scholarly journals “New nationalism” and the issue of nations in the interpretation of American social theorists

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 733-751
Author(s):  
M. K. Gorshkov ◽  
E. A. Bagramov

The article considers the so-called new nationalism that has been developing in the United States and other Western countries since the last decades of the 20th century as a system of ideas about nations, sovereignty, racial and national relations, and also currents of nationalism. Recent forecasts of the ideologists of globalism about the inevitable departure from the political scene of nation-states, nations and nationalism are opposed by the contemporary nationalism which became a real political factor, primarily in the United States. The authors show the variety of concepts of nationalism, which allows its supporters in the United States to follow both openly chauvinistic ideas and liberal ideas of solidarity that makes up the nation. Among the reasons for the rise of nationalism, the authors consider the interaction of two trends in the public-political life - politicization of ethnicity and ethnicization (or nationalization) of politics. The authors believe that the emphasis on ethnic nation and ethnic nationalism (as opposed to civil nation and civil nationalism) reflects the exacerbation of inter-ethnic tensions in the United States and other Western countries. Based on the analysis of the new nationalism, the authors distinguish its right direction, whose supporters nominally renounce Nazism and racism but promote similar ideas, and a moderate liberal direction which often equates nationalism with patriotism. Representatives of both trends appeal to national interests and values of the nations historic core, and criticize migration policy and multiculturalism. In addition to white racism and its evolution, the article considers the scope of nationalism and patriotism of African-American movements, in particular Black Lives Matter and the results of the study of the dual consciousness of African Americans as combining the concept of nation within a nation and a new, completely American identity. Despite many American theorists idea of the absence of the American nation as such, the authors consider the concept of a new identity of the American nation, which M. Lind defines as a unity of language and culture, regardless of the racial composition, i.e. as an expression of liberal nationalism and a renewed concept of the melting pot. Lind and his colleagues believe that the factor of the current split of the American nation is not racial or ethnic confrontation (Balkanization) but the social gap between rich and poor. The authors consider the criticism of the policy of the American ruling class as a means for the sociological study of the racial problem and for the development of ways for solving it.

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-379
Author(s):  
Cheyney Ryan

AbstractA starting point for thinking about war and preparations for war is that today the average citizen in Western countries has absolutely no interest in fighting in a war him or herself. The best study of this phenomenon rightly notes that what might be called the “great refusal” of ordinary people to involve themselves in actual war making reflects what might be called the “great disillusionment” with war itself. However, this has not meant the end of war, or of preparations for war, but rather war's transformation from a “nationalized” to a “postnationalized” arrangement. For the United States, this has meant expansion into a new type of empire. As part of the symposium on Ned Dobos's Ethics, Security, and the War-Machine, this essay explores these developments and the challenges they pose.


Author(s):  
Nereida Shqerra

The aim of this study is to demonstrate that a nation can be created even if its members belong to different religious beliefs. The common religion is a component of nationalism. It plays a role in the consolidation of the shared identity of the members of its nation, so, in the consolidation of the nation itself. Many (or more or less all) nation states have no more than one religion which has supported the consolidation of their national identity. In fact there are few cases in which the members of a nation belong to diverse religious beliefs and almost no study has been focused on this subject. This essay is focused in the formation of the Albanian nation whose members belong to diverse religious beliefs. It studies the way in which Albanian nation took shape even though its members belonged to diverse religious beliefs. There were two ways which brought to the complete consolidation of the Albanian nation. The first one was the negligence toward different religious beliefs that Albanian patriots embodied to the members of their nation, and the second is the role its elites and the state played in the consolidation of the Albanian nation. The conclusions drawn from this case study are that the formation of Albanian nation required negligence toward different existing religious beliefs as well as their self-government in order to make them really Albanian. In other words, the consolidation of the Albanian nation was achieved because Albanians placed nationalism beyond religious beliefs and feelings. The Albanian case is supported by scholars' conclusions about the American nation –which is made of members belonging to different religions- who consider nationalism in the United States as "the most powerful religion in the United States" [Marvin C. - Ingle D. 1996]; a sentence perfectly suited for Albanian nationalism.


2005 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-208
Author(s):  
Richard L. Russell

Iraq's experience with chemical weapons provides ample lessons for nation-states looking to redress their conventional military shortcomings. Nation-states are likely to learn from Saddam that chemical weapons are useful for waging war against nation-states ill-prepared to fight on a chemical battlefield as well as against internal insurgents and rebellious civilians. Most significantly, nation-states studying Iraq's experience are likely to conclude that chemical weapons are not a “poor man's nuclear weapon” and that only nuclear weapons can deter potential adversaries including the United States.


Author(s):  
Adrián Félix

In the context of research on the “thickening” of borders, Specters of Belonging raises the related question: How does transnational citizenship thicken across the political life cycle of Mexican migrants? In addressing this question, this book resembles what any good migration corrido (ballad) does—narrate the thickening of transnational citizenship from beginning, middle, to end. Specifically, Specters of Belonging traces Mexican migrant transnationalism across the migrant political life cycle, beginning with the “political baptism” (i.e., naturalization in the United States) and ending with repatriation to México after death. In doing so, the book illustrates how Mexican migrants enunciate, enact, and embody transnational citizenship in constant dialectical contestation with the state and institutions of citizenship on both sides of the U.S.-México border. Drawing on political ethnographies of citizenship classrooms, the first chapter examines how Mexican migrants enunciate transnational citizenship as they navigate the naturalization process in the United States and grapple with the contradictions of U.S. citizenship and its script of singular political loyalty. The middle chapter deploys transnational ethnography to analyze how Mexican migrants enact transnational citizenship within the clientelistic orbit of the Mexican state, focusing on a group of returned migrant politicians and transnational activists. Last, the final chapter turns to how Mexican migrants embody transnational citizenship by tracing the cross-border practice of repatriating the bodies of deceased Mexican migrants from the United States to their communities of origin in rural México.


All known societies exclude and stigmatize one or more minority groups. Frequently these exclusions are underwritten with a rhetoric of disgust: people of a certain group, it is alleged, are filthy, hyper-animal, or not fit to share such facilities as drinking water, food, and public swimming pools with the ‘clean’ and ‘fully human’ majority. But exclusions vary in their scope and also in the specific disgust-ideologies underlying them. In this volume, interdisciplinary scholars from the United States and India present a detailed comparative study of the varieties of prejudice and stigma that pervade contemporary social and political life: prejudice along the axes of caste, race, gender, age, sexual orientation, transgender, disability, religion, and economic class. In examining these forms of stigma and their intersections, the authors present theoretically pluralistic and empirically sensitive accounts that both explain group-based stigma and suggest ways forward. These forward-looking remedies, including group resistance to subordination as well as institutional and legal change, point the way towards a public culture that is informed by our diverse histories of discrimination and therefore equipped to eliminate stigma in all of its multifaceted forms.


2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-90
Author(s):  
Marion Rana

Abstract This article focuses on the nineteenth century as a pivotal time for the development of a Deaf identity in the United States and examines the way John Jacob Flournoy’s idea of a “Deaf-Mute Commonwealth” touches upon core themes of American culture studies and history. In employing pivotal democratic ideas such as egalitarianism, liberty, and self-representation as well as elements of manifest destiny such as exceptionalism and the frontier ideology in order to raise support for a Deaf State, the creation and perpetuation of a Deaf identity bears strong similarities to the processes of American nation-building. This article will show how the endeavor to found a Deaf state was indicative of the separationist and secessionist movements in the United States at that time, and remains relevant to Deaf group identity today.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002073142199484
Author(s):  
Vicente Navarro

This article analyses the political changes that have been occurring in the United States (including the elections for the presidency of the country) and their consequences for the health and quality of life of the population. A major thesis of this article is that there is a need to analyse, besides race and gender, other categories of power - such as social class - in order to understand what happens in the country. While the class structure of the United States is similar to that of major Western European countries, the political context is very different. The U.S. political context has resulted in the very limited power of its working class, which explains the scarcity of labor, political and social rights in the country, such as universal access to health care.


Author(s):  
Sanjay Pulipaka ◽  
Libni Garg

The international order today is characterised by power shift and increasing multipolarity. Countries such as India and Vietnam are working to consolidate the evolving multipolarity in the Indo-Pacific. The article maps the convergences in the Indian and Vietnamese foreign policy strategies and in their approaches to the Indo-Pacific. Both countries confront similar security challenges, such as creeping territorial aggression. Further, India and Vietnam are collaborating with the United States and Japan to maintain a favourable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific. While Delhi and Hanoi agree on the need to reform the United Nations, there is still some distance to travel to find a common position on regional economic architectures. The India–Vietnam partnership demonstrates that nation-states will seek to define the structure of the international order and in this instance by increasing the intensity of multipolarity.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Tijn van Beurden ◽  
Joost Jonker

Analysing Curaçao as an offshore financial centre from its inception to its gradual decline, we find that it originated and evolved in close concert with the demand for such services from Western countries. Dutch banks and multinationals spearheaded the creation of institutions on the island facilitating tax avoidance. In this they were aided and abetted by their government, which firmly supported the Antilles in getting access to bilateral tax treaties, notably the one with the United States. Until the mid 1980s Curaçao flourished, but then found it increasingly difficult to keep a competitive advantage over other offshore centres. Meanwhile the Curaçao connection had enabled the Netherlands to turn itself into a hub for international revenue flows that today still feed both Dutch tax income and specialised financial, legal and accounting services.


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