Ethnic and Nationalist Mobilisation (original) (raw)
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SSRN Electronic Journal, 2003
Nation is state-oriented, whereas nationalism is an ideology which may simply promote one's own identity against Others. Therefore, theories of nation-building do not explain nationalism. Other theories adopting a materialist approach do, like Gellner's model in which nationalism appears as resulting from socio-ethnic conflicts, but they ignore the inner mechanism of this ideology. Theories looking at nationalism as an export product from the West also miss this point too. In contrast, a convincing body of theories anchor nationalism in socio-cultural reform. The intelligentsia which undertakes it in order to resist the threat posed by some dominant Other-often from the West, that fascinates them-, eventually develops a nationalist attitude, because it is not willing to imitate the West but strive to restore its culture by incorporating into it prestigious features of the West through the invention of a convenient Golden Age, the cornerstone of nationalism. This approach finds a parallel in the theories of ethnicity which do not apply the primordialist paradigm but focus on the making of group boundaries. Barth highlights the decisive role of the relationship to the Other and the little importance of cultural contents-compared to the maintenance of group boundaries-in the making of ethnic identities, in such a way that there are more affinities between his theory of ethnicity and theories of nationalism than between the latter and theories of the nation. However, one can construct an integrated model of nationalism by organising different theories in a sequence. While the ideology-based approach comes first, the creation of a nationalist movement implies the rise of socioeconomic conflicts and the massification of nationalism, a process of nation-building. 1 Marcel Mauss, naturally, stands as an atypical pioneer since his article "La Nation" was written in 1920 (Mauss, 1953-54). 2 Pierre Birnbaum has noticed the contrast between the Anglo-Saxon scene and the French one: 'In all haste, many are those who, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world that is more sensitive to the sociology of values, have undertaken research of all sorts: the production of studies on nationalism has replaced in the concerns of many research on corporatism or the state. Actually, French sociologists, more deeply influenced by the Durkheimian or Marxist traditions, seem to remain on the sidelines, abandoning these forms of collective action, so difficult is it to fit nationalist values into structural logics that are hardly conducive to grasping variations in imaginaries.' (Birnbaum, 1997, 2)
Nationalism as a Political Phenomenon
unpublished discussion paper .Yale University, 2010
You can think about nationalism in its bearing on politics in several different ways, which may well prove not to be simultaneously compatible with one another. You can view it as a political phenomenon predicated on attitudes, cognitive orientations, and interpretations and assignments of values, within a given population. You can also view it (and with equal appropriateness) as a political strategy for different types of agents across a wide range of settings. You can view it as a normative and practical conception of how it is appropriate to interpret and assign value within political life. All of these ways implicate political judgment from the outset (11a), but they do so with varying explicitness. Strategy can at least be assessed hypothetically and instrumentally independently of any disposition to espouse or shun it. But it comes under scrutiny, characteristically, when and because different sorts of political actors do find themselves drawn to it or repelled by it. Normative and practical conceptions of how to interpret and assign value within political life constitute political judgments in themselves. Even as a political phenomenon nationalism's presence must be established either by direct quotation (the salience of the terminology and conceptualisation of nationhood within the ways in which a particular population speaks), or by the evidently political judgment that the category of nation is constraining or driving the political responses of some elements of the population in question in clear and forcible ways. How should we see the aetiology of that presence ? How should we select intellectual strategies for identifying it more clearly and reliably than the social sciences have yet proved able to ? The grounds for bothering to try to do so issue from two further
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Jewish by law legislative operationalizing of race and ethnicity in holocaustera hungary, 2023
This article documents how anti-Semitic racially exclusionary legislation identified, classified, and operationalized the Jewry in Hungary between 1920 and 1944. Although holocaust and genocide literature is blooming and there are multiple thoroughly researched, insightful analyses on Hungary (see Barany Reference Barany1974; Kovács Reference Kovács1994; Braham and Miller Reference Braham and Miller1998; Braham Reference Braham2000; Molnár Reference Molnár2005; Braham Reference Braham2012; Vági, Csősz, and Kádár Reference Vági, László and Gábor2013; Adam Reference Adam2016; Braham and Kovács Reference Braham and Kovács2016), the focused English-language publication of legislation on classification is fragmented and incomplete. Besides filling a gap in the literature in this respect, the analysis contributes to scholarly discussions on how law operationalizes race and ethnicity. The article is structured as follows: after having outlined the conceptual framework of the project, identifying general issues and questions specific to identifying “who and what Jewish is,” the second part provides a detailed description of the actual legislative operationalization of membership in an ethnoracially conceptualized community for the purposes of discrimination, deprivation of a wide range of liberties, and, eventually, an attempt for systematic annihilation. As for methodology, as the second part consists of an analysis of historical legal documents, here scholarly references will be scarce, mostly limited to Tim Cole’s work (Reference Cole1999), the only directly relevant English-language source, and in other respects the work is based on our earlier extensive research (Lehotay Reference Lehotay2011a, Reference Lehotay and Sáry2011b; Reference Lehotay, Horváth and Halász2015, Reference Lehotay, Schweitzer and Szabó2016, Reference Lehotay2018, Reference Lehotay2020) published in Hungarian.
Scholarly Exploration of Nationalism: A Retrospective View
Social Science and Humanities Journal, 2024
The paper embarked on a scholarly exploration, seeking to unravel the intricate dimensions of nationalism and enhance our collective understanding. Through qualitative methodology—specifically contextual analysis—the study vividly examined the interpretations of influential thinkers regarding this complex concept. Topics spanned from “Nationalism and Its Relationship to a Nation” to “Theoretical Perspectives on Nationalism” and “Filipino Nationalism: Historical Context, Critical Issues, and Developments.” The analysis revealed that nationalism, as a subject, underwent extensive scholarly debate and analysis, reflecting its multifaceted nature and profound impact on nation-building and identity formation. In retrospect, the discourse surrounding nationalism encompassed diverse perspectives, ranging from its role in political and social transformation to its enduring influence on human history.