Ethnicity and Nationalism 9004096094, 9789004096097

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ETHNICITY AND NATIONALISM EDITED BY

ANTHONY D. SMITH

’'68^'

E.J. BRILL LEIDEN • NEW YORK • KOLN 1992

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ethnicity and nationalism / edited by Anthony D. Smith. p. cm.—(International studies in sociology and social anthropology, ISSN 0074-8684; v. 60) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9004096094 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Nationalism. 2. Ethnicity. I. Smith, Anthony D. II. Series. JC311.E87 1992 320.5’4—dc20 91-45799 CIP

ISSN 0074-8684 ISBN 90 04 09609 4 © Copyright 1992 by E.J. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by E.f. Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to Copyright Clearance Center, 27 Congress Street, SALEM MA 01970, USA. Fees are subject to change. r

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PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

■iJI CONTENTS

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Anthony D. Smith, Ethnicity and Nationalism 1\/ James Mayall and Mark Simpson, Ethnicity is not Enough: Reflections on Protracted Secessionism in the Third World 5 Sammy Smooha and Theodor Hanf, The Diverse Modes of ConflictRegulation in Deeply Divided Societies 26 Walker Connor,The Nation and its Myth 48v/ Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and the Historians 58 > Sylvia Walby, Women and Nation John Hutchinson, Moral Innovators and the Politics of Regeneration: the Distinctive Role of Cultural Nationalists in Nation-Building .... 101 Donald L. Horowitz, Irredentas and Secessions: Adjacent Phenom­ ena, Neglected Connections 118’' Contributors

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Introduction: Ethnicity and Nationalism ANTHONY D. SMITH •

T^HE LAST TWENTY YEARS, Professor Eric Hobsbawn tells us in his recent book. Nations and Nationalism since 1780, (1990) have seen more genuinely illuminating works on nations and nationalism—and; he might have added, on ethnic identity—than the whole preceding century. Whether this is really the case remains in dispute, given the contributions of not only Carlton Hayes and Hans Kohn, which he records, but also those of Karl Deutsch (1966), Elie Kedourie (1960), Louis Snyder (1954) and J.H. Kautsky (1962), 4^ to name but a few. What, I think, distinguishes the last twenty years from earlier periods in the study of nationalism is the growing convergence of two fields, which had J A been formerly treated as separate: tfre _study of e^^hnicity^ ethnic com-, x: y . -_____ _ _ _ and __________ munity, and the analysis ofc^^bn^ identity lity_____________ and nationalism nationalism . The former had been largely the preserve of anthropologists and social psychologists, and had focused on small-scale communities, often in Third World areas. The latter had been the province of historians, for whom the ideology (and ethics) of nationalism was paramount. Nationalism was seen as a ‘force’, non-logical if not irrational, one which swept away traditional barriers and ushered in a new era of national conflicts and mass terror, a view reinforced by nationalism’s alleged role in two World Wars. (The ethnic revival in the We^, starting in the early 1960s, led to a J reas^ssment o^ulh 'ellmiuty’ diid'^ationalisjn’^ and to the realisation that! they were, both as' empirical realities^and fields of study, intimately related.I .The-growth-oLsi _________ 'OrHbr^asque, Catalan, Breton, Flemish, Scots a~nr {ethnic autonomy^ as well as that of a host of smaller ethnic communities, widened the concept of ‘neo-nationalism’ to include dimensions that had previously been taken for granted or treated as nationalist rhetoric.JLt became clear that4iow polyethnic states can survive the centrifugal pressures released by I democratisation, while preserving their democratic gain§\is one that raises pertinent questions about the relationships between ethnicity, democracy and nationalism, as the article by Theodor Hanf and Sammy Smooha suggests. Concepts like ‘ethnic democracy’ may indeed find a wide resonance in plural

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societies which attempt to retain the ethno-national character of a state, while preserving democratic institutions for the ethnic majority. This raises the whole question of the place of minorities (who may in fact constitute numerical majorities) in plural states which are striving to create or maintain a particular vision of national identity. Not only may ethnic and religious minorities fail to find an acceptable status and cultural role in this conception; the enure female sector of the population may remain socially and culturally disenfrancEiseJ’, even when accorded the vote. Recent work by Jayawardena (1986), and by Antbias and Yuval-Davis (1989), has revealed the ambiguities in relating gender differences to ethnic identity and nationalist aspirations, despite considerable overlap in the particular circumstances of national liberation struggles in parts of the Third World. This theme is taken up and developed in the article by Sylvia Walby, particularly in relation to the recent debate about the meanings and inclusiveness of citizenship in democratic societies. Finally, there is the recent trend in much of the scholarly work on nations and nationalism to emphasize, not just their wholly modern bases, but their peculiarly constructed and imagined quality. Already in 1964, Ernest Gellner had suggested that it wasjiationalism that invented nations not the other way round, a motif that runs through the work ^^^jxiull^ Nairn and Kedourie. But it is only in the last few years that .the (^oderni^ thesis has been taken tQ^itslogical conclusion. In the work of Hob^awnTand Ranger (1983) and of Benedict Anderson (1983), the nation itself has been dpmnstructed and revealed .as part of^a nationalist discourse about ‘in^ggined rommnnity’ and as a series of ‘invented traditions’ in an era of rapid change and political mobilisation. This is a far cry from the pre-War historians’ conception of nationalism as a powerful current, a vital force based on vivid sentiments and ^attachments to a pre-existing natipn. R is also far removed from thejroo^f those ethnic conflicts and national a.