ST

Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism — Study Notes

Ethnonationalism in the Modern World: Study Notes (Muller, Us and Them)

  • Purpose and central claim

    • Americans tend to underestimate the role of ethnic nationalism in politics, assuming assimilation will erase ethnic identities over generations. In contrast, ethnic nationalism often persists among those who stay behind in their ancestral lands and shapes competing political claims.
    • The peaceful regional order of nation-states has often arisen from violent ethnic separation. When such separation hasn’t occurred, politics can be ugly.
    • Ethnonationalism has been a more profound and lasting force in modern history than is commonly recognized, and its dynamics are likely to reappear elsewhere in the twenty-first century.

  • Two major frameworks for national identity

    • Civic/liberal nationalism: assumes membership in a nation is defined by citizenship within political borders, irrespective of ethnicity, religion, or language.
    • Ethnonationalism: defines nations by shared heritage, including language, faith, and ethnic ancestry; nations ought to have their own states, and states should be composed of a single nation.
    • Core tenets (summarized):
    • Nations exist
    • Each nation should have its own state
    • Each state should be made up of the members of a single nation
    • Quote reference: Walker Connor emphasizes that what people believe has behavioral consequences, not just what is.
    • Historical scope: Ethnonationalism has operated even in the United States at various historical moments, and it has long been influential in much of Europe.

  • Historical trajectory: from empires to ethnonational states

    • Most of human history featured empires rather than nation-states; modern borders cut across ethnolinguistic patterns, creating tension when populations are not aligned with political units.
    • The Atlantic-side path to nation-states often featured earlier homogenization in places like England, France, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden, while Central and Eastern Europe were fragmented into many small political units until late 19th century unifications (Italy, Germany).
    • In contrast, empires (Habsburg, Romanov, Ottoman) contained many ethnic groups but did not grant equal status to all. Merchants, Armenians, Greeks, Jews, and other groups played varying roles within these empires, while peasants remained broadly diverse.
    • By the late 19th century, the modern nationalist project—linking ethnicity with political sovereignty—began to take hold, reshaping loyalties and governance.

  • Rise of ethnonationalism: modernity as the driver (Gellner’s framework)

    • Ernest Gellner argues ethnonationalism was propelled by modern currents: militarized competition among states created demand for expanded state resources; economic growth required mass literacy and a common language; education and language policies created conflicts over access and opportunity.
    • Modern states promoted universal access to positions, but in practice access was stratified by culture and ethnicity, creating a “cultural capital” gap (literacy, commercial engagement) that favored certain groups.
    • Mobility and the decline of traditional local bonds (family, clan, guild, church) weakened traditional loyalties and opened space for ethnic identification to fill the emotional vacuum. The rise of the state and market economies intensified ties to an ethnic “we.”
    • Acton’s 1862 warning: equating the state with the dominant nation reduces other nationalities to inferior or dependent status when the dominant power claims universal rights.
    • The “great transformation”: the shift from a liberal belief that commerce would produce peace to a world where nationalism could be violently disaggregating rather than integrating.

  • The mechanisms of disaggregation: from voluntary to forced movements

    • Historical processes included voluntary emigration, deportations, population transfers, and genocidal actions.
    • Ethnonationalism produced waves of ethnic cleansing, expulsions, and border redrawings aimed at aligning populations with new political borders.
    • The postwar era intensified population reshuffling as a deliberate statecraft tool to stabilize borders and minimize cross-border ethnic tensions.

  • The world wars and the ethnic map of Europe

    • World War I and the demise of empires unleashed a vast wave of ethnonationalism: Armenians in the Ottoman Empire faced mass murder; Greeks and Turks engaged in population transfers and ethnic cleansing; the 1923 Lausanne Treaty formalized the population exchange between Greece and Turkey (Greeks to Greece, Muslims to Turkey).
    • The 1912–1913 Balkan Wars triggered massive voluntary or forced displacement as competing states sought ethnically homogeneous territories.
    • The interwar period and World War II deepened ethnic cleansing and redefined borders.
    • Nazi Germany’s attempt to reorder Europe ethnically (and its allies’ complicity) culminated in the Holocaust and other genocides, highlighting extreme ethnonationalist violence.

  • Postwar population transfers and the blueprint of ethnic states

    • Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin supported large-scale expulsions to create stable, ethnically homogeneous postwar orders.
    • Major expulsions and displacements included:
    • Between 1944 and 1945: about 5{,}000{,}000 ethnic Germans fled westward from eastern areas.
    • Between 1945 and 1947: about 7{,}000{,}000 Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia.
    • Poles moved westward and Ukrainians moved to Soviet Ukraine; roughly 1.5{,}000{,}000 Poles and 500{,}000 Ukrainians relocated; Slovaks and Magyars repositioned as well.
    • This period created the largest forced population movement in European history and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
    • Outcomes: Most of Europe’s population by the postwar period lived within ethnonational states; exceptions persisted (Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia) but later events affirmed ethnonationalism’s vitality.
    • Yugoslavia’s breakup (1990s) culminated in ethnic wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, seen as the final act of an ongoing process of ethnic disaggregation.

  • Decolonization and the global spread of ethnonationalism

    • Decolonization often produced ethnic disaggregation as minority groups were displaced or expelled.
    • Examples:
    • Indian subcontinent partition (1947): India and Pakistan emerged but with hundreds of thousands killed and tens of millions displaced.
    • 1971: Pakistan split into Pakistan and Bangladesh.
    • Mandatory Palestine (1948): establishment of a Jewish state and large Arab displacement; roughly 750,000 Arabs fled; about 150,000 Jews left or were expelled from Arab lands.
    • Algeria (1962) pieds-noirs: European-origin population expelled to France.
    • The colonial legacy left behind boundary lines that often cut across ethnic settlements, perpetuating future ethnic tensions as modernization advances.
    • The postcolonial world faced ongoing patterns of ethnic mixing, migration, and potential for renewed ethnic nationalism in new states.

  • The balance sheet: costs and benefits of ethnic disaggregation

    • Costs and dangers
    • Ethnic disaggregation has produced direct human suffering (displacement, violence, genocide).
    • Ethnic fragmentation can reduce economic efficiency due to barriers to trade and internal markets (contradicting the dream of seamless economic integration across borders).
    • Fragmentation can diminish cultural vitality by homogenizing states and reducing linguistic and cultural diversity (e.g., fewer people like Franz Kafka).
    • Benefits and consolations
    • Some economists argued that smaller, ethnonational states could be more efficient in certain contexts, though this is not universal.
    • Ethnic disaggregation has provided cohesion and stability in some contexts, enabling robust welfare states and coordinated policies (e.g., the Swedish folkhemmet concept).
    • The European Union emerged as a response to economic fragmentation by building supranational institutions and reducing cross-border frictions.
    • Tension between cohesion and fragmentation: ethnic homogeneity sometimes supports strong domestic transfer programs and social solidarity, while homogeneity may also suppress diversity and innovation.

  • New ethnic mixing: migration, assimilation, and the politics of Europe

    • Two major migratory patterns since the mid-20th century:
    • Western and Northern movement of Europeans (France, UK) with significant Polish and other immigrant presence (e.g., roughly 0.5{,}000{,}000 Poles in Great Britain and 0.2{,}000{,}000 in Ireland).
    • Postwar non-European immigration (Asian, African, Middle Eastern origin) to Western Europe; results are mixed and context-dependent.
    • Outcomes of immigration regimes
    • Some immigrant groups have achieved notable success (e.g., Indian Hindus in the UK).
    • In countries like Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK, Muslim immigrants have generally faced more challenges in education and employment, and higher degrees of cultural separation from host societies.
    • Policy influences and social dynamics
    • Official multiculturalism, generous welfare states, and easier contact with homelands can create ethnic enclaves with limited assimilation.
    • The left’s embrace of immigration in the name of egalitarianism and multiculturalism can interact with economic redistribution policies, potentially shifting political alignments.
    • Possible futures
    • Rising ethnic hybridity can challenge traditional ethnonational boundaries and foment new forms of identity, including European identity that is not wholly tied to ethnicity.
    • The possibility of a new identitarian politics defined partly in religious terms (e.g., Islam) raises questions about the durability of liberal-democratic norms and the potential for renewed ethnonational fragmentation (e.g., resistance to Turkey’s EU membership).
    • Important caveat: some regions experience integration and assimilation, while others experience persistent segregation and tension between native populations and immigrant communities.

  • Future implications: modernization, sovereignty, and intervention dilemmas

    • Ethnonationalism is tied to modernization processes and is likely to persist as a significant political force in many parts of the world.
    • Globalization and differential economic opportunities tend to concentrate wealth and influence among groups with higher historical or cultural capital, potentially widening social cleavages.
    • Policy implications for states and the international community:
    • Trade-offs between maintaining a unitary state and accommodating ethnic autonomy or self-determination claims.
    • The possibility that partition might be the most humane long-term solution in cases of insurmountable ethnic conflict, despite its own humanitarian costs (displacement, new refugee flows).
    • The burden and logistics of facilitating citizenship rights, relocation, and economic absorption in partition or state-splitting scenarios.
    • International norms and interventions
    • Humanitarian interventions face steep costs when communities have deep-seated enmity; ongoing missions can be expensive and may be insufficient without durable political settlements.

  • The scholarly perspective: nationalism as constructed yet enduring

    • Contemporary social scientists emphasize the contingent, manufactured aspects of national identities (Anderson’s imagined communities).
    • Yet nationalism is not merely a fragile construction; it remains a durable, powerful force rooted in emotional, cultural, and historical realities.
    • The author’s synthesis: while nationalism can be mobilized by ideology, it also responds to enduring propensities of human social organization and modern state formation.
    • Policy takeaway: facing ethnonationalism directly—recognizing both its unifying and divisive potential—can yield more effective governance and conflict resolution strategies.

  • Notable quotes and references to anchor ideas

    • Tony Judt’s critique of Jewish statehood as an anachronistic project in a liberal, borderless world underscores the tension between ethnic-national claims and universal rights in contemporary debates.
    • Lord Acton (1862): making the state commensurate with the nation can suppress minority rights and lead to the domination or extermination of minorities. This underscores the risks of ethnonational projects when state power aligns with a single national identity.
    • Benedict Anderson’s concept of imagined communities is invoked to differentiate between the social construction of nationalism and its real political power.

  • Connections to broader themes and real-world relevance

    • The patterns observed in Europe echo in other regions undergoing modernization, urbanization, and migration (e.g., postcolonial states, partition-induced conflicts).
    • The balance between economic integration and cultural-linguistic homogenization has ongoing relevance for the EU, multilateral trade blocs, and global migration policies.
    • The text highlights the ethical and practical implications of forced migrations, ethnic cleansing, and population transfers, reminding policymakers of the humanitarian costs alongside political objectives.

  • Key numerical references (selected)

    • 1860s–1870s: unification of Italy and Germany consolidates nation-states along newly drawn lines.
    • 1900 vs 2007: decline of diverse multi-nation states in Europe; Belgium near break-up; overall trend toward ethnonational predominance.
    • 1944–1947: expulsions of Germans from eastern territories totaling about 7{,}000{,}000 people; earlier expulsions around 5{,}000{,}000 Germans.
    • Postwar border realignments and transfers affected millions:
    • Poles to Poland, Ukrainians to the Ukrainian SSR; Slovaks and Magyars moved across borders; approximate magnitudes in the millions.
    • 1948–1962: Arab-Jewish population shifts following establishment of Israel and decolonization movements in the Middle East and North Africa.
    • Refugee movements: millions displaced during decolonization and postwar state-building processes.

  • Summary takeaway

    • Ethnonationalism is not a relic of the past but a durable feature of modern politics, shaped by modernization, migration, and state-building. While it can underpin social cohesion and welfare-state solidarity in some contexts, it also fuels exclusion, ethnic cleansing, and interstate conflict in others. The future likely holds increased ethnic mixing and rising opportunities for both integration and estrangement, depending on policy choices, economic conditions, and the handling of collective identities across borders.