Civic and ethnic nationalism in East and West

University of Birmingham

Civic and Ethnic Nationalism in East and West

by

Maximilian Spinner

TABLE OF CONTENT 3

1. INTRODUCTION 4

2. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF NATIONALISM IN EAST AND WEST – ‘CIVIC’ AND ‘ETHNIC’ NATIONALISM 4

3. LIMITS AND PROBLEMS OF THE ‘CIVIC’ VS.‘ETHNIC’ CATEGORIZATION 5

A) ‘ETHNIC’ NATIONALISM IN THE WEST AND ‘CIVIC’ NATIONALISM IN THE EAST 5
B) EAST EUROPEAN LEGACIES  6
C) PROBLEM OF DIFFERENT FORMS OF NATIONALISM AS NORMATIVE CATEGORIES  7

4. ALTERNATIVE MODELS FOR CATEGORIZING NATIONALISM 8

D) SCHIEDER’S THREE PHASES OF NATIONAL MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE 8
E) HROCH’S CONCEPT OF ‘SMALL NATIONS’  8
F) THREE CATEGORIES OF EAST EUROPEAN NATIONS  9
G) NEW FORMS OF NATIONAL AND SUPRANATIONAL IDENTITY 9

5. CONCLUSION 10

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY 11

1. Introduction

Since the end of communism Eastern Europe has been experiencing a great upsurge in nationalist mobilization. The wars in the former Yugoslavia were the most violent, indeed atrocious result of this development.

Social scientists and historians trying to explain the phenomena of East European nationalism need to consider the different legacies of Eastern Europe concerning the question of nationalism in comparison with Western Europe. This essay is intended to briefly outline the differences between Eastern and Western nationalism and to examine the extent to which categories such as ‘civic’ and ‘ethnic’,¹ often equated with ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ nationalism can help to explain the current developments.

It will be argued that the terms in question are insufficient as categories and that additional differentiations and terms are needed to get a better framework for analysing and comparing East European nationalism internally and externally.

2. Historical developments of nationalism in East and West – ‘Civic’ and ‘Ethnic’ nationalism

In this essay I will not give an elaborated definition of nationalism. I will look at nationalism as a social phenomenon or ‘a category of practices, as an institutionalized cultural and political form’ with the aim of building a nation, as Brubaker puts it.² Moreover, the impact of modernity on nationalism needs to be considered, in addition to the constant roots of longlasting ethnic, cultural and linguistic traditions.³

In explaining nation-building in Europe, the major point of differentiation is the interplay of state and nation. Whereas the earliest modern nations, Britain and France, enjoyed a long tradition of statehood, ‘late’ nations such as Germany and Italy in the 19th century combined the struggle for national unity with that for a unified state. East European national movements in most cases were liberation movements which fought for secession from the big multi-ethnic Habsburg, Romanov or Ottoman empires. To put it differently, in Western Europe nation-building went within or through an existing state or accompanied The classical modernist view is represented most prominetly by E Gellner, Nation and Nationalism, OUP, 1983. state-building following political modernization,⁴ while in Eastern Europe nationalism was primarily outside or against an existing state.⁵ Against the background of emerging modern capitalism and representative democracy Western nationalism had a more socio-political focus and a voluntarist definition of nationality,⁶ whereas Eastern nationalism in the first place emphasised cultural and linguistic rights on the basis of an understanding of nationality based on ethnicity.⁷ Out of these substantial differences the notion of ‘civic’/’Western’ versus ‘ethnic’/’Eastern’ nationalism was established.

This notion is often connected with a normative approach, stating the progressiveness of Western nationalism in promoting integrationist liberal democracy against the perceived backwardness of Eastern nationalism leading to authoritarianism, exclusion and violence.⁸

3. Limits and problems of the ‘civic’ vs.‘ethnic’ categorization

[...]

1 Some authors interchangeably apply the term of ‘cultural’ and ‘civic’ nationalism. I will stick to the ‘ethnic’- ‘civic’ term, as it stresses the importance of kinship or descent and is therefore more precise in marking the difference.

2 R Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, CUP, 1996, p 15.

3 This notion is very close to Anthony Smith’s theory of nationalism that sees national movements as influenced both by modernity and cultural legacies. A Smith, ‘The Origins of Nations’, in: G Eley / R G Suny (eds.), Becoming a National – a Reader, OUP, 1996, pp 106-130.

4 C Offe, Varieties of Transition, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996, pp 51-52.

5 K Zernack, ‘Zum Problem der nationalen Identität in Ostmitteleuropa’, in: H Berching (ed.), Nationales Bewusstsein und kollektive Identität, Frankfurt, 1994, p 178.

6 This notion is expressed most prominently by the remark of the French Revolutionary Abbé Sieyès (1789): ‘The third estate is the nation. Who is the third estate? Everybody.’ (E J Sieyès, Was ist der Dritte Stand?, Essen, 1988, p 34.)

7 A Hyde-Price, ‘Geopolitics, culture and nationalism’, in: A Hyde-Price, The International Politics of Central Eastern Europe, L: Macmillan, 1993, pp 57-59.

8 D Brown, `Are there good and bad nationalisms?’, Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1999, pp 281-302;A Burgess, Divided Europe, L: ,1993, p 123; W Kymlicka, ‘Nation-building and minority rights: comparing West and East’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 26, No. 2, 2000, p 185.