The origins of nationalism

The nation state as a legal entity emerged with the Peace of Westphalia treaty signed in 1648. In reaction to the religious wars of the Reformation, absolutist nation states emerged around the authority of the church, who in turn bestowed legitimacy on monarchs. The nation was primarily a tool of stability for monarchies.

Nationalism emerged out of the Enlightenment in Europe. The Enlightenment, driven forward by the Philosophes, questioned the authority of the Church. As advances in mathematics and natural philosophy (science) began to develop a mechanistic understanding of the world as opposed to the mythical, magical and archaic cultures that preceded it, so enlightenment thinkers tried to systematise and mechanise other areas of philosophy, including what we know now as political philosophy and political science. Reason would determine how societies ought to be constituted and governed, not the divine right of monarchs. Rousseau suggested that sovereignty ought to lie in a "virtuous and united people" who could exercise their general will rationally to decide their own fate. Others, such as the German philosopher Herder, saw the nation as a grouping bound by a common cultural background, and opposed the imposition of political solutions that transcended cultural differences.

These ideas were picked up by the French revolutionaries, who saw the opportunity to establish a political nation that transcended regional, corporate and religious barriers. By overthrowing the Ancien Regime (comprised of the Church, monarchy and aristocracy) they established a nation where every man was equal and existing institutions (including the Church) owed their allegiance to the nation. By placing the nation at the centre of their system of politics, the French nationalists guaranteed their self-determination and the triumph of reason over myth.

The spread of nationalism

Inspired by their success, the French revolutionaries turned their attention to other monarchical governments in Europe. Their interest was prompted both by a belief in a mission to rid Europe of remaining Ancien Regimes and the flight of nobles to neighbouring nations, particularly the Netherlands, Austria and neighbouring Germanic states. A joint Prussian-Austrian army attempted to invade France in 1792 but were repelled by a French army that then made incursions into the Netherlands. Despite the execution of King Louis and Marie Antoinette in 1793, and a brief alliance of monarchical powers, by 1795 only Britain and Austria opposed the French. Thus began the revolutionary wars, led eventually by Napoleon, which brought an era of cultural, political and economic domination over much of the European continent.

Though the revolutionary ideas of the French inspired many other Europeans, their clear domination of Europe gave rise to a reactionary anti-French nationalism. Led in particular by German intellectuals who resented the dominance of the French language in German high society, nationalism drove a mass politics forward, sparking many unsuccessful but important revolutions. The key, as with the French revolution, was a desire for self-determination and self-control, for nations to be defined around common languages, historical backgrounds and national identities. The ideology was crucial to the eventual formation of the unified nation states of Germany and Italy.

Nationalism in Europe led to increasingly assertive nation states, and with the discovery and exploration of the Americas, Africa and South East Asia, the more powerful states expanded into seizing colonies. Again, this sparked a wave of reactionary nationalist movements. In the South East Asian colonies, the end of the Second World War, and the removal of Japanese rule, led to nationalist revolutions in all but Vietnam, where it took until the withdrawl of US forces in 1977 to establish a nationally self-determined government (of sorts). In Vietnam, as with China, communists led nationalist movements that sought to both re-establish native rule, radically alter the social, economic and political structures that preceded them and forge alliances with other communist states.

In South America, where the Spanish presence was pervasive but militarily weak, Simon Bolivar - "The Liberator" - led uprisings in New Grenada, Peru and Bolivia towards the end of the 19th Century. They inspired many similar uprisings throughout the 20th Century, up to and including Chavez's nationalist movement in Venezuela. In South America, however, many revolutionaries such as Bolivar and Che Guevara saw the entire southern continent as constituting one Indo-American nation, sharing a language (Spanish), a religion (Catholicism), a history (struggle against colonialism, slavery), a social structure (largely racial & heirarchical) and transcending the shifting territorial boundaries grafted and reshaped by centuries of colonial strife. Colonial imperialism led to many South Americans sharing common experiences and aspirations, further confusing the notion of a nation state as comprising a liberated people in existing territories. Though the continuity of the continent as a single nation is disputed (see this paper, for example), on the level of ideology the notion continues to hold currency.

And across the former Caliphate, Islamic nationalists have fought the encroaching liberal consensus and argued for a united Islamic nation state. The movement towards national self-determination after the First World War called for the creation of nations that transcended and confused existing territories, around languages and cultural/historical backgrounds.

In other words, as nationalism spread from France, so the motivations and character of the movements changed according to the context, which encapsulates existing territorial divisions, political and cultural history, languages and present economic and political realities.

What is a nation and what is nationalism?

Stalin suggested that a nation must have a combination of the following factors:

• A people who share a historical background, even if they differ in ethnicity and origin of culture
• Social stability and cooperation amongst the people
• A common language
• A common territory
• A common economic life
• A common psychological and spiritual bond between the people, manifesting itself as a national character

Each is required since some factors may be held in common between different nations, e.g. language and economic life. Where the factors are weakened, we can say that the importance or relevance of the nation is weakened, so globalisation makes the shared economic life increasingly irrelevant, for example. Where one or more factors are missing, there is a state but not a nation.

So nationalism is an ideology that seeks to establish a nation. This will involve the development of a collective, stable unity around a common historical background and territory, through language, economic life and eventually a national character. Nation states may be formed by changing territorial boundaries to better reflect linguistic, cultural, economic and historical realities, e.g. the movement towards national self-determination after the First World War. They may also be formed as a reaction against some form of domination, e.g. the cultural imperialism of the French in 19th Century Europe. The nation must be in control of itself, i.e. of those factors Stalin described.

Given that it transcends factors that divide people, it is a universal ideology. That is to say that every grouping of people around some common factor can desire autonomy, and so every group who can share all of the factors Stalin described may desire their own nation.