Identity, Contingency, and Interaction: Historical Research and Social Science Analysis of Nation-State Proliferation

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 412-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn M. Tesser
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Major Power ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Nation States ◽  
New States ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Event Sequencing

AbstractScholars of nation-building and secession tend to prioritize elite or broader nationalist activism when explaining the proliferation of nation-states. Yet, recent historical research reveals a major finding: the influence of great powers tended to eclipse nationalist mobilization for new states in Latin America, the Balkans, Anatolia, and Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on recent trends in historical research largely unknown in other fields, this article examines context, timing, and event sequencing to provide a new approach to multi-case research on nation-state proliferation. Major power recognition of new states in the Balkans also emerges as transformational for the post-World War I replacement of dynastic empires with nation-states in Europe. These findings suggest a shift of focus to the interplay of nationalist activism and great power policy for explaining the spread of nation-states.

“Population Politics” at the End of Empire: Migration and Sovereignty in Ottoman Eastern Rumelia, 1877–1886

2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 955-985
Author(s):  
Anna M. Mirkova
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
State Building ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Population Politics

AbstractThis article explores the migrations of Turkish Muslims after the 1878 Peace Treaty of Berlin, which severed much of the Balkans from the Ottoman Empire as fully independent nation-states or as nominally dependent polities in the borderlands of the empire. I focus on one such polity—the administratively autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia—which, in wrestling to reconcile liberal principles of equality and political representation understood in ethno-religious terms, prompted emigration of Turkish Muslims while enabling Bulgarian Christian hegemony. Scholars have studied Muslim emigration from the Balkans as the Ottoman Empire gradually lost hold of the region, emphasizing deleterious effects of nationalism and aggressive state-building in the region. Here I look at migration at empire's end, and more specifically at the management of migration as constitutive of sovereignty. The Ottoman government asserted its suzerainty by claiming to protect the rights of Eastern Rumelia's Muslims. The Bulgarian dominated administration of Eastern Rumelia claimed not only administrative but also political autonomy by trying to contain the grievances of Turkish Muslims as a domestic issue abused by ill-meaning outsiders, all the while insisting that the province protected the rights of all subjects. Ultimately, a “corporatist” model of subjecthood obtained in Eastern Rumelia, which fused the traditional religious categorization of Ottoman subjects with an ethnic one under the umbrella of representative government. The tension between group belonging and individual politicization that began unfolding in Eastern Rumelia became a major dilemma of the post-Ottoman world and other post-imperial societies after World War I.

“Double transformations:” nation formation and democratization in interwar East Central Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 745-758
Author(s):  
Heidi Hein-Kircher ◽  
Steffen Kailitz
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
World War ◽  
Nation Formation ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Nation States ◽  
New States ◽  
Almost All ◽  
East Central European

Following the collapse of empires and the subsequent founding of self-determined nation-states, East Central Europe experienced a turning point after World War I. The new states had to transform themselves from branches of a multi-ethnic empire to independent nation-states, as well as from a system of monarchy to democracy at the same time. We argue that one cannot really understand why democracy failed in almost all East Central European states after World War I if one does not take into account the extreme challenges of this “double transformation” consisting of the interactions of the two tightly interwoven processes of nation formation and democratization. Therefore, we deem it necessary to develop a broader research program that addresses the complex interlacement of these two fundamental transformations of politics and society.

Turks and Tatars in Bulgaria and the Balkans

2000 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Eminov
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Ethnic Communities ◽  
Nationalist Movements ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Cultural Communities ◽  
Political Units ◽  
God's Grace

The Koran and the Bible are God's grace Which is what all four holy Books embrace; To scorn and segregate this or that race Would be the darkest stains on one's face.Aşik VeyselNationalist movements everywhere aim to create “territorially bounded political units (states) out of homogeneous cultural communities (nations).” Unfortunately, ethnic, linguistic, religious, political, and personal identities rarely coincide with geographical boundaries that enclose nation states. There are always groups within nation states whose identities are different from the majority. The leaders of nation states often see the presence of multiple ethnic communities within a single nation state as a sign of tension and instability, a threat to the integrity and indeed the very survival of a nation state. Consequently, they seek ways to culturally homogenize the nation so that the state and the nation come to coincide with one another.

scholarly journals Mass Violence and the Kurds: Introduction to the Special Issue

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Ayhan Işık ◽  
Ugur Ümit Üngör
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
World War I ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
World War ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
Population Policies ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Modern Mass

The Kurds’ experience with modern mass violence is long and complex. Whereas Kurds lived under the Kurdish Emirates for centuries in pre-national conditions in the Ottoman and Persian empires, the advent of nationalism and colonialism in the Middle East radically changed the situation. World War I was a watershed for most ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire, such as the Kurds, and some political minorities such as Armenians and Assyrians suffered genocide – including at the hands of Kurds. Moreover, the post-Ottoman order precluded the Kurds from building a nation-state of their own. Kurds were either relegated to cultural and political subordination under the Turkish and Persian nation states, or a precarious existence under alternative orders (colonialism in Syria and Iraq, and communism in the Soviet Union). The nation-state system changed the pre-national, Ottoman imperial order with culturally heterogeneous territories into a system of nation-states which began to produce nationalist homogenisation by virtue of various forms of population policies.

Transnational Patriotism in the Mediterranean, 1800-1850

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantina Zanou
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Political Space ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Italian Peninsula ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Multicultural Context ◽  
The Common ◽  
Ugo Foscolo ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Republic

Transnational Patriotism in the Mediterranean, 1800–1850: Stammering the Nation investigates the long process of transition from a world of empires to a world of nation-states by narrating the biographies of a group of people who were born within empires but came of age surrounded by the emerging vocabulary of nationalism, much of which they themselves created. It is the story of a generation of intellectuals and political thinkers from the Ionian Islands who experienced the collapse of the Republic of Venice and the dissolution of the common cultural and political space of the Adriatic, and who contributed to the creation of Italian and Greek nationalisms. By uncovering this forgotten intellectual universe, Transnational Patriotism in the Mediterranean retrieves a world characterized by multiple cultural, intellectual, and political affiliations that have since been buried by the conventional narrative of the formation of nation-states. The book rethinks the origins of Italian and Greek nationalisms and states, highlighting the intellectual connection between the Italian peninsula, Greece, and Russia, and re-establishing the lost link between the changing geopolitical contexts of western Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Balkans in the Age of Revolutions. It re-inscribes important intellectuals and political figures, considered ‘national fathers’ of Italy and Greece (such as Ugo Foscolo, Dionysios Solomos, Ioannis Kapodistrias, and Niccolò Tommaseo), into their regional and multicultural context, and shows how nations emerged from an intermingling, rather than a clash, of ideas concerning empire and liberalism, Enlightenment and religion, revolution and conservatism, and East and West.

scholarly journals Exemplary Ethical Communities. A New Concept for a Livable Anthropocene

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5582
Author(s):  
Daniele Conversi
Keyword(s):  
Large Body ◽  
State System ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Sustainable Communities ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Track Record ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Global Environmental

This article argues that we need to look at living examples provided by non-state communities in various regions of the world that are, perhaps unwittingly, contributing to the maintenance of the Earth’s optimal thermal balance. These fully sustainable communities have been living outside the mainstream for centuries, even millennia, providing examples in the global struggle against the degradation of social–ecological systems. They have all, to varying degrees, embraced simple forms of living that make them ‘exemplary ethical communities’ (EECs)—human communities with a track record of sustainability related to forms of traditional knowledge and the capacity to survive outside the capitalist market and nation-state system. The article proceeds in three steps: First, it condenses a large body of research on the limits of the existing nation-state system and its accompanying ideology, nationalism, identifying this institutional–ideological complex as the major obstacle to tackling climate change. Second, alternative social formations that could offer viable micro-level and micro-scale alternatives are suggested. These are unlikely to identify with existing nation-states as they often form distinct types of social communities. Taking examples from hunter-gatherer societies and simple-living religious groups, it is shown how the protection and maintenance of these EECs could become the keystone in the struggle for survival of humankind and other forms of life. Finally, further investigation is called for, into how researchers can come forward with more examples of actually existing communities that might provide pathways to sustainability and resistance to the looming global environmental catastrophe.

scholarly journals The hierarchical society: the politics of self-determination and the constitution of new states after 1919

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-396
Author(s):  
Maja Spanu
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World War ◽  
New States ◽  
History Of

International Relations scholarship disconnects the history of the so-called expansion of international society from the presence of hierarchies within it. In contrast, this article argues that these developments may in fact be premised on hierarchical arrangements whereby new states are subject to international tutelage as the price of acceptance to international society. It shows that hierarchies within international society are deeply entrenched with the politics of self-determination as international society expands. I substantiate this argument with primary and secondary material on the Minority Treaty provisions imposed on the new states in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe admitted to the League of Nations after World War I. The implications of this claim for International Relations scholarship are twofold. First, my argument contributes to debates on the making of the international system of states by showing that the process of expansion of international society is premised on hierarchy, among and within states. Second, it speaks to the growing body of scholarship on hierarchy in world politics by historicising where hierarchies come from, examining how diverse hierarchies are nested and intersect, and revealing how different actors navigate these hierarchies.

International Human Rights, Religious Pluralism and the Future of Chieftaincy in Ghana

Exchange ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 360-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abamfo Atiemo
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Religious Commitment ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Future ◽  
New Nation ◽  
Religious Reasons ◽  
Customary Practices

AbstractA revolutionary development that resulted from Africa's experience of colonialism was the emergence of the nation-state made up of previously separate ethnic states. By the end of the colonial period the rulers of these ethnic states — the chiefs — had lost most of their real political and judicial powers to the political leaders of the new nation-states. But in spite of the loss of effective political power the chiefs continued to wield moral influence over members of their ethnic groups. The limited reach of the nation-state in the post-colonial era has also meant a dependence on the chiefs, in many cases, for aspects of local governance. This, for example, is the case of Ghana. However, in the modern context of religious pluralism the intimate bond between the chiefs and the traditional religion exacerbates tension in situations of conflict between people's loyalty to the traditional state and their religious commitment. In some cases, chiefs invoke customary laws in attempt to enforce sanctions against individuals who refuse to observe certain customary practices for religious reasons. But this has implications for the human rights of citizens. This article discusses the implications of this situation for the future of chieftaincy as well as prospects for the protection of the human rights of citizens who for religious reasons choose to stay away from certain communal customary practices.

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