Diversity, Autonomy and Solidarity in Multinational States: Current Developments in the Spanish-Catalan and the Jews-Arabs Political Disputes

Author(s):  
Hilly Moodrick-Even Khen ◽  
Antoni Abat i Ninet

Abstract The concept of the nation state – and specifically the tension between affirming solidarity among nation-state compatriots and respecting national minorities’ rights in order to preserve diversity and secure their autonomy – has been on the global agenda over the last two centuries, especially in Europe. In recent years, two cases, in Catalonia and in Israel – different in many respects but similar in others – serve as inspiring test cases for analysing questions of national identities and state cohesion. Both of these cases portray the dilemmas surrounding national identity in an allegedly dichotomic fashion, thus requiring a choice between independence and secession or unionism and assimilation. This article suggests that a dichotomic perspective is not compelling and that solidarity and autonomy are not necessarily contradictory. It explores the connection between solidarity and autonomy and applies the analysis to the case studies of Catalonia and Israel separately, given the unique characteristics of each case.

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 342-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared van Duinen

AbstractThis article argues for the importance of an exploration of sporting interactions in the British world. In addition, it presents the case for the adaptation of borderlands theory to the British world framework. Such study of British world borderlands is capable of more accurately capturing the spatial and regional variety of this British world and, in particular, the nascent national identities of dominions such as Australia. Sport is a particularly apt vehicle for the examination of such issues in an Australian context, since playing to the ‘imaginary grandstand’ of international spectators has always occupied a central role in the construction of an Australian national identity. This article uses three brief case studies – cricket, swimming, and Australian Rules football – to explore these theoretical claims.


Author(s):  
Mark Langan

This chapter examines the key ideas and concepts of nationalism as ideology. It first defines nationalism and considers how the nation is socially constructed as an imagined community. It then analyses the practical implications of nationalist ideology in terms of the functioning of the nation-state (and of nationalist political parties). It also looks at the ‘rational’ form of nationalism (that is, the civic variety) and its ‘sticky’ connections to liberalism and socialism; the link between nationalism and politics; and the relationship between nationalism and globalization. The rational and somewhat pragmatic nationalism is compared with the ‘irrational’ and emotional variant found within both conservatism and fascism. The chapter concludes by highlighting key lessons regarding nationalism as ideology. Case studies relating to Scottish national identity, Brexit, Chinese nationalism, and ethnic nationalism in Russia are presented.


2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-70
Author(s):  
Antoni Z. Kamiński

The article is devoted to a critical analysis of current controversies concerning the Polish national identity, and the interpretation of the impact of nobles’ democracy on the demise of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. It considers the role of national identity as a factor influencing civic culture and, therefore, determining its usefulness in assuring the proper functioning of the constitutional order. The analysis assumes that (1) the current global order is the product of the emergence of nation-states; (2) that a nation-state cannot exist without civil society grounded in the concept of national identity and patriotism. Patriotism is opposed here to nationalism; similarly, cosmopolitism is opposed to internationalism. Patriotism and cosmopolitism are compatible and imply an open-minded, inclusive attitude to different national identities. Both nationalism with its focus on superiority of one’s own nation, and internationalism — rejection of the nation-state in the name of an imaginary global, stateless community — are exclusive. These both exclusive postures present a threat to civil society.


2004 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 757-758
Author(s):  
Michael Keating

The Nation-State in Question, T.V. Paul, G. John Ilkenberry and John A. Hall, eds., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003, pp. x, 384The matter of globalization and state retreat has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. A phase of globalist europhoria or alarm, depending on the writer's political tendency, was followed by a series of works debunking the idea as ‘globalony’ and assuring us that the nation-state was alive and well. This book belongs to a third wave of writing that seriously tries to understand and measure the changes that states are experiencing, without committing itself in advance to sensationalist conclusions. The chapters come in four sections, on national identities, state security, state autonomy and state capacity. They are generally empirically grounded, historically informed and balanced in their conclusions. Some are broad comparative reviews and others are case studies, but all of them deploy theoretical arguments capable of wider application and testing.


Author(s):  
Nasar Meer

The purpose of this chapter is to locate the discussion about Muslims in Scotland in relation to questions of national identity and multicultural citizenship. While the former has certainly been a prominent feature of public and policy debate, the latter has largely been overshadowed by constitutional questions raised by devolution and the referenda on independence. This means that, while we have undoubtedly progressed since MacEwen (1980) characterised the treatment of ‘race-relations’ in Scotland as a matter either of ‘ignorance or apathy’, the issue of where ethnic, racial and religious minorities rest in the contemporary landscape remains unsettled. One of the core arguments of this chapter is that these issues are all interrelated, and that the present and future status of Muslims in Scotland is tied up with wider debates about the ‘national question’. Hitherto, however, study of national identity in Scotland has often (though not always) been discussed in relation to the national identities of England, Wales and Britain as a whole.


There is a growing body of evidence pointing towards rising levels of public dissatisfaction with the formal political process. Depoliticization refers to a more discrete range of contemporary strategies politicians employ that tend to remove or displace the potential for choice, collective agency, and deliberation. This book examines the relationship between these trends of dissatisfaction and displacement, as understood within the broader shift towards governance. It brings together a number of contributions from scholars who have a varied range of concerns but who nevertheless share a common interest in developing the concept of depoliticization through their engagement with a set of theoretical, conceptual, methodological, and empirical questions. The contributions in this volume explore these questions from a variety of different perspectives by using a number of different empirical examples and case studies from both within the nation state and from other regional, global, and multilevel arenas. In this context, this volume examines the limits and potential of depoliticization as a concept and its contribution to the larger and more established literatures on governance and anti-politics.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 475
Author(s):  
Francisco Javier Ramón Solans

The objective of this article is to analyse Mexican national pilgrimages to Rome that took place during the pontificate of Leo XIII (1878–1903). These pilgrimages occurred in the context of a global Catholic mobilisation in support of the papacy, during the so-called Roman Question. This paper’s analysis of these pilgrimages draws from historiography about national pilgrimages, as well as studies on Catholic mobilisation in support of the pope in the second half of the nineteenth century. It is fundamentally based on primary sources of an official nature, such as reports and other printed documents produced on the occasion of the pilgrimage. The study’s primary conclusion is that national pilgrimages to Rome had a polysemic character since they brought together various religious and national identities. The pilgrimages contributed simultaneously to reinforcing the link between Catholicism and Mexican national identity and the global dimension of Catholicism and allegiance to the Holy See.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susilo Wibisono ◽  
Winnifred Louis ◽  
Jolanda Jetten

Indonesia has seen recent expansions of fundamentalist movements mobilising members in support a change to the current constitution. Against this background, two studies were conducted. In Study 1, we explored the intersection of religious and national identity among Indonesian Muslims quantitatively, and in Study 2, we qualitatively examined religious and national identification among members of moderate and fundamentalist religious organisations. Specifically, Study 1 (N= 178) assessed whether the association of religious and national identity was moderated by religious fundamentalism. Results showed that strength of religious identification was positively associated with strength of national identification for both those high and low in fundamentalism. Using structured interviews and focus group discussions, Study 2 (N =35) examined the way that self-alignment with religious and national groups develops among activists of religious movements in Indonesia. We found that while more fundamentalist activists attached greater importance to their religious identity than to any other identity (e.g., national and ethnic), more moderate activists represented their religious and national identities as more integrated and compatible. We conclude that for Indonesian Muslims higher in religious fundamentalism, religious and national identities appear to be less integrated and this is consequential for the way in which collective agendas are pursued.


2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 457-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Lawrence Schrad

“Tell a man today to go and build a state,” Samuel Finer once stated, “and he will try to establish a definite and defensible boundary and compel those who live inside it to obey him.” While at best an oversimplification, Finer's insight illuminates an interesting aspect of state-society relations. Who is it that builds the state? How and where do they establish territorial boundaries, and how are those who live within that territory compelled to obey? Generally speaking, these are the questions that will be addressed here. Of more immediate concern is the fate of peoples located in regions where arbitrary land boundaries fall. Are they made loyal to the state through coercion or by their own compulsions? More importantly, how are their identities shaped by the efforts of the state to differentiate them from their compatriots on the other side of the borders? How is the shift from ethnic to national identities undertaken? A parallel elaboration of the national histories of the populations of Karelia and Moldova will shed light on these questions. The histories of each group are marked by a myriad of attempts to differentiate the identity of each ethnic community from their compatriots beyond the state's borders. The results of such overt, state-initiated efforts to differentiate borderland populations by encouraging a national identity at the expense of the ethnic, has ranged from the mundane to the tragic—from uneventful assimilation to persecution and even genocide. As an illustration of the range of possibilities and processes, I maintain that the tragedies of Karelia and Moldova are not exceptional, but rather are a consequence of their geographical straddling of arbitrary borders, and the need for the state to promote a distinctive national identity for these populations to differentiate them socially from their compatriots beyond the frontier.


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