Western Nationalism: The Cultural Core and the Decline of Multiculturalism (original) (raw)
Related papers
Challenging the Civic/Ethnic and West/East Dichotomies in the Study of Nationalism
Comparative Political Studies, 2002
This article challenges the widespread notion that civic nationalism is dominant in Western Europe and North America, whereas ethnic nationalism is dominant in Central and Eastern Europe. After laying out the civic-West/ethnic-East argument, it refines the civic/ethnic dichotomy and deduces the state policies that flow from ethnic, cultural, and civic conceptions of national identity. It then employs survey data from 15 countries to measure mass conceptions of national identity by analyzing attitudes on criteria for national membership and state policy toward assimilation and immigration. The article finds that the civic-West/ethnic-East stereotype, when true, is only weakly true, and according to several measures is false. Finally, several explanations for strong cultural national identities in the West and strong civic national identities in Eastern Europe are given.
Ethnicities, 2021
Rather than vilifying or rejecting it, an increasing number of scholars from two seemingly anti-nationalist cohorts, namely liberal political theory and multiculturalism, have come to argue that nationalism is not intrinsically illiberal or undesirable, but some forms of it (e.g. liberal, multicultural, pluralistic) can be a positive force to meet the demands for nation-building, national identity and national culture, on the one hand, and demands for recognition, respect and accommodation of diversity, on the other. This paper critically examines recent scholarly literature on liberal nationalism and multicultural nationalism. It argues that both projects have developed necessary responses to (1) growing diversity and (2) ethnonational and populist-majoritarian forms of nationalism and hence, are welcome. However, two substantial shortcomings need to be addressed. The first is the nation-building–education nexus and the limits of multicultural education (e.g. the teaching of histor...
Has Multiculturali̇sm Beated the Nationalism?: European Sample
DergiPark (Istanbul University), 2023
In this study, it was analysed that multiculturalism, which globalization has offered as a solution to cultural differences, has triggered again nationalism in the process of bringing national identities into the forefront again with postmodernism. In the historical process, various cultural policies have been applied over national identities and attempts have been made to solve identity crises based on different acceptances in the lived period. Thus, modernity with nation-state political form has attempted to create a homogeneous nation identity by destroying the sub-identities; likewise the postmodern thought is continuing to take steps towards eliminating upper identity by putting a global ideology that will disrupt social integrity with the emphasis on cultural identities and differences. Multiculturalism, which one of the identity politics of globalization, is pushing the nation-state structure and raising the representation crises of different identities. This identity politics as a solution also carries the risk of turning into nationalism. In this study, it was analyzed that the different understandings of multiculturalism in Europe create this risk rather than reconciliation.
Nationalism and Multiculturalism
Handbook of Political Theory
If any issue dominates contemporary political theory, it is how to deal with cultural diversity and the claimsmoral, legal, and political-made in the name of ethnic, religious, linguistic, or national allegiance (Kymlicka, 2001: 17). Today, governments are confronted by demands from cultural minorities for recognition, protection, preferential treatment, and political autonomy within the boundaries of the state. Equally, international society and its political institutions, as well as states themselves, have had to deal with demands from various peoples for political recognition as independent nations, and for national self-determination. The turbulent politics of the contemporary world may account in part for this development: the collapse of communist Eastern Europe led to an upsurge of nationalist demands from peoples aspiring to statehood; the challenges to the legitimacy of rulers in such places as Kashmir, Burma, East Timor, and Bougainville have fed demands for national independence as well as attempts at secession; the emergence of an indigenous peoples' movement gave further encouragement to aboriginal groups calling for affirmative action, or compensation for past injustice, as well as rights of self-government; and the mass migrations of peoples, fleeing war or simply seeking better opportunities in new countries, have seen the emergence of substantial cultural minorities in states unprepared for the problems this could bring. Political theory had, until recent times, said relatively little about these matters (exceptions include Plamenatz, 1960; Van Dyke, 1977; 1982; 1985). But the issues raised by cultural diversity and nationalist claims could not be ignored for long, since they posed a challenge to the prevailing political theories-and to liberal and democratic theory in particular. Indeed, the challenge of multiculturalism and nationalism has provoked a reexamination of a great number of issues in political theory, from the role of the state, the limits of toleration and the rights of women, to the proper scope of public education and the nature of citizenship. It has brought about a reconsideration of the basis of political order. This chapter surveys the literature of nationalism and multiculturalism as it has grown and developed over the past 15 years. Its aim, however, is not simply to summarize that body of writing but to draw attention to the problems that have confronted contemporary political theory-and liberal theory in particular-as it has struggled to embrace diversity. How can the many live as one? That is an old question in political theory, and the theorists of nationalism and multiculturalism have, in different ways, tried to offer an answer. What is Multiculturalism? The term 'multiculturalism' predates its use in political theory, but not by very long. Although nationalism is an old concept which has been much discussed in the past century (Kedourie, 1967; Minogue, 1967), multiculturalism did not appear until the 1960s and 1970s, when it was used to describe a new public policy, first in Canada and then in Australia. In both of these cases, this development marked an explicit movement by federal governments away from policies of assimilation of ethnic minorities, and immigrants in particular, toward policies of acceptance and integration of diverse cultures (Lopez, 2000: 2-3). The term did not enter the American (or British) lexicon until the 1980s (Glazer, 1997: 8). When it did enter American debates, however, it did so in the first instance, in discussions about public education. 'Multiculturalism,' according to Nathan Glazer, 'is just the latest in [a] sequence of terms describing how American society, particularly American education, should respond to diversity' (1997: 8). Multiculturalism, then, is a term that describes one particular way of responding to ethnic diversity. 'It is a position that rejects assimilation and the "melting pot" image as an imposition of the dominant culture, and instead prefers such metaphors as the "salad bowl" or the "glorious mosaic", in which each ethnic and racial SAGE © Gerald F
Brown Journal of World Affairs, 2019
What is often described today as neo-nationalism or nationalist-populism today arguably looks like the old nationalism. What is emerging as genuinely new are the identity-based nationalisms of the centre-left, sometimes called ‘liberal nationalism’ or ‘progressive patriotism’. I offer my own contribution to the latter, which may be called ‘multicultural nationalism’. I argue that multiculturalism is a mode of integration that does not just emphasise the centrality of minority group identities but argues that integration is incomplete without re-making national identity so that all can have a sense of belonging to it. In this respect, multiculturalist approaches to national belonging have some relation to liberal nationalism and a majoritarian interculturalism. It makes not just individual rights but minority accommodation a feature of acceptable nationalism. Importantly, however, unlike cosmopolitanism it is national-focused and is not against immigration controls (subject to certain conditions). For these reasons multicultural nationalism unites the concerns of some of those currently sympathetic to majoritarian nationalism and those who are pro-diversity and minority accommodationist in the way that liberal nationalism (with its emphasis on individualism and majoritarianism) or cosmopolitanism (with its disavowal of national belonging and championing of open borders) does not. It therefore represents the political idea and tendency most likely to offer a feasible alternative rallying point to monocultural nationalism.
Ethnic and civic nationalism: a dynamic picture of political identities
The classic dichotomy of ethnic vs. civic nationalism does not allow for dynamic alterations between the two. Peoples that see their identities basically in terms of blood kinship will hardly accept an alternative mainly civic identity. Any change, within this picture, presupposes generational replacement. On the level of collective attitudes of a particular generation, however, peoples remain invariable. I challenge this static vision of nationalism that allows for change only as part of generational replacement, although I do not challenge the latter postulate. Change within identity on the scale between ethnic and civic nationalism is possible within specific communities. One of the causes for such change is the presence of strong international political institutions, institutions aiming to create their own transnational political identities. I take the European Union as an example of such international political institution and a sample of EU member-states and candidates for membership as cases of possible cultural shift from ethnic toward civic nationalism and vice versa. I use qualitative and ethnographic techniques and methods of interpretation to account for the causal mechanisms that link the EU and the dynamic picture of national identities.
Civic versus ethnic nationalism and nations: A false dichotomy
The paper examines the argument about the two distinct types of nationalism and corresponding national identities -civic and ethnic. Despite its status of received wisdom in the studies of nationalism, the Kohn-Greenfeld thesis (as we call it by the names of its most influential contributors) has been the subject of considerable criticism on both conceptual-theoretical and empirical grounds. This mounting critique has reached the point where reassessment of the status of the thesis is all but necessary. We propose an alternative framework for analysis of nations and national identities. First, we view nation not as a product of modernity but as a socio-political form of human organization evidenced throughout recorded history. Second, we argue that civic and ethnic are not mutually exclusive types of nationalism and national identity, but rather complementary identities of any given nation as well as of its individual members. Next, we argue that civic and ethnic identities of a nation are not compartmentalized but entwined and interplay with each other. Our short discussion of the French case demonstrates how at the time of the Revolution of 1789 and again during the Third Republic the French language was viewed as one of the key pre-requisites for membership in the supposedly universalist civic nation.
Nationalism, Ethnicity, Citizenship: Multidisciplinary Perspectives
Nationalism, Ethnicity, Citizenship: Multidisciplinary Perspectives Edited by Martyn Barrett, Christopher Flood and John Eade Nationalism, ethnicity and citizenship lie at the heart of many of the societal changes that are currently transforming countries across the world. Global migration has undermined old certainties provided by the established framework of nation-states, with inward migration, cultural diversity and transnational affiliations having become established facts of life in many countries. These phenomena raise significant challenges for traditional conceptions of citizenship. This book provides a detailed examination, from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, of contemporary issues relating to nationalism, ethnicity and citizenship. The book aims to take stock of current understandings in this area, and to establish whether there are connections between the understandings that are being articulated within different social science disciplines. The contributors, who are all senior international figures in their respective fields, are drawn from a range of disciplines, including Politics, Sociology, Communication/Media, Geography, Psychology and Education. Collectively, they address the following specific questions: • To what extent do multiculturalism and transnationalism undermine nationalism or, on the contrary, provoke its reassertion? • How do the multiple identities and multiple levels of belonging experienced today interact with traditional nationalist ideology? • Within multicultural societies, how far do representations of ‘cultural others’ still play a role in nationalist constructions of ‘the nation’? • How successfully have the welfare systems of nation-states responded to the influx of migrants? • How have national politicians responded to the cultural diversity of their own countries and have they moved beyond the traditional logic of nationalism within their thinking? • Why are extreme right-wing parties gaining increased levels of support? • What social and psychological resources do citizens require in order to function effectively at the political level within multicultural democratic societies? • How can the educational systems of states, which have traditionally been used for nationalist purposes, be harnessed to enhance the competences needed by their citizens for successful living in multicultural societies? • What changes need to be made to educational policies in order to ensure the effective integration of minority citizens? Despite the fact that they have been written from different disciplinary perspectives, the various chapters in this book paint a consistent picture. They offer a view of a world in which nationalism is still very much a dominant ideology which configures the discourse and thinking of citizens and politicians alike about nation-states, ethnic diversity, multiculturalism and citizenship. The crucial role of education is also highlighted, with school systems being uniquely positioned to equip citizens with the psychological resources and intercultural competences that are needed to function effectively within multicultural societies. Book contents List of Contributors Preface Martyn Barrett, Christopher Flood and John Eade Nationalism, Ethnicity, Citizenship: Multidisciplinary Perspectives – An Introduction Martyn Barrett, Christopher Flood and John Eade Is Nationalism an Anachronism? Notes on the Mutations of National Idealism in a Global Age Ulf Hedetoft Nationalism, Belonging, Globalization and the ‘Ethics of Care’ Nira Yuval-Davis Representing the Nation and the Muslim Other: Television News Coverage in Three Countries Christopher Flood, Stephen Hutchings, Galina Miazhevich and Henri Nickels Citizenship, Ethnicity and Mainstream Society: The European Welfare States Navigating between Exclusion and Inclusion Hans van Amersfoort Rebranding Britain? Ideological Dilemmas in Political Appeals to “British Multiculturalism” Susan Condor What does it take to be a Political Actor in a Multicultural Society? Nicholas P. Emler Intercultural Citizenship – An Education Perspective Michael Byram Integrationist to Citizenship Education Policy within England: A Forward Movement or a Backward Step? Richard Race Name Index Subject Index