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otherwise have been the case. Nor is it possible to argue that the collapse of the
Soviet Union finally made a reality of political sovereignty by creating a world
dominated by a single all-powerful state, the USA. This was demonstrated by the
terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, and by the
difficulty the USA experienced in ‘winning’ protracted counter-insurgency wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The nation
For over two hundred years the nation has been regarded as the proper, indeed
only legitimate, unit of political rule. This belief has been reflected in the
remarkable appeal of nationalism, without doubt the most influential of the
world’s political creeds during the last two hundred years. Nationalism is, at
heart, the doctrine that each nation is entitled to self-determination, reflected in
the belief that, as far as possible, the boundaries of the nation and those of the
state should coincide. Thus the idea of a ‘nation’ has been used as a way of estab-
lishing a non-arbitrary basis for the boundaries of the state. This implies that the
highest form of political organization is the nation-state; in effect, the nation,
each nation, is a sovereign entity.
Nationalism has redrawn the map of the world and continues to do so, from
the process of European nation-building in the nineteenth century, through the
national liberation struggles of the post-1945 period, to the creation of a slate of
new nations in the aftermath of the collapse of communism and the fall of the
Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the nation and nationalism continue to be the focus
of significant theoretical and ideological debate. This applies not least because of
disagreements over how the nation should be understood. What are the defining
features of the nation? Are nations cultural entities or political entities? Similarly,
the benefits of the nation and national identity are often taken for granted rather
than explicitly elaborated. How can the nation be defended? Finally, particular
controversy has surrounded the impact of nationalism on world politics. Does
nationalism bring international peace and stability, or is it a recipe for expan-
sionism and war?

What is a nation?

All too frequently, the term ‘nation’ is confused with ‘country’ or ‘state’. This is
evident, for example, when ‘nationality’ is used to indicate membership of a
particular state, more properly called ‘citizenship’. The confusion is also found in
the title of the United Nations, an organization that is clearly one of states rather
than nations or peoples. At the most basic level, a nation is a cultural entity, a
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body of people bound together by a shared cultural heritage. It is not, therefore,
a political association, nor is it necessarily linked to a particular territorial area.
Nations may lack statehood either because, like all African and many Asian
nations in the early years of the twentieth century, they are the subjects of a
foreign imperial power, or because they are incorporated into multinational
states such as the UK and the Soviet Union of old. Nations may also be landless,
as the Jews were in modern times until the creation of the state of Israel in 1948,
and as the Palestinians are currently.
The cultural factors that define a nation are usually a common language, reli-
gion, traditions, historical consciousness and so on. These are objective charac-
teristics but they do not in any sense provide a blueprint for deciding when a
nation exists, and when one does not. There are, in other words, many examples
of enduring and successful nations which contain, like Switzerland, several
languages, or, like Indonesia, more than one religion, or, as in the case of the
USA, a diverse range of historical traditions and ethnic backgrounds. Ultimately,
nations can only be defined subjectively, that is by a people’s awareness of its
nationality or what may be called their national consciousness. This conscious-
ness clearly encompasses a sense of belonging or loyalty to a particular commu-
nity, usually referred to as ‘patriotism’, literally a love of one’s country. Theorists
such as Ernest Gellner (see p. 96) have, however, insisted that the defining
feature of national consciousness is not merely the sentiment of loyalty towards
or affection for one’s nation but the aspiration to self-government and independ-
ence. In effect, a nation defines itself by its quest for independent statehood; if it
is contained within an existing larger state it seeks to separate from it and redraw
state boundaries. An alternative school of thought, however, sees the quest for
statehood as merely one expression of nationalist sentiment, the defining feature
of nationalism being its capacity to represent the material or economic interests
of a national group. This view would accept, for example, that the desire of the
French Basques to preserve their language and culture is every bit as ‘nationalist’
as the openly separatist struggle waged by Basques in Spain.
Because the assertion of nationhood often carries with it significant political
demands, the definition of ‘nation’ tends to be fiercely contested. Many of the
most enduring political conflicts turn on whether a particular group is, or
should be regarded as, a nation. This is evident in the Sikh struggle for an inde-
pendent homeland, ‘Khalistan’, in the Indian state of Punjab, the campaign in
Quebec to break away from Canada, and demands by the Scottish National Party
(SNP) for independence within Europe. Not infrequently, national identities
overlap and are difficult to disentangle from one another. This is particularly
clear in the UK, which could be regarded either as a single British nation or as
four separate nations, the English, the Scots, the Welsh and the Northern Irish,
or indeed as five nations if divisions between Catholics and Protestants in
Northern Ireland are taken into account. Such complications occur because the
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balance between the political and cultural components of nationhood is almost
infinitely variable. The German historian Friedrich Meinecke ([1907] 1970)
tried to resolve this issue by distinguishing between what he called ‘cultural
nations’ and ‘political nations’, but when cultural and political considerations are
so closely interlinked this task is notoriously difficult.
There are strong reasons for believing that to some degree all nations have
been shaped by historical, cultural or ethnic factors. In The Ethnic Origins of
Nations (1986), Anthony Smith stressed the extent to which modern nations
emerged by drawing on the symbolism and mythology of pre-modern ethnic
communities, which he calls ‘ethnies’. In this ‘primordialist’ view, nations are
historically embedded; they are rooted in a common cultural heritage and
language that may long predate the achievement of statehood or even the quest
for national independence. Modern nations thus came into existence when these
established ethnies were linked to the emerging doctrine of popular sovereignty
and associated with a historic homeland. This explains why national identity is
so often expressed in the traditions and customs of past generations, as clearly
occurs in the case of the Greeks, the Germans, the Russians, the English, the
Irish, and so on. From this perspective, nations can be regarded as ‘organic’, in
that they have been fashioned by natural or historical forces rather than by polit-
ical ones. This may, in turn, mean that ‘cultural’ nations are stable and cohesive,
bound together by a powerful and historical sense of national unity.
Some forms of nationalism are very clearly cultural rather than political in
character. For instance, despite the demands of Plaid Cymru for a separate Welsh
state, nationalism in Wales consists largely of the desire to defend Welsh culture
and, in particular, preserve the Welsh language. Equally, the nationalist pride of
the Breton peoples of Brittany is expressed as a cultural movement rather than
in any attempt to secede from France. Cultural nationalism is perhaps best
thought of as a form of ethnocentrism, an attachment to a particular culture as
a source of identity and explanatory frame of reference. Like nations, ethnic
groups such as the Afro-American and Afro-Caribbean communities of the
USA and UK share a distinct, and often highly developed, cultural identity.
However, unlike nations, ethnic groups are usually content to preserve their
cultural identity without demanding political independence. In practice,
however, the distinction between an ‘ethnic minority’ and a fully fledged ‘nation’
may be blurred. This is especially the case in multicultural societies, which lack
the ethnic and cultural unity that has traditionally provided the basis for
national identity. In one form, multiculturalism (see p. 178) may establish the
ethnic group, rather than the nation, as the primary source of personal and polit-
ical identity. However, the idea of multicultural nationalism suggests that
national identity can remain relevant as a set of ‘higher’ cultural and civic alle-
giances. Such matters have stimulated particular debate in relation to aboriginal
or indigenous peoples, sometimes called ‘First Nations’ (see p. 93).
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In other cases, national identity has been forged by circumstances that are more
clearly political. The UK, the USA and France have often been seen as the classic
examples of this. In the UK’s case, the British nation was founded on the union of
what, in effect, were four ‘cultural’ nations: the English, the Scots, the Welsh and
the Northern Irish. The USA is, in a sense, a ‘land of immigrants’ and so contains
peoples from literally all round the world. In such circumstances, a sense of US
nationhood has developed more out of a common allegiance to the liberal-demo-
cratic principles expressed by the Declaration of Independence and the US
Constitution than out of a recognition of cultural or historical ties. French
national identity is based largely on traditions linked to the 1789 Revolution and
the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity which underlay it. Such nations
have, in theory, been founded on a voluntary acceptance of a common set of prin-
ciples or goals as opposed to an already existing cultural identity. It is sometimes
argued that the style of nationalism which develops in such societies is typically
tolerant and democratic. The USA has, for example, sustained a remarkable
degree of social harmony and political unity against a background of profound
religious, linguistic, cultural and racial diversity. On the other hand, ‘political’
nations can at times fail to generate the social solidarity and sense of historical
unity which is found in ‘cultural’ nations. This can be seen in the UK, particularly
since the introduction of devolution, in the strengthening Scottish and Welsh
nationalism and the rise of ‘Englishness’, but the decline of a sense of ‘Britishness’.
Particular problems have been encountered by developing-world states strug-
gling to achieve a national identity. Developing-world nations can be seen as
‘political’ in one of two senses. In the first place, in many cases they achieved
statehood only after a struggle against colonial rule, for which reason their
national identity is deeply influenced by the unifying quest for ‘national libera-
tion’. Nationalism in the developing world therefore took the form of anticolo-
nialism and, in the de-colonial period, has assumed a distinctively postcolonial
character (see p. 214). Second, these nations have often been shaped by territo-
rial boundaries inherited from their former colonial rulers. This is particularly
evident in Africa, whose ‘nations’ often encompass a wide range of ethnic, reli-
gious and regional groups, bound together by little more than a common colo-
nial past and state borders shaped by long defunct imperial rivalries. In many
cases, the inheritance of ethnic and tribal tensions was exacerbated by colonial
powers’ use of ‘divide-and-rule’ policies.

In defence of the nation

The nation and nationalism have been the focus of ideological and theoretical
debate that goes well beyond how nations should be understood. Perhaps the
most common justification advanced for the nation is that national identity
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BEYOND THE WEST . . .

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AS
‘FIRST NATIONS’
The term ‘First Nation’ was first used in the 1970s to refer to the indigenous people of
Canada, other than the Inuit and Métis, a collection of over 630 groups or bands.
Subsequently, it has been used to refer to indigenous peoples in all parts of the world
(also called ‘aboriginal’, ‘native’ or ‘tribal’ peoples). It is estimated that there are more than
370 million indigenous people (roughly five per cent of the world’s population) spread
across 90 countries worldwide. In view of the diversity of indigenous peoples, no official
definition of ‘indigenous’ has been adopted by the UN, leading to a general reliance
instead on self-identification at both an individual and community level. The idea that
these groups are ‘first’ peoples or nations nevertheless acknowledges that they are made
up of the descendants of those who inhabited a country or geographical region in pre-
colonial or pre-settler times. Their distinct language, art, music, and social and economic
practices are therefore deeply historically embedded, often having existed for over a
thousand years. Conventional nations, by contrast, came into existence only from the late
eighteenth century onwards, and were commonly based on traditions and customs that
were ‘invented’, mainly in the nineteenth century (Hobsbawm, 1983).

To portray indigenous peoples as ‘nations’ is to assert that they are, at some level,
political entities that are entitled to rights that go beyond those usually associated with
ethnic or cultural minorities. These have included the right to self-government, possibly
extending to the ability of indigenous communities to restrict the mobility, property and
voting rights of non-indigenous people, thereby bringing collective rights into conflict
with traditional individual rights. Ownership rights have commonly also been claimed
over land or territory, including surrounding natural resources, to which indigenous
peoples have been tied in various ways. Nevertheless, such demands have typically not
been based on a quest for full independence, in part because, as they have rarely had
experience of centralized rule, the notion of sovereignty plays little or no part in the
political consciousness of indigenous peoples.

provides the surest basis for identity and solidarity. This is because nations are,
in essence, organic communities. In this view, humankind is naturally divided
into a collection of nations, each of which possesses a distinctive character and
a separate identity. This, nationalists argue, is why a ‘higher’ loyalty and deeper
political significance attaches to the nation than to any other social group or
collective body. Whereas, for instance, class, gender, religion and language may
be important in particular societies, or may come into prominence in particular
circumstances, the bonds of nationhood are more fundamental. National ties
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and loyalties are found in all societies, they endure over time, and they operate
at an instinctual, even primordial, level.
Strong and successful societies are therefore founded on a clear sense of
national consciousness. Indeed, ‘modernist’ approaches to nationalism have
suggested that, rather than being historically embedded, nations emerged in
response to socio-economic changes that undermine the sense of social belong-
ing. Gellner (1983), for example, emphasized the degree to which nationalism is
linked to the process of industrialization. He suggested that, while pre-modern
or ‘agro-literate’ societies were structured by a network of feudal bonds and
loyalties, emerging industrial societies promoted social mobility, self-striving
and competition, and so required a new source of social solidarity. This was
provided by nationalism, especially through the device of the nation-state. The
great strength of the nation-state is that it offers the prospect of both cultural
cohesion and political unity. When a people who share a common cultural or
ethnic identity gain the right to self-government, nationality and citizenship
coincide. In this light, attempts to promote national patriotism, through national
anthems, national flags, commemorative days and oaths of allegiance, can be
seen to have advantages for the individual and the wider society alike. This view
also implies that immigrants should take on at least essential elements of
national character, as the growth of multiculturalism (see p. 178) threatens to
make society more fractured and conflict-ridden.
The nation may also be defended on the grounds that it is a key means of ensur-
ing freedom. This was evident at the birth of nationalism, during the French
Revolution, when the idea of national community encountered the doctrine of
popular sovereignty, as influenced by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Using Rousseau’s idea of the ‘general will’, revolutionaries in France argued that
government should be based not on the absolute power of a monarch, but on the
indivisible collective will of the entire community. Sovereign power thus resided
in the ‘French nation’. In this tradition of nationalism, nationhood and statehood
are intrinsically linked. The litmus test of national identity is the desire to attain
or maintain political independence, usually expressed in the principle of national
self-determination. Nationalism is therefore orientated around the nation-state
ideal, expressed by J. S. Mill in the principle that ‘the boundaries of government
should coincide in the main with those of nationality’. Such thinking, most clearly
elaborated in the tradition of liberal nationalism, accords the nation a moral
status broadly equivalent to that of the individual, in that both are endowed with
basic rights. National self-determination is therefore a collective expression of
individual freedom, nationalism being an essentially liberating force that opposes
all forms of foreign domination, whether by multinational empires or colonial
powers. Moreover, self-determination has implications for the domestic organi-
zation of government power, establishing a clear link between nationalism and
democracy.
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NATIONALISM
The idea of nationalism was born during the French Revolution, as people who had once
been treated as ‘subjects of the crown’ were encouraged to think of themselves as ‘citi-
zens of France’. Nationalism can broadly be defined as the belief that the nation is the
central principle of political organization. As such, it is based on two core assumptions.
First, humankind is naturally divided into distinct nations and, second, the nation is the
most appropriate, and perhaps only legitimate, unit of political rule. Classical political
nationalism therefore set out to bring the borders of the state into line with the bound-
aries of the nation. Within so-called nation-states, nationality and citizenship would
therefore coincide. However, nationalism is a complex and highly diverse ideological
phenomenon. Not only are there distinctive political, cultural and ethnic forms of nation-
alism, but the political implications of nationalism have been wide-ranging and some-
times contradictory.

Liberal nationalism is a principled form of nationalism. Instead of upholding the interests

of one nation over other nations, it proclaims that nations are equal in their rights to
freedom and self-determination. Looking to construct a world of sovereign nation-states,
liberal nationalism views nationalism as a mechanism for securing a peaceful and stable
world order. Conservative nationalism is concerned less with universal self-determina-
tion, and more with the promise of social cohesion and public order embodied in the
sentiment of national patriotism. Above all, conservatives see the nation as an organic
entity emerging out of a basic desire of humans to gravitate towards those who have the
same views, habits, lifestyles and appearances as themselves. Chauvinistic or expansion-
ist nationalism is based on the belief that one’s own nation is special or unique, in some
way a ‘chosen people’, its superiority usually being demonstrated by militarism and
aggression. Such thinking is often linked to doctrines of racial superiority or inferiority,
other nations being viewed as a source of fear or hatred. Anticolonial nationalism over-
laps with liberal nationalism except that it was typically associated with revolutionary
Marxism-Leninism and sought to fuse national liberation with the goal of social develop-
ment.

Nationalism can, with some justification, be viewed as the most potent of political creeds. It
has caused the birth of new states, the disintegration of empires and the redrawing of
borders. Not only, over the last 200 years, has the political world been reconfigured largely
on the basis of the nation-state ideal, but this has been underpinned by international law
which is based on the assumption that nations, like individuals, have inviolable rights.
However, nationalism has always attracted deep hostility. Critics, for example, have alleged
that all forms of nationalism are regressive, intolerant, at least implicitly chauvinistic, and
morally impoverished (in that ethical obligations are limited to our ‘own’ people).
Nationalism has also been viewed as increasingly anachronistic, either because, in a world of
nation-states, the task of nationalism has been largely accomplished, or because the
advance of globalization has fatally compromised the nation-state. 
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Key figures
Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) A German poet, critic and philosopher,
Herder is often portrayed as the father of cultural nationalism. A leading intellectual opponent
of the Enlightenment, Herder’s emphasis on the nation as an organic group characterized by a
distinctive language, culture and spirit (Volksgeist) helped both to found cultural history and
to give rise to a form of nationalism that stresses the intrinsic value of national culture.
Herder’s major work is Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind (1784–91).

Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72) An Italian nationalist, often portrayed as the

prophet of Italian unification, Mazzini practised a form of liberal nationalism that fused a
belief in the nation as a distinctive linguistic and cultural community with the principles of
liberal republicanism. In this view, nations are effectively sublimated individuals endowed
with the right to self-government, a right to which all nations are equally entitled. Mazzini
was one of the earliest thinkers to link nationalism to the prospect of perpetual peace. His
writings include On Nationality (1852).

Ernest Gellner (1925–95) A British social philosopher and anthropologist, Gellner

made major contributions to a variety of academic fields, including social anthropology,
sociology and political philosophy. The most prominent figure in the modernist camp in the
study of nationalism, Gellner has explained the rise of nationalism in terms of the need of
industrial societies, unlike agrarian ones, for homogeneous languages and cultures in order
to work efficiently. Gellner’s major writings include Nations and Nationalism (1983), Culture,
Identity and Politics (1987) and Reason and Culture (1992).

Benedict Anderson (born 1936) Born in China but brought up mainly in

California, Anderson’s main publication on nationalism is the celebrated Imagined
Communities (1991). He views nationalities and nationalism as cultural artifacts of a partic-
ular kind, defining the nation as an ‘imagined community’, in the sense that it generates a
deep, horizontal comradeship regardless of actual inequalities within the nation and despite
the fact that it is not a face-to-face community. Anderson’s other publications in the field
include The Specters of Comparison (1998) and Under Three Flags (2005).

See also J.-J. Rousseau (p. 165), J. S. Mill (p. 241) and Gandhi (p. 203)

The final ground on which the nation can be defended is that it constitutes an
ethical community and provides an effective basis for moral conduct. This can
be seen in at least three ways. In the first place, a sense of moral concern, possibly
extending to moral obligation, arises most easily amongst people who share a
common cultural identity, those who speak the same language and practice a
similar way of life. This suggests that it is only within national communities,
where people accept a social responsibility for one another, that welfare provi-
sion and systems of redistribution are possible. Second, the nation gives morality
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an important collective dimension and helps to liberate people from narrow self-
interest. A sense of loyalty and duty is an important component of national
consciousness, a recognition of the benefits nationhood brings in making
personal existence more meaningful and social existence more stable and secure.
This sense of duty is so strong that it can at times extend to a willingness to fight,
kill and possibly die in order to ‘save the nation’. Finally, ethical nationalism, the
theory that the rights of, and obligations towards, members of one’s own nation
should enjoy moral priority over those related to members of other nations,
makes morality more robust and realistic. In part, this applies because, as
communitarian theorists (see p. 33) argue, morality only makes sense when it is
locally based, grounded in the communities to which we belong and which have
shaped our lives and values. The simple fact is that people everywhere give moral
priority to those they know best, most obviously their family and close friends
and, beyond that, members of their local community and then those with whom
they share a national identity. As Walzer (1994) argued, a ‘thick’ sense of moral-
ity can only operate within a single culture. This not only implies that morality
is fashioned by the distinctive history, culture and traditions of a particular
society, but also explains why it is difficult for obligations to extend beyond those
who share a similar ethical (or national) framework.

Nationalism and world politics

The deepest controversies that surround nationalism concern its implications

for international peace and stability. Two starkly contrasting visions have been
presented, one in which nationalism is a sure guarantee of peace and order and
the other in which it is inherently aggressive and expansionist. This reflects both
the highly contested nature of nationalism as an ideological phenomenon and
also the extent to which nationalism has been fused with and absorbed by other
political doctrines, thereby creating a series of ‘rival nationalisms’. The belief that
a world of independent nation-states would be characterized by peace and stabil-
ity is most clearly associated with liberal nationalism. This reflects an underlying
liberal faith in the principle of balance or natural harmony, which applies not
only to businesses in the economy and groups in society, but also to the nations
of the world. Although such thinking can be found in the writings of Giuseppe
Mazzini (see p. 96) and may be traced back to Immanuel Kant (see p. 241), it
was perhaps most famously articulated by US President Woodrow Wilson
(1856–1924) during World War I and during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.
For Wilson, World War I had been caused by an ‘old order’, dominated by auto-
cratic and militaristic empires. Democratic nation-states, on the other hand,
would respect the national sovereignty of their neighbours and have no incentive
to wage war or subjugate others. For a liberal, nationalism does not divide
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nations from one another, promoting distrust, rivalry and possibly war. Rather,
it is a force that is capable of promoting both unity within each nation and broth-
erhood amongst all nations on the basis of mutual respect for national rights and
characteristics.
That said, liberals have long accepted that national self-determination is a
mixed blessing. While it preserves self-government and forbids foreign control,
it also creates a world of sovereign nation-states in which each nation has the
freedom to pursue its own interests, possibly at the expense of other nations.
Liberal nationalists have certainly accepted that constitutionalism and democ-
racy reduce the tendency towards militarism and war, but when sovereign
nations operate within conditions of ‘international anarchy’, self-restraint alone
may not be sufficient to ensure what Kant called ‘perpetual peace’. Liberals have
generally proposed two means of preventing a recourse to conquest and plunder.
The first is national interdependence, aimed at promoting mutual understand-
ing and cooperation. This was why liberals have traditionally supported a policy
of free trade: economic interdependence means that the material costs of inter-
national conflict are so great that warfare becomes virtually unthinkable.
Second, liberals have proposed that national ambition should be checked by the
construction of international organizations capable of bringing order to an
otherwise lawless international scene. This explains Woodrow Wilson’s support
for the first, if flawed, experiment in world government, the League of Nations,
set up in 1919, and far wider support for its successor, the United Nations,
founded in 1945.
Critics of liberal nationalism have nevertheless alleged that it ignores the
darker face of nationalism, and especially the irrational bonds or tribalism that
distinguish ‘us’ from a foreign and threatening ‘them’. Liberals see nationalism as
a universal principle, but have less understanding of its emotional power.
Through its capacity to generate restless ambition expressed in projects of mili-
tary expansion, nationalism has been seen as a major component in explaining,
amongst other things, European imperialism in the nineteenth century and the
outbreak of both World War I and World War II. The recurrent, and, many
would argue, defining, theme of this form of expansionist nationalism is the idea
of national chauvinism. Derived from the name of Nicholas Chauvin, a (possibly
apocryphal) French soldier noted for his fanatical devotion to Napoleon and the
cause of France, chauvinism is underpinned by the belief that nations have
particular characteristics and qualities and so have very different destinies. Some
nations are suited to rule; others are suited to be ruled.
Typically, this form of nationalism is articulated through doctrines of ethnic
or racial superiority, thereby fusing nationalism and racialism. The chauvinist’s
own people are seen as unique and special, in some way a ‘chosen people’, while
other peoples are viewed either as weak and inferior, or as hostile and threaten-
ing. An extreme example of this can be found in the case of the German Nazis,
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whose Aryanism portrayed the German people (the Aryan race) as a ‘master
race’ destined for world domination, backed up by virulent anti-Semitism.
Fascism has been associated, more widely, with a form of populist ultra-nation-
alism, which fuels myths about past national greatness and the prospect of
national renewal or reawakening. Charles Maurras (1868–1952), a leading figure
in the French far-right political movement Action Française, called this form of
nationalism ‘integral nationalism’, an intense, even hysterical, form of national-
istic enthusiasm in which individual identity is absorbed within the national
community. Some, however, argue that such tendencies are not restricted to
‘illiberal’ or ‘expansionist’ forms of nationalism, as all forms of nationalism are
based on partisanship, a preference for one’s own nation over other nations,
underpinned by the belief that it has special or unique qualities. In this view,
nationalism is inherently chauvinistic and embodies, at minimum, a potential
for aggression.

Transnationalism
Nationalism has traditionally been contrasted with ‘internationalism’.
Internationalism is the theory or practice of politics based on cooperation
between nations or states. It is rooted in universalist assumptions about human
nature that put it at odds with political nationalism, the latter emphasizing the
degree to which political identity is shaped by nationality. However, internation-
alism is compatible with nationalism, in the sense that it calls for cooperation or
solidarity among pre-existing nations, rather than for the removal or abandon-
ment of national identities altogether. Internationalism thus differs from
‘transnationalism’. Transnationalism refers to sustained relationships, patterns of
exchange, affiliations and social formations that cross national borders. As such,
transnationalism implies that the domestic/international divide in politics has
been fatally undermined, casting doubt on the continuing importance of both
sovereignty and the state.
However, transnationalism comes in a variety of shapes and forms, and may
be more relevant to some areas of human existence than to others. Most debate
about transnationalism centres on its relationship to globalization, which is
commonly viewed either as the chief cause of transnationalism or as its primary
manifestation. What is globalization, and what have been its main implications?
An alternative form of transnationalism has emerged from the upsurge in recent
decades, partly fuelled by globalization, of international migration. This has led
to speculation about the growth of ‘transnational communities’. Are territorial
nation-states giving way to deterritorialized transnational communities? Finally,
the most radical implication of transnationalism is that in stimulating increased
global interconnectedness it has the potential to reconfigure identities, loyalties
100 | P O L I T I C A L T H E O RY
and obligations around the world as a whole, based on the vision of the global
population as a single moral community. Could cosmopolitanism (see p. 105)
ever become a reality?

Globalization and post-sovereignty

Globalization is a complex, elusive and controversial term. It has been used to

refer to a process, a policy, a marketing strategy, a predicament or even an ideol-
ogy. Some have tried to bring greater clarity to the debate about the nature of
globalization by distinguishing between globalization as a process or set of
processes (highlighting the dynamics of change) and ‘globality’ as a condition
(highlighting the end-state of globalization, a totally interconnected whole).
Others have used the term ‘globalism’ to refer to the ideology of globalization, the
theories, values and assumptions that have guided or driven the process (Ralston
Saul, 2009). The problem with globalization is that it is not so much an ‘it’ as a
‘them’: it is not a single process but a complex of processes, sometimes overlap-
ping and interlocking but also, at times, contradictory and oppositional. It is
therefore difficult to reduce globalization to a single theme. Nevertheless, the
various developments and manifestations that are associated with globalization,
or indeed globality, can be traced back to the underlying phenomenon of inter-
connectedness. Globalization, regardless of its forms or impact, forges connec-
tions between previously unconnected people, communities, institutions and
societies. Held et al. (1999) thus defined globalization as ‘the widening, intensi-
fying, speeding up and growing impact of worldwide interconnectedness’.
The interconnectedness that globalization has spawned is multidimensional
and operates through distinctive economic and cultural processes, giving glob-
alization a number of dimensions or ‘faces’. Although some commentators have
been primarily concerned with what is called ‘cultural globalization’ (see p. 101),
most of the debate about the advance of transnationalism centres on the global-
ization of economic life. Economic globalization refers to the process whereby all
national economies have, to a greater or lesser extent, been absorbed into an
interlocking global economy. However, economic globalization should be distin-
guished from ‘internationalization’. The latter results in intensive interdepend-
ence between national economies, brought about, for instance, by increased
international trade. This so-called ‘shallow’ integration forces national
economies to work more closely together but does not mean that they lose their
national character. The former marks a qualitative shift towards ‘deep’ integra-
tion, transcending territorial borders through the construction of a consolidated
global market place for production, distribution and consumption. In that sense,
globalization can be thought of as a comprehensive system of economic transna-
tionalism.
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THINKING GLOBALLY . . .

CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION
Cultural globalization is the process whereby information, commodities and images
produced in one part of the world enter into a global flow that tends to ‘flatten out’
cultural differences between nations, regions and individuals. It is closely linked to and
emerged in association with economic globalization and the communications and
information revolution.

One of the chief implications of this form of globalization is that, in weakening the
cultural distinctiveness of the nation-state, it undermines, perhaps fatally, the capacity of
the nation to generate social solidarity and political allegiance. The dominant image of
cultural globalization is one of homogenization, the establishment of a single global
system that imprints itself on all parts of the world, creating, in effect, a global
monoculture. From this perspective, cultural globalization amounts to a form of cultural
imperialism, emphasizing the cultural flows that take place between unequal partners and
are used as a means through which powerful states exert domination over weak states.
Some therefore portray cultural globalization as ‘Westernization’ or, more specifically, as
‘Americanization’. The two main ingredients of cultural globalization have been the spread
of consumerism and the growth of individualism. The former is evident in the worldwide
advance of a culture of consumer capitalism, sometimes seen as ‘turbo-consumerism’.
One aspect of this is ‘Coca-colonization’, referring to the emergence of global goods and
global brands (Coca-Cola being a prime example) that have come to dominate economic
markets in more and more parts of the world, creating an image of bland uniformity. The
latter, the rise of individualism, is widely seen as a consequence of the establishment of
industrial capitalism as the dominant mode of social organization, first in Western
societies and, thanks to globalization, beyond. Although liberal theorists have associated
rising individualism with the spread of progressive, even enlightened social values, notably
toleration and equality of opportunity, communitarians have warned that it profoundly
weakens community and our sense of social belonging.

The image of globalization as homogenization is at best a partial one, however. The fear
or threat of homogenization, especially when it is perceived to be ‘from above’, or ‘from
outside’, has provoked cultural and political resistance. This can be seen in the resurgence
of interest in declining languages and minority cultures as well as in the spread of
religious fundamentalism. Barber (2003) thus advanced an image of world culture
shaped by symbiotic links between ‘McWorld’, which seeks to turn the world into a
‘commercially homogeneous theme park’, and ‘Jihad’, representing the forces of religious
militancy. There is evidence, moreover, that all societies, including economically and
politically powerful ones, are becoming more varied and diverse through the growth of
‘hybridity’ and creolization (the cross-fertilization that takes place when different
cultures interact).
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It is very difficult to argue that the state and sovereignty have been unaffected
by the forces of globalization. This particularly applies in the case of the territo-
rial jurisdiction of the state. The principle of external sovereignty was based on
the idea that states had supreme control over what took place within their
borders, implying that they also controlled what crossed their borders.
Economic globalization, however, has led to the rise of ‘supraterritoriality’,
reflected in the declining importance of territorial locations, geographical
distance and state borders. This is particularly clear in relation to financial
markets that have become increasingly globalized, in that capital flows around
the world seemingly instantaneously meaning, for example, that no state can be
insulated from the impact of financial crises that take place in other parts of the
world. It is also evident in the changing balance between the power of territorial
states and deterritorialized transnational corporations, which can switch invest-
ment and production to other parts of the world if state policy is not conducive
to profit maximization and the pursuit of corporate interests. Economic sover-
eignty, then, may no longer be meaningful in what Ohmae (1990) called a
‘borderless world’, national government having given way to ‘post-sovereign
governance’ (Scholte, 2005). In the most extreme version of this argument
advanced by hyperglobalists, the state is seen to be so ‘hollowed out’ as to have
become, in effect, redundant.
However, the rhetoric of a ‘borderless’ global economy can be taken too far.
For example, there is evidence that, while globalization may have changed the
strategies that states adopt to ensure economic success, it has by no means
rendered the state redundant as an economic actor. Indeed, rather than global-
ization having been foisted on unwilling states by forces beyond their control,
economic globalization has largely been created by states and for states. This
was evident in the role that the USA played in the 1970s and 1980s in bringing
about a shift towards a more open and ‘liberalized’ world trading system, and
in the enthusiasm of China, the ‘rising hegemon’, for globalized economic
arrangements. Moreover, although states when acting separately may have a
diminished capacity to control transnational economic activity, they retain the
facility to do so through macro frameworks of economic regulation, as
provided by the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the
International Monetary Fund.

Transnational communities and diasporas

A transnational community is a community whose cultural identity, political

allegiances and psychological orientations cut across national borders. In that
sense, transnational communities challenge the nation-state ideal, which clearly
links political-cultural identity to a specific territory or ‘homeland’.
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Transnational communities have therefore been thought of as ‘deterritorialized
nations’ or ‘global tribes’. There is, of course, nothing new about scattered
communities that have nevertheless maintained their cultural distinctiveness
and resisted pressure for assimilation. The Jewish diaspora (literally meaning
‘dispersion’), which can be traced back to the eighth century BCE, is the classic
example of a transnational community. Ironically, the remarkable resilience of
Judaism and the Hebrew language in the absence of a Jewish homeland can be
significantly explained by a history of discrimination and persecution through
various forms of anti-Semitism. Other examples include the Armenians, many
of whom have been forced into exile by successive invasions and conquests,
dating back to the Byzantine Empire. However, many argue that the emergence
of transnational communities is one of the chief features of the modern, global-
ized world.
An increase in international migration does not in itself create new, transna-
tional social spaces. For transnational communities to be established, immigrant
groups must forge and, crucially, sustain relations that link their societies of
origin and of settlement. This is made easier in the modern world by a variety of
developments. Whereas, say, Irish immigrants to the USA in the nineteenth
century had little prospect of returning home and only a postal service to keep
them in touch with their friends and families, modern communities of Filipinos
in the Gulf states, Indonesians in Australia and Bangladeshis in the UK benefit
from cheap transport and improved communications. Air travel enables people
to return ‘home’ on a regular basis, creating fluid communities that are bound
neither to their society of origin nor their society of settlement. The near-ubiq-
uitous mobile phone has also become a basic resource for new immigrants,
helping to explain, amongst other things, its increased penetration in the devel-
oping world, including the rural parts of Asia and Africa. Transnational commu-
nities, moreover, are bound together by a network of family ties and economic
flows. Migration, for example, may maintain rather than weaken extended
kinship links, as early immigrants provide a base and sometimes working oppor-
tunities for other members of their families or village who may subsequently
emigrate.
The idea of a transition from territorial nation-states to deterritorialized
transnational communities should not be over-stated, however. The impact of
modern migration patterns, and of globalization in its various forms, is more
complex than is implied by the simple notion of transnationalism. In the first
place, the homogeneous nation that has supposedly been put at risk by the emer-
gence of transnational communities is always, to some extent, a myth, a myth
created by the ideology of nationalism itself. In other words, there is nothing
new about cultural mixing, which long pre-dates the emergence of the modern
hyper-mobile planet. Second, transnational communities are characterized as
much by difference and division as they are by commonality and solidarity. The
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most obvious divisions within diaspora communities are those of gender and
social class, but other divisions may run along the lines of ethnicity, religion, age
and generation. Third, it is by no means clear that transnational loyalties are as
stable and enduring as those built around the nation. Quite simply, social ties
that are not territorially rooted and geographically defined may not be viable in
the long term. Finally, it is misleading to suggest that transnationalism has
somehow displaced nationalism when, in reality, each has influenced the other,
creating a complex web of hybrid identities. Hybridity, or ‘creolization’, has thus
become one of the major features of modern society. It is examined in Chapter
9, in relation to multiculturalism.

Towards a cosmopolitan future?

The global interconnectedness that globalization has spawned does not merely
challenge us in terms of how we understand the world, but also, perhaps, in
terms of our moral relationships. The advance of globalization has had an
ethical dimension, in that it has renewed interest in forms of cosmopolitanism,
often expressed through growing interest in ideas such as global justice, or
world ethics. As the world has ‘shrunk’, in the sense of people having a greater
awareness of other people living in other countries, often at a great distance
from themselves, it has become more difficult to confine their moral obliga-
tions simply to a single political society. The more they know, the more they
care. For cosmopolitan theorists, this implies that the world has come to consti-
tute a single moral community. People thus have obligations (potentially)
towards all other people in the world, regardless of nationality, religion, ethnic-
ity and so forth. Such thinking is informed by a critique of nationalism that has
two dimensions. In the first, in line with the constructivist approach to nation-
alism, nations are seen as ‘imagined’ or ‘invented’, not as organic or ‘natural’
communities. National identity is not rooted in social psychology, but is very
largely an ideological construct, and usually one that serves the interests of
powerful groups. In the second, nationalism is seen to inculcate narrow or
demeaning moral thinking. In giving moral preference to members of one’s
‘own’ nation, it not only treats non-nationals as not fully human but also
encourages us to deny our own humanity. Human beings, therefore, can and
should evolve beyond nationalism.
A distinction is commonly drawn between political cosmopolitanism and
moral cosmopolitanism, with cultural cosmopolitanism also sometimes being
recognized, often in the form of ‘cosmopolitan multiculturalism’ (see p. 265).
Nevertheless, it can be argued that cosmopolitanism always has moral and polit-
ical components, in that political theorizing is invariably underpinned by moral
assumptions, and moral theorizing cannot but extend to a consideration of the
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COSMOPOLITANISM
Cosmopolitanism can be traced back to the Cynic movement in Ancient Greece, and the
assertion by Diogenes of Sinope (400–323 BCE) that he was a ‘citizen of the world’. Interest
in cosmopolitan themes revived during the Enlightenment and was expressed most influen-
tially in Kant’s Perpetual Peace (1795), which outlined the proposal for a ‘league of nations’.
Contemporary cosmopolitanism is largely shaped by the desire to explore the moral and
political implications of increased interdependence in an age of globalization.

Cosmopolitanism literally means a belief in a cosmopolis or ‘world state’. Although

contemporary cosmopolitanism has a primarily moral orientation, being particularly
concerned with the idea of humanity as a single moral community, it also deals with politi-
cal and institutional themes, not least the need to reform the existing system of global
governance (see p. 65) to bring it into line with cosmopolitan moral principles.
Cosmopolitan thinking has drawn, variously, on Kantianism, utilitarianism and the doctrine
of human rights. For Kant (see p. 341), the obligation to treat people as ‘ends in them-
selves’ and not merely as means for the achievement of the ends of others was a ‘categori-
cal imperative’, dictated by practical reason. On this basis, he argued that we have a
universal duty of hospitality towards foreigners, recognizing that, as citizens of the world,
we should treat every human being with consideration and respect. The cosmopolitan
implications of utilitarianism derive from the belief that, in making moral judgements on
the basis of maximizing happiness, ‘everybody counts as one, nobody as more than one’.
The principle of utility is therefore no respecter of borders, a stance that has, for example,
underpinned calls for the eradication of world poverty (Singer, 1993). Most contemporary
cosmopolitan theorizing is nevertheless based on the doctrine of human rights. Human
rights have cosmopolitan implications because they emphasize that rights are universal, in
the sense that they belong to human beings everywhere, regardless of culture, citizenship,
gender or other differences. Such thinking has, among other things, underpinned the idea
of global social justice (see p. 285) and provided a justification for humanitarian interven-
tion based on a ‘responsibility to protect’ citizens of other states from large-scale suffering
or loss of life.

Cosmopolitanism has many detractors, however. For instance, communitarians and others
have taken issue with the moral universalism that underpins cosmopolitanism, arguing that
moral systems are only workable when they operate within a cultural or national context.
From this perspective, any assistance that is provided to ‘strangers’ is based on charity alone
and cannot be viewed as a moral obligation. Others have argued that moral cosmopoli-
tanism amounts to little more than ‘wishful thinking’ in a world that lacks an institutional
framework capable of upholding its principles. This problem is compounded by the fact that
it is difficult to see how such a framework, even if it could be established, could either enjoy
a meaningful degree of democratic legitimacy or avoid turning into an emergent world
government.

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Key figures
Ulrich Beck (born 1944) A German sociologist, Beck’s work has covered the perils
of globalization and challenges to the global power of capital. In The Risk Society (1992), he
analyzed the tendency of the globalizing economy to generate uncertainty and insecurity.
This thinking was updated in World at Risk (1999), in which he argued that an awareness of
common global risks helps to cultivate a universal belief in a globally shared collective
future. In a ‘world risk society’, cosmopolitanism is not only possible but it becomes a politi-
cal and sociological necessity.

Martha Nussbaum (born 1947) A US philosopher and public intellectual,

Nussbaum has written prolifically on subjects such as education, gender, sexuality, religious
tolerance and human rights. Nussbaum has championed a form of cosmopolitanism that is
rooted in Stoic thinking and stresses that being a world citizen does not mean giving up local
identifications, as both are a source of enrichment. She has, in particular, criticized patriotism
for having encouraged people to ignore issues of common humanity. Nussbaum’s best-known
works include The Fragility of Goodness (1986) and The Therapy of Desire (1994).

Charles Beitz (born 1949) A US political theorist, Beitz has made important contri-
butions to international political theory, democratic theory and the theory of human rights.
Beitz has defended the idea of global justice by applying John Rawls’s (see p. 282) principles
of distributive justice to the world economy. This enables him to argue that affluent coun-
tries have an obligation to poorer people and that these obligations go beyond acts of mere
humanitarian assistance and extend to the global redistribution of wealth. Beitz’s key work
in this area is Political Theory and International Relations (1979).

Thomas Pogge (born 1953) A German philosopher, Pogge’s areas of interest

include Kant, moral and political philosophy, especially global justice and, more recently,
global health. Pogge has developed a rights-based approach to global justice which allows
people to make moral claims on social institutions that impact substantially on their lives,
accepting that these claims can only be addressed through global institutional reform.
Unjust global structures must therefore be reconstructed in line with the requirements of
justice and basic human rights. Pogge’s key work in this area is World Poverty and Human
Rights (2008).

Daniele Archibugi (born 1958) An Italian economic and political theorist,

Archibugi has developed a form of cosmopolitanism that stresses the importance of cosmo-
politan democracy, based on the argument that democratic principles that apply within
national communities should also be extended beyond their borders. Criticizing what he sees
as unaccountable, undemocratic and failed global institutions, he has outlined the constitu-
tional architecture of a cosmopolitan alternative. Archibugi’s chief works include (with D.
Held) Cosmopolitan Democracy (1995) and The Global Commonwealth of Citizens (2008).

See also Immanuel Kant (p. 341)

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political arrangements most conducive to promoting it. That said, contemporary
cosmopolitanism tends to focus primarily on moral issues, because political
cosmopolitanism (sometimes called ‘legal’ or ‘institutional’ cosmopolitanism) is
associated with the distinctly unfashionable idea of world government. At the
core of moral cosmopolitanism is the idea of a common humanity, within which
ethical sensibilities are expanded to embrace all people in the world. Thomas
Pogge (2008) broke this basic ethical orientation into three elements. First,
cosmopolitanism believes in individualism, in that human beings, or persons,
are the ultimate unit of moral concern. Second, it embraces egalitarianism, in
that it holds that moral concern attaches to every living human equally. And
third, it acknowledges universalism, in that moral concern applies to everybody
everywhere, taking all people to be citizens of the world. Other forms of
cosmopolitanism have been advanced, however. Onora O’Neill (1996) thus used
the Kantian notion that we should act on principles that we would be willing to
apply to all people in all circumstances to argue that people have a commitment
not to injure others and that this commitment has a universal scope. Peter Singer
(2002), on the other hand, used utilitarianism (see p. 362) to argue that the ethics
of globalization demand that we should act so as to reduce the overall level of
global suffering, thinking in terms of ‘one world’ rather than a collection of
discrete countries or peoples.
Moral cosmopolitanism has its critics, however. Radical critics of cosmopoli-
tanism reject ideas such as global justice or world ethics on the grounds that it is
impossible to establish universal values that are binding on all people and all
societies. This cultural relativism is often used to argue that human rights in
particular are essentially a Western ideal and therefore have no place in non-
Western cultures. Communitarian critics of cosmopolitanism argue that moral
values only make sense when they are grounded in a particular society in a
particular historical period. This implies that human beings are morally consti-
tuted to favour the needs and interests of those with whom they share a cultural
and national identity. In this light, the notion that cosmopolitanism could ever
supplant nationalism would appear to be baseless. Indeed, there are reasons to
believe that the advent of a global age may be leading to a revival, rather than a
decline, of nationalism. In addition to the resurgence of ethnic nationalism in
the aftermath of the fall of communism, nationalism has gained renewed
impetus since the late twentieth century as a means of resistance against immi-
gration and globalization, and as a part of modernization projects in rising states
such as China and Russia.