What is a Nation in Nationalism?

• Published in: The journal of political philosophy Vol. 25; no. 3; pp. 303 - 323
• Main Author: Podoksik, Efraim
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2017
• Subjects: Autonomy; Confusion; Ethnicity; Ideology; Nationalism; Political movements; Sovereignty; State; Strength; Theorists
• ISSN: 0963-8016; 1467-9760
• DOI: 10.1111/jopp.12109

Nationalism is normally conceived as an ideology or movement aiming at attaining and maintaining political autonomy, mainly in the form of state sovereignty, for a group of people called nation. This definition is coherent and widespread enough to enable a meaningful theoretical investigation of the phenomenon to which it refers. And yet theoretical discussion about nationalism often projects a strong sense of resignation. Many leading theorists claim that, since nationalism is such a complex phenomenon, it is impossible to reduce it to one theory or definition. It seems that one of the reasons for this feeling is that, although it is relatively easy to arrive at a coherent definition of nationalism, it is much more difficult to attain a clear understanding of its central component: the notion of nation. In the course of the last two centuries there was no shortage of attempts to define that specific type of human group which is called nation, but they just added to the confusion. Often, instead of a definition one was offered collections of all kinds of characteristics, starting from common descent and ending with subjective feeling.This vagueness opened the way for the view that, since it is impossible to define nation in general, one should begin with building typologies of various understandings of nation which point to different types of nationalism. The most familiar is the dichotomy between the ‘civic’ and ‘ethnic’ nationalism. Its weakness, both theoretical and empirical, has been criticised from many angles.