Archives>GLOBALIZATION> GLOBALIZATION Week 3 . 19 sep 2002 . Class Notes
GLOBALIZATION Week 3 . Class Notes
Nationalism: What is the role of nationalism and civilizational identity in the world today?
09.19.02

Readings:
  • Barber: Introduction, Chs:1, 10-14
    • Use of the Hegelian dialectic - i.e. the existence of "MacWorld" necessitates the existence of "Jihad"
    • MacWorld uses Jihad's traditionalism: by having an "enemy" we therefore need to maintain an army and therefore need to maintain the military-industrial complex
    • Jihad uses MacWorld's technology
    • The advance of MacWorld ferments the rise of a radical response ("Jihad") which leads to our response (overwhelming force) which leads to...
    • MacWorld promotes itself as "champions of democracy, but our actions, historically, have proven otherwise...in the service of "economic growth" we have supported the most undemocratic of regimes and institutions, thereby damaging the credibility of our belief system
  • R: Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Ch. 1
    • That one Marxist nation (VietNam/China) would invade another (Cambodia/VietNam) would suggest that the nation-state is alive and well and that ideological wars are a thing of the past
    • "Since WW2 every successful revoultion has defined itself in nationalistic terms"
    • "The end of the era of nationalism, so long prophesied, is no longer in sight"
  • Huntington, "Clash of Civilizations"
    • Extremely influential work in post Cold War era
    • whereas conflicts in the past were primarilu between nation states, those of the future will be between civilizations
    • evidence: wars will thusly occur in "torn countries" (i.e. those with heterogenous internal populations, Yugoslavia, Indonesia, the Ukraine as examples) or in "fault-line countries" (i.e. between distinct civilizational areas, Turkey? or Muslim-nonMuslim Africa)
    • counterevidence: Irag invades Kuwait, Iraq fights Iran, failure of international organizations to impede sovereignty; and that economic and political causes are much more prevalent and powerful than "civilizational identity"
  • Stephen M. Walt "Building Up New Bogeymen"
    • Nation-states are still strong because nations marry states to cultural/civilizational affinities, and nations have the means of action whereas civilizations do not
    • contrary to states coalescing into civilizational entities we see to the contrary fragmentation of existing states into smaller units (former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, separatist movements here and there)
    • (hmm - but to me it seems that a lot of this fragmentation has been along supranational lines, for example regions within a state wanting to become part of a larger Islamic Empire)
Definitions
state - a political entity
nation - entity with common culture, language, history and latent quest for autonomy; its identity can change over time (e.g. Serbia); it employs symbols, myths, language and sometimes religion; conditions that may aid the strengthening of national identity include economic crisis, political chaos or external affairs (e.g. IMF intrusion, colonialism, invasion)(
Palestine - a nation without a state
India - a multi-nation state

Historical Perspective
  • England 15th C - King Henry VIII broke with Catholic Church and subsequent alliance of Anglican Church with state helped forge the "English" identity
  • American and French revolutions transferred moral authority from "divine right of kings" to "popular sovereignty" - and positive nationalism (like that of the 1960s) in that it was perceived as a force by which to throw off oppression and introduce themes of tolerance, liberation, justice and self-rule
  • 1870s and after - spread throughout other European nations, end of old empires
  • "Reform nationalism" - Japan becoming a military-industrial might (other negative manifestations/instances: used for internal repression, external aggression and insularity)
  • 1960s - revolutions and end of colonial era - but all within this same "nation state" framework

Marxist view (Anderson)
  • prior to global expansion of capitalism no nationalism, per se
  • Print technology made it possible to print in the local vernacular, rather than Latin, thereby encouraging the use of a common language, thereby encouraging a common identity, thereby helping foster nationalist conceptions
  • Similarly it helps lead to revolution against colonial empires in that local administrators, drawn from the local population, have a means by which to identify themselves as separate and distinct from their colonizers
Transnationalism
  • religious movements, race consciousness, indigenous rights, feminism, Marxism, capitalism - all competing with nationalism
  • Roman Empire - encouraged belief in the notion of a "family of man" - as means of trying to override the existing strength of local and tribal affiliations
  • T. Paine: "I am a citizen of the world"
Cosmopolitanism
  • use of English as dominant international language
  • Strength (relative to pre-20th C history, anyway) of international organizations such as the EU and UN
  • international youth culture
  • international aid organizations, NGOs
  • effectiveness of transnational corporate branding
  • e.g. students at NU are much more like each other than they are with people from their countries of origin
  • those on the top find it easy to buy into this, those on the bottom do not