The Birth of the Nation-State: A critical account of society’s relationship with a Nation structure
Introduction
The essence of how people structure themselves and regulate their behavior within society has been a constant fixture in academic research. The Nation-State is one such structure but to understand the effects of its existence on daily lives, its constituent parts i.e. Nation and State must first be examined and then adapted in the context of increasing Globalization. The Nation refers to a union of people whose bonds are predicated on real or perceived notions of common culture and heritage, usually within a specific geographical boundary (Davis, 1997). Gellner (2006) posited the idea that nations developed in the aftermath of the industrial revolution under the auspice of “modern societies” which are characterized by large economic activity and increased interaction between individuals. A State, on the other hand, was defined by Weber as a social construct which exercises sovereign, political influence over a certain area with the exclusive right to the use of “legitimate force” (Waters & Waters, 2015). Reconstructed, a Nation-State can be thought of as the symbiotic relationship between the political power structure of a state and the cultural identity of a nation (Connor, 2010). While this implies that nation-states are made up of homogenous groups of people, nearly all modern Nation-States tend to be multi-ethnic (Halliday, cited in Baylis & Smith, 2001). Globalization refers to “the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary life, from the cultural to the criminal, the financial to the spiritual” (Held et. al, 1999). This essay aims to illustrate how a Nation-State has traditionally affected individuals’ everyday lives in the context of the formation of their national identity and how it can act as a source of conflict, and then further examines the role it plays in an increasingly Globalized world.
Discussion
It can be observed how certain aspects of society have been influenced by Nation-States to cultivate a national identity. In the context of education, there are national curriculums which seek to standardize the teaching in schools across the Nation-State. Certain subjects are made compulsory and auxiliary activities such as singing the national anthem act to instill a particular set of knowledge and culturally assimilate students through socially celebrated practices. This view is espoused and extended further in the work of Billig (1995) who outlined the idea of how various visual symbols and connotative language used in the arena of everyday social life seek to enshrine individuals with a carefully crafted “shared sense of national belonging”. He gave examples of flags, symbols on money, and popular phrases, among other things as being the encapsulation of this “Banal Nationalism”. Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) additionally analyzed the Nation-State’s ability to foster a sense of national belonging through what they termed “Invented Traditions”. The idea that certain cultural practices had ancient roots was considered a misnomer when in actuality they were quite recent and often intentionally created. Sievers (2007) noted the example of Scottish kilts being a 18th-century invention which soon after became representative of the “Highland Myth”, helping to foster a unique, Scottish national identity. Gellner (2006) hypothesized these phenomena to be the result of industrialization. He argued that in modern societies, the demand for and division of labor creates a social atmosphere characterized by increased interaction between unknown individuals and high social mobility. This, in turn, begets a need for a standardized, universal form of education which can homogenize the Nation-State’s inhabitants and is hence an important tool towards its maintenance.
Despite this beneficial role the Nation-State plays in establishing a national identity, the existence of a national identity can itself result in conflicts across multiple layers in the societal ecosystem. On an internal level, while the narrative of a national identity is promulgated amongst the masses, no Nation-State exists in a homogenized state. This implies individuals of multiple ethnicities or nationalities reside within the same Nation-State (Halliday, cited in Baylis & Smith, 2001). While these groups adhere to the Nation-State’s practices, they also have their own indigenous practices, customs, and beliefs that separate them from other groups. When these groups exist proximate to each other, the possibility of conflict between them arises. Rotberg (2004) gave an account of how this internal violence tends to manifest. He believed that Nation-States have a certain “hierarchy of political goods” which they have been tasked to provide their citizens with. Two of those key goods are representation in State affairs and protection of communal practices. The delicate maintenance of these and other goods such as economic prosperity is what staves off internal violence within the Nation-State by keeping groups engaged in the political process and offering State protection of their distinct identities. However, if a Nation-State falters in its ability to adequately provide these, conflicts between various indigenous groups manifest as they try to displace or supplant others in an effort to increase their own social and political capital. Giddens (2009) gave examples of post-colonial Nation-States. Prior to gaining independence, they had largely existed as ethnic tribes but post-independence they found themselves split into Nation-States along arbitrarily drawn borders. While Nationalist sentiment was a large factor towards them acquiring independence, “they often found it difficult to create a sense of nationhood and national belonging”. This was because the relative prosperity of certain individuals and groups was in stark contrast to a large number of the populace who had strong ethnic ties to their own groups and were largely uneducated. Areas such as Sudan, Zaire, and Nigeria, among others, saw civil wars erupt as national unification efforts succumbed to ethnic rivalries.
Often at times, it is possible for friction to manifest between certain groups and the Nation-State despite the existence of a stable national identity. The chances of this happening are similarly predicated on a Nation-State’s relative inability to provide the hierarchy of political goods. Gillespie and Gray (2015)’s work on the Basque and Catalan separatist movements in Spain sheds light on this phenomenon. They contended that while friction between the national Spanish identity and local Basque and Catalan identities has been ever-present in Spanish politics, these two groups have often had decent representation in general elections and even played stabilizing roles for Spain as a whole by helping minority governments gain the majority mandate. The financial crash of 2008 and its economic aftermath, coupled with decentralized decision making at a federal level helped indigenous identities overtake the Spanish national identity in those areas. This conflicting sense of identities manifested itself in two forms: Identity politics and armed conflicts. These two approaches resulted in movements either seeking to peacefully exercise political autonomy and secede from the Nation-State or try to gain an independent Nation-State through violent means.
On the other hand, it is possible in some cases for a Nation-State itself to be the one which creates internal conflict through subjugation of the groups living within its borders. Bauman (1989) argued that the conditions of modernity create an enhanced toolkit for Nation-States to potentially employ their exclusive right to the use of legitimate force. Citing the example of Nazi persecution, he asserted that modern technological advancements coupled with the structured bureaucratic administration system of a modern Nation-State made the use of persecution tactics much easier and much more efficient. The “bureaucratic mentality” of decision making helped individuals within the power structure adopt a pure “means-ends” calculus. This made the dehumanization of Jewish people easier and gave individuals within the Nation-State power structure the ability to disclaim moral responsibility for their actions. He further added that in situations like this, the subjugated minority could end up helping in the process of their own subjugation. By adopting a reactive decision-making approach to the German State’s laws, Jewish communities ended up being conciliatory at first and subsequently assisted the State’s goal of homogenization by emigrating from Germany. Equipped with these tools and mentalities, the German Nation-State set about eroding the civil support structures of German society such as trade unions and voluntary organizations among others, in an effort to quell opposition against its machinations. This meant that the German state was “free to pursue its social-engineering projects without any controls or countervailing power sources”. He noted two observations from these actions. The first was in regard to the general populace’s decision making calculus. He argued that when faced with tough or even harmful outcomes, individuals chose to forsake any perceived moral duty towards helping others and acted from a view of self-preservation. This obedience was an aspect of modernity, rooted in the idea that individuals have the incentive to believe actions that would otherwise be morally objectionable as legitimate if done by the State. The second observation was that despite the existence of this rational decision making, some individuals still chose to uphold their perceived moral duties, which showed that dissent does not disappear under this model.
Regardless of the internal divisions between groups living within Nation-States and the power structure’s means of regulating that conflict, often at times, Nation-States have mobilized their populations to engage in conflict with other Nation-States. Giddens (2009) noted that wars are fought by “organized social groups” on the basis of political decision making in regard to the chance of success and failure. Economic resources are committed to the task and “real, perceived or created cultural differences” are used to emotionally invest populations into the nature and outcome of said wars. He pointed out how wars were traditionally fought on horseback by two opposing forces but have gradually changed with technological advancements to include advanced weaponry such as guns and tanks involving multiple Nation-States. Shaw (2003) posited the idea that modern wars got extended to civilian populations rather than only engaging combatants such as in the case of German cities like Dresden in 1945 being firebombed by British forces. This shows how the nature of war has never been constant and has changed according to the political, economic, and social structure of society.
One view is that this nature is once again evolving through the use of information technologies in military stratagems which leads to different types of consequences for all participants (Giddens, 2009). Kaldor (1999) argued that the previous divisions between Interstate and Intrastate violence have become blurred over the past few decades as the advancements in information technology have allowed multiple actors to have a stake in what would otherwise be deemed localized conflicts. She uses the example of the Bosnian war 1992-5 to illustrate the idea of these “new wars”. The conflict saw various movements engage in violence against one another in an attempt to displace other ethnicities from the region. It was found that Bosnian Serbs had received financial and logistical support from Serbia who then engaged in a “campaign of ethnic cleansing” against non-Serbians in the region. This showed how individuals can be impacted within their own Nation-States due to the actions of International actors. Kaldor believed that the power vacuum left in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse was a factor in the conflicts that subsequently arose in the region. She concludes however that the main factor in the rise of new wars is the increased globalization that started in the 1970s and ushered in the information technologies in use today. The presence of international organizations, paramilitary forces, various news reporting agencies, etc is indicative of a type of openness where the traditional boundaries of Nation-States are increasingly porous and the Weberian notion of them having a monopoly on the use of legitimate force is in question.
This raises the concern of how much influence Nation-States have in general in contemporary societies where globalization is increasingly prevalent. Concerns are raised that Nation-States are losing influence in the lives of individuals. Pilkington (2002) examined the relationship between national identity and globalization. He believed the idea of national identity was formed relatively recently in human history due to increased technological advancements. He further contended that these identities were established in the context of some “other” competing identity such as the development of a British, Protestant identity in the face of a French, Catholic identity. These identities were developed and promulgated through the actions of the Nation-State in an effort to increase homogenization. He contends, however, that since this identity is socially constructed, it has sufficient ambit to change. Conflicting pressures of centralization (such as the increased political power of the European Union) and decentralization (such as the collapse of the Soviet Union highlighting strong ethnic identities) brought by globalization exert dichotomous influences on national identity. This results in certain views such as that of John Townsend, a British politician who emphasized a strong “anti-European, white, English-Speaking view of English national identity”. Additionally, Pilkington asserts, it also has the ability to create “hybrid identities” where individuals identify with multiple identities. This trend is observed in ethnic minorities in the UK where some identify themselves as being “British-Asian”. Giddens (2009) also noted that despite waning economic influence due to the spread of the global marketplace, a case can be made that Nation-States are still ever-present, just changing in nature. He highlighted the fact of how “there are actually far more sovereign nations in the world today than there were 20 years ago” and how all nations either exist as Nation-States or aspire to be one.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Nation-State has wide-ranging impacts on our daily lives. On a micro level, it offers a basic level of social cohesion by building and sustaining a national identity for individuals to ascribe to. This is done in modern societies through monopolizing and regulating the practice of education and saturation of everyday life with Banal Nationalism. Despite these attempts at homogenization, conflict can still potentially arise within Nation-States. This conflict can exist across three spectrums. On one level, it can happen between groups as the Nation-State is unable to effectively placate their socio-political needs. On a second level, it can occur as groups attempt to resist or circumvent the influence of the Nation-State’s homogenization if the Nation-State is unable to properly service their groups. Lastly, it can occur as institutional subjugation of different groups by the Nation-State itself. Regardless of these intra-State conflicts, Nation-States have engaged in war against each other as well. While this was traditionally done with large land-based armies, it eventually became much more advanced in the wake of technological development. This technological development was itself a part of a larger phenomenon of globalization, which challenged the foundations and influence of modern Nation-States. It is likely that the role and structure of Nation-States themselves are changing in the wake of globalization, rather than globalization leading to a receding Nation-State. This would mean the ways in which Nation-States affect individuals in contemporary societies are also evolving.
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