NATIONALISM

loyalty and devotion to one's nation or country, such that national interests are placed above either individual or other group interests. Nationalism is a peculiarly modern phenomenon. It originates from the assumption that nations are the primary and natural focus of allegiancean assumption that has by no means always been widely accepted. Until the 18th century the focus of such allegiance was more likely to be a smaller unit, such as the fiefdom, religious group, city, or immediate locality. In the religious context, for example, the focus of allegiance would be a supranational group, such as the Christian community as a whole, called Christendom. The nation was therefore one among many objects of allegiance. Only in the 18th century did the nation first begin to become the focal point of political activity. There were many reasons for this. The rise of large, centralized states ruled by absolute monarchs helped bring about the demise of feudal structures and other objects of local loyalty. The secularization of life and education fostered the vernacular languages and further weakened the ties of church and religious sect. Equally important, expanding commerce, capitalism, and industrialization created a need for unified, centralized states whose rising middle classes could directly participate in the act of government. A common language and geographic contiguity are the two most important factors in determining whether people cohere in a nation. A common religion, race, political institutions, and various historical factors also help influence the constitution of a nation. Nationalism may take different forms. Nationalist movements can spring up in ethnic, racial, or cultural communities that do not exist as independent political units but are under the domination of others; examples are the nationalism of mid-18th century Italy, or of the Balkan states, under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Nationalist movements are not always exclusively political in nature. Cultural nationalism consists of encouraging expressions of national characteristics through nonpolitical activities such as art, literature, music, dance, and other forms of culture. Two early nationalist thinkers were Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Gottfried Herder. Rousseau, inspired by the example of the Greek city-states, tried to conceive how modern political communities could once again become the focal point of human activities. Rousseau stressed the contribution of all of the citizens to the general will as well as the need to make political constitutions reflect the peculiarities of each community for which they are drawn up. Herder's contribution was to emphasize the cultural unity of a community and the role played by folklore and popular traditions in its identity. Many nationalist movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries were liberal and internationalist in character. Such movements generally accepted and embraced national differences, which led them to view each other as participating in a common struggle. There were exceptions to this, however; the German unifier and nationalist Prince Otto von Bismarck, for example, was conservative and authoritarian. These nationalist movements typically had a strong cultural element reflecting an intensified appreciation of the history and literature of one's own country. At the end of the 19th century, European nationalist movements began to lose some of their internationalism and become more conservative and even reactionary. The progressive intensification and parochialism of these nationalist movements culminated in the outbreak of World War I. The conservative tendency of nationalism continued to spread during the interim between the two world wars, particularly in Italy, Germany, and Japan. Even movements that were originally cosmopolitan and antinationalist in character, such as communism, began to acquire national flavours. Karl Marx's Workers of the world, unite! gave way to Joseph Stalin's Socialism in one countrya doctrine used to justify actions taken in defense of Russian national interests that were in conflict with the exigencies of the international communist movement. After World War II nationalist fervour died down in many European nations, in part owing to their awareness of an increasing interdependence, fostered by such organizations as NATO, the European Economic Community, and others. In Asia and Africa, however, nationalism grew rapidly, chiefly as a reaction against colonialism; in later stages neutralism and nonalignment were also employed as bulwarks against domination by large political and economic powers. With the downfall of the communist system in eastern Europe, nationalism again reasserted itself among many Soviet satellite countries. Nationalism based on linguistic, ethnic, and religious affiliations resurfaced in a striking fashion in the former republics of the Soviet Union and in the remnants of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. ideology based on the premise that the individual's loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpass other individual or group interests. Nationalism is a modern movement. Throughout history people have been attached to their native soil, to the traditions of their parents, and to established territorial authorities; but it was not until the end of the 18th century that nationalism began to be a generally recognized sentiment molding public and private life and one of the great, if not the greatest, single determining factors of modern history. Because of its dynamic vitality and its all-pervading character, nationalism is often thought to be very old; sometimes it is mistakenly regarded as a permanent factor in political behaviour. Actually, the American and French revolutions may be regarded as its first powerful manifestations. After penetrating the new countries of Latin America it spread in the early 19th century to central Europe and from there, toward the middle of the century, to eastern and southeastern Europe. At the beginning of the 20th century nationalism flowered in the ancient lands of Asia and Africa. Thus the 19th century has been called the age of nationalism in Europe, while the 20th century has witnessed the rise and struggle of powerful national movements throughout Asia and Africa. Additional reading The origins and development of nationalism as a political idea are discussed in detail in E.J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780, 2nd ed. (1992); Elie Kedourie, Nationalism, 4th, expanded ed. (1993); Louis L. Snyder, Encyclopedia of Nationalism (1990); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (1983); and Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism (1944, reissued 1967). Other discussions of the development of nationalism, including various interpretations in modern times, are Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, rev. and extended ed. (1991); Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism (1992); John Lukacs, The End of the Twentieth Century and the End of the Modern Age (1993); and Louis L. Snyder, Varieties of Nationalism (1976). A sociological treatment of the subject is Anthony D. Smith, Theories of Nationalism, 2nd ed. (1983). Hugh Seton-Watson, Nations and States (1977), is a detailed, worldwide study. A new approach to the problem of nationalism was introduced by Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication, 2nd ed. (1965), and Tides Among Nations (1979), an overview of the development of his thinking. Nationalism outside western Europe is discussed in Gregory Maddox (ed.), African Nationalism and Revolution (1993); David Rock, Authoritarian Argentina: The Nationalist Movement, Its History, and Its Impact (1993); Jill A. Irvine, The Croat Question: Partisan Politics in the Formation of the Yugoslav Socialist State (1993); Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation: The Rise to Self-Assertion of Asian and African Peoples (1960, reissued 1970); Elie Kedourie (ed.), Nationalism in Asia and Africa (1970); and Selig S. Harrison, The Widening Gulf (1978). There are two valuable though dated bibliographies: Koppel S. Pinson, A Bibliographical Introduction to Nationalism (1935); and Karl W. Deutsch, Interdisciplinary Bibliography on Nationalism (1956). Hans Kohn The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica