4.5 Nationalism & Devolution

What is Nationalism?

  • Identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.

What is Hypernationalism?

  • Extreme nationalism, the belief in the superiority of one's nation and in the paramount importance of advancing it. A dangerous version of nationalism that can lead to:

    • Ethnic cleansing

    • Multinational states

    • Nationless states

Effects of Nationalism: Devolution

  • The process by which regions within a state demand and gain political strength and growing autonomy at the expense of the central government

    • Autonomy: Independence, freedom, self-governing

    • NOT BALKANIZATION, but it is a challenge to state sovereignty and destabilizes the government

  • Occurs when:

    • States fragment into autonomous regions

      • EX: Nunavut, Native American Reservations

    • States create smaller subnational political-territorial units

      • EX: Spain, Belgium, Canada

    • States disintegrate

      • EX: Eritrea, South Sudan, East Timor, the Former USSR

  • Can result in:

    • Breakup of a state

      • EX: Yugoslavia/Balkans, the Former USSR, Czechoslovakia, Austria-Hungary

    • Demand for autonomy

      • UK: Scotland, Wales, England, Northern Ireland

      • Spain: Basques, Catalonians

Factors that lead to Devolution

Physical Geography

Regions that are separated from the central state due to physical features, such as mountain ranges, deserts, or bodies of water. Hard for states to maintain autonomy over difficult physical regions.

Ethnic Separatism & Ethnic Cleansing

Ethnic Separatism - people of a particular ethnicity in a multinational state identify more strongly with their ethnic group than as citizens of the state. Many times, a result of mistratment or disparity between the dominant ethnic group and the minority ethnic group within a state.

Ethnic Cleansing - a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas. Removing “unwanted” ethnicities from an area to create an ethnically homogeneous area.

Genocide vs. Ethnic Cleansing?

  • Semantic difference - Genocide requires “intent to destroy” the entire group

  • Genocide requires UN action… Ethnic Cleansing, though a crime against humanity, does not

  • Countries use this as an excuse not to act

Ethnic Cleansing Examples

Holocaust:

The Ethnic Cleansing conducted by the Nazi's resulted in the death of:

  • 6 million Jews

  • 200,000 Romani (gypsies… but the term is not PC)

  • 10,000 homosexuals

  • 200,000 disabled people

  • 3 million Poles

  • 2-3 million Slavs

Genocide is just the Jewish part

Uyghur Muslims in China:

Uyghurs are originally a part of “East Turkistan", speak Turkish, and are Muslims.

  • Ethnic separatism & in fighting for sovereignty - Uyghurs have turned to violent tactics

  • China has labeled them as "terrorist threats,” and many have been unwillingly sent to "re-education” centers

Bosnia:

In 1992, Bosnia separated from Yugoslavia, causing Serbia to invade the new Bosnia, claiming that it was there to “free” fellow Serbian Christians.

  • Bosnian Serbs attacked Croatians and Bosnian Muslims living in the area

  • Lasted until 1995

  • 100,000 people killed (80% of those being Bosnian Muslims)

  • The UN had set up “safe camps” that failed to protect over 8000 men and boys who were taken in buses from the area and killed

Terrorists

Organized violence aimed at government and civilian targets intended to create fear in order to accomplish political aims. Most commonly utilized by non-government groups with no army (ethnic separatists) in order to achieve recognition or power.

Economic / Social Problems

Uneven development, different levels of economic activity/productivity, and conflict over the allocation of funding from the central level of government.

Irredentism

A majority ethnic group wants to claim territory (annex) from a neighboring state due to a shared culture with people residing across the border.

Reunification of multistate nations.

Examples:

  • Russia - Ukraine & other former Soviet republics

  • China - Taiwan

  • Guatemala - Belize (a portion)

Devolutions

Spain

Catalonia: a semi-autonomous region in Northeast Spain with a distinct history dating back almost 1000 years

Controversy: their regions send too much money to poorer parts of Spain, and changes to their autonomous status in 2010 undermined Catalan identity

Nigeria

The 1999 constitution limited the power of the states to pursue individual development at their own pace.

Decentralization of some of the exclusive functions of the Federal Government, including the provision of security, would provide answers to agitations threatening the Unity of the country

South Sudan

The government of Sudan gave its blessing to an independent South Sudan, where mainly Christian and Animist people had for decades been struggling against rule by the Arab Muslim North.