcoholism among many Native American groups, also is seen as an inherent problem with this method of raising revenue, a serious hazard whose potential to further destroy the health and integrity of Native American nations is substantial.

Included within the debate over the validity of gambling casinos on Native American land is the critical issue of whether indigenous peoples are best served by assimilating, or blending in, with the cultural majority population in whose midst they live, whether they should maintain an existence separate from and parallel to the surrounding majority, or whether indigenous peoples profit most by considering themselves as simultaneously belonging to two so- cieties—the indigenous and the non–native—that is, citizens of both the majority society and of their own indigenous nations, or as some in Canada have termed

it, “citizens–plus.” The special challenge for indigenous minorities, as for the larger, encompassing state, is to discern where multiple cultures and identities fit “in the political and social order of the nation state” and how a sense of alienation can be avoided when not all belong to the dominant culture.

National identity Based on differing conceptions of what it means to be an American, contentious disputes have arisen over obligations to the various governments that seek to both nurture and control indigenous nations. The Haudenosaunee consider themselves to be a sovereign, independent people living in the midst of non–indigenous citizens of the United States. As such, the Haudenosaunee issue and carry their own Haudenosaunee passports that, though unrecognized by the United States government, are viewed as legitimate national documents by certain other Western nations, including Switzerland. Seeking representation at the level of the United Nations at the turn of the millennium consequently was one objective of the Haudenosaunee who attended the Millennium Summit of worldwide religious traditions held at United Nations headquarters in New York in August 2000.

Similarly, the efforts of the Haudenosaunee to right environmental wrongs in New York State have been recognized internationally, including at the UN, where in July 1995 the UN Environment Programme hosted a day–long session to consider Haudenosaunee concerns about the pollution of Native American lands in New York State. However, the claims and desires of the Six Nations have often conflicted with the assumptions and practices of the United States government, and the ultimate outcome of the Haudenosaunee quest for recognition as a sovereign nation and for UN membership was uncertain at the close of 2001. Possessing dual or triple national identities—for example, simultaneously belonging to the Onondaga Nation and the Haudenosaunee while at the same time being a citizen of the United States—has raised significant challenges and posed problems and contradictions not easily resolved.

Although many of the Haudenosaunee’s recent experiences have been far more positive than the casinos controversies imply, the nature of national identity among America’s indigenous peoples has been radically affected in recent years by shifts in community fortunes associated with gambling revenues. Since the basis of economic livelihood by necessity shapes culture, the identity of indigenous nations in America has been changing as the economies have changed. National identity, as scholars such as Anthony D. Smith have noted, is not a fixed entity but can change and mutate over time, sometimes in pos-

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