Ethnic and Nationalist Mobilization (original) (raw)
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Nationalism , Ethnic Conflict , and Rationality Nationalism , Ethnic Conflict , and Rationality
2003
Why do we have so many ethnic partisans in the world ready to die as suicide bombers? Does a rational calculus lie beneath the nationalist pride and passions? Can it be discovered if only we apply our understanding of rationality more creatively? This article seeks to answer these questions by focusing on the nationalism of resistance. It argues that a focus on dignity, self-respect, and recognition, rather than a straightforward notion of self-interest, is a better prism for understanding ethnic and nationalist behavior, although self-interest is not entirely absent as a motivation in ethnic conflict. In the process of developing this argument, a distinction once made by Max Weber—between instrumental rationality and value rationality—is recovered and refined further.
Nationalism and Ethnic Politics Defending the Nation from her Nationalism(s
This article offers and applies a framework for understanding nation-(re)-building after a major transition and crisis, like a war. It suggests socioanthropological concepts: liminality, mimesis, rites of passage, and tricksters. An understanding of the logic behind the emergence of nationalist tricksters can offer knowledge for an arguably better conflict-handling mechanism in deeply divided societies. It addresses, via the case study of Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H), the following question: What is an adequate understanding of the postconflict self in B&H? The aim is to reconceptualize nationalism and the break-up of Yugoslavia (as well as the post- Dayton B&H) as a liminal process, in which trickster nationalists perpetuate schismatic conflict. The article concludes that trickster nationalists seem to be responsible for the current state of permanent liminality in B&H societies.
Review Essay: Identities, Interests, and the Study of Nationalism
Review Essay: David D. Laitin. Nations, States, and Violence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, 162 pp. Henry E. Hale. The Foundations of Ethnic Politics: separatism of states and nations in Eurasia and the world. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 304 pp. Marc H. Ross. Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 384 pp.
Since many contemporary interstate wars have been accompanied by intensive nationalist rhetoric and practice, there is a widespread assumption that nationalism and war are profoundly interrelated. Moreover, as nationalist experience is often depicted through the violent images of self-sacrifice and martyrdom, bloody battlefields, aggressive expulsions of populations, or vehement revolutionary struggles, the general view is that the two phenomena have a strong causal relationship. Hence, much of scholarly debate has focused on a conundrum: Is nationalism a cause or a consequence of war? While most academics agree that the relationships between nationalisms and wars are complex, historically contingent, and geographically specific, there is still a pronounced disagreement over the following questions: Which of the two phenomena comes first? Does intense nationalist identification inevitably lead toward violent outcomes or is it that the prolonged wars engender nationalist solidarity? When, why, and how are these causal relationships between nationalism and war likely to emerge? There are three dominant and for the most part mutually exclusive contemporary perspectives that attempt to provide coherent answers to these questions: the naturalist, the formativist, and the gradualist perspectives.
The Nation-State: Civic and Ethnic Dimensions
A definitive global survey of the interaction of race, ethnicity, nationalism and politics, this handbook blends theoretically grounded, rigorous analysis with empirical illustrations, to provide a state-of-the art overview of the contemporary debates on one of the most pervasive international security challenges today. The contributors to this volume offer a 360-degree perspective on ethnic conflict: from the theoretical foundations of nationalism and ethnicity, to the causes and consequences of ethnic conflict, and to the various strategies adopted in response to it. Without privileging any specific explanation of why ethnic conflict happens at a specific place and time or why attempts at preventing or settling it might fail or succeed, the Routledge Handbook of Ethnic Conflict enables readers to gain better insights into such defining moments in post-Cold War international history as the disintegrations of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and their respective consequences and the genocide in Rwanda, as well as the relative success of conflict settlement efforts in Northern Ireland, Macedonia, and Aceh. By contributing to understanding the varied and multiple causes of ethnic conflicts and to learning from the successes and failures of its prevention and settlement, the Handbook makes a powerful case that ethnic conflicts are neither unavoidable nor unresolvable, but rather that they require careful analysis and thoughtful and measured responses.
Nationalism (entry in The SAGE Encyclopedia of War, full paper)
The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives, Paul Josepf (ed.), 2017
Nationalism as a general phenomenon has coproduced the nation (in interaction with a complex web of political, social, and economic processes) as a major form of collective identity, it has significantly influenced the character and the functions of the modern state, and it has informed the core organizing principles of the modern state (thus, international) system. Violence and war have been important mediums through which these sweeping changes came about, although nationalism is not by definition violent, nor has modern war making been exclusively nationalist in character. This entry first describes two core features of nationalism, then briefly presents the main theories of nationalism (and their understanding of nationalist conflicts), and finally delineates core aspects of the relationship between war and nationalism