Nationalism and the Founding of Nations

Paper Summary:

This paper argues the case in favor of the stance that nationalism engenders nations, and not the other way around. The paper points out that there has yet to be any real consensus reached among historians regarding this question. It asserts that a large proportion of this debate relies on the context in which the argument is made, i.e. the time-frame and historical references used. Furthermore, definitions of the terms "nationalism" and "nation" vary from one source to another. The paper attempts to define these key terms. The interaction between nations and nationalism is analyzed using the nationalist movement of eighteenth and nineteenth century Germany as a reference point. The paper concludes that analyzing the origins of the nationalist movement illustrates how nationalism preceded the nation.

From the Paper:

"It has already been said that a nation is not something overly definitive, so how can we justify its existence? It is generally accepted that any nation of people exists because that certain group of people have something or some things in common; race, language, culture, history etc. But it is inadequate to define a nation by describing it as an entity in which all individuals share common characteristics, because there will always be exceptions to the rule. Yet, if we try to define a nation using only a single rule, e.g. the necessity of a shared culture, then we narrow it down to too fine a focus, and potentially exclude a large number of people who identify themselves as being part of that nation. Renan, for example, championed heritage and the shared "heroic past" of a people as the only required component of a nation."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Carr, E. H. (1945) Nationalism and After, London: Macmillan.
• Barnard, F. (1965) Herder's Social and Political Thought, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Breuilly, J. (1993) Nationalism and the State, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Gellner, E. (1983) Nations and Nationalism, Ithaca: Blackwell.
• Handler, Richard. (1988) 'Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec' in George E. Clifford and Marcus James ed., New Directions in Anthropological Writing: History, Poetics, Cultural Criticism, Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.

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