Imagined communities: from subjecthood to nationality in the British Atlantic
| Author | Luke Cooper |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221098913 |
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221098913
International Relations
2023, Vol. 37(1) 72 –95
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00471178221098913
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Imagined communities:
from subjecthood to nationality
in the British Atlantic
Luke Cooper
London School of Economics and Political Science
Abstract
Drawing on the concept of uneven and combined development this article critically interrogates
Benedict Anderson’s theory of the ‘imagined community’ through an historical investigation into
the English-realm-cum-British-empire. Placing its rise in the context of the conflicts of Post-
Reformation Europe, it identifies vectors of combined development (money, goods, ideas, people)
which shaped the formation of new imagined communities. These post-Reformation struggles
were not defined by nationality but subjecthood, which saw ‘the realm’ displace the monarch as
an object of rights and duties. The 18th century rise of British nationalism was a response to the
long crisis of subjecthood (1639–1688). However, this emergence was uneven and non-linear,
such that it co-existed as a political imagination with continued belief in – and political support
for – subjecthood. Ironically, given its latter-day mythology, the American Revolutionary War
was fought to protect subjecthood under the Crown from subordination to the British nation
and its parliament.
Keywords
American revolution, British Empire, British nationalism, Historical sociology, nationalism,
subjecthood
A national reawakening within IR?
International Relations (IR) has rarely considered the study of nations and nationalism to
form a foundational element of its research programme. Over two decades since Jan
Jindy Pettman argued that the use of the hyphenated idiom nation-state clouds both theo-
retical and empirical investigation into the distinctive concepts of nation and state,1 IR
has still tended to prioritise the latter and its relationship to the discipline’s ‘ontological
Corresponding author:
Luke Cooper, LSE IDEAS, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London
WC2A 2AE, UK.
Email: l.w.cooper@lse.ac.uk
1098913IRE0010.1177/00471178221098913International RelationsCooper
research-article2022
Article
Cooper 73
cornerstone’2 of sovereignty. Indeed, in his recent survey of the state of nationalism stud-
ies within the discipline, Jaakko Heiskanen tellingly repeats Pettman’s point, noting the
scale of work that exists on the ‘state side’ of this interrelationship and the continued lack
of attention to the nation as a component of modern world politics.3
There are, however, signs that IR scholars are starting to emphasise the national
dimension of international processes. William Callahan has challenged the distinction
between secular states and mediaeval theology.4 Fiona Adamson and Madeleine
Demetriou bring diaspora to the fore in order to critique IR’s identification of collective
identities with the state.5 Burak Kadercan has shown that by transforming territories into
‘inviolable homelands’ 19th century nationalism altered the logic and nature of war.6
Nonetheless, much of the contemporary research on nationality remains rooted in
Political Science and Sociology.7 And the effect of this may be that the distinctive con-
tribution IR holds for studying nationality – how the existence of multiple interacting
societies affects its nature and constitution8 – is overlooked in the broader scholarship.
As Frédérick Guillaume Dufour observes, IR theories have ‘often shied away from
apprehending the historicity of modern nationalism’, while, ‘theories of nationalism’, in
turn, mistakenly ignore ‘the inter-national’ dimension of the social world.9 Indeed, in the
post-war literature10 on the modern origins of nationality, ‘the international’ was for the
most part present empirically but not conceptually.11
This article seeks to overcome this problem by revisiting Benedict Anderson’s12
account of the imagined community in dialogue with the theory of uneven and combined
development.13 Through the examination of identities in the English-realm-cum-British-
empire from the 16th to the 18th century, I correct ambiguities in Anderson’s analysis,
specifically his tendency to emphasise 15th/16th century causes in his explanation of
18th/19th century political nationalism.
I argue that Anderson’s narrow emphasis on print-capitalism excludes the broader
range of practices and processes which were deepening communication networks in the
16th century. While these interactive vectors did not generate modern nationalism, they
did give rise to an international conflict that contested the terms of association between
subject, realm, monarch and church. In the Tudor and Stuart era, this dispute fostered
subjecthood as a political and constitutional form of rule. The 18th century rise of British
nationalism was a response to the long crisis of subjecthood, which began with the dis-
pute between Parliament and Charles I. This emergence of British nationalism was une-
ven and non-linear, such that it co-existed as an imagination with continued belief in
– and support for – Crown subjecthood. In the colonies, the latter entailed a form of
equality as subjects, rather than a hierarchical subordination to British national imperial-
ism. Ironically, given its latter-day mythology, the patriots took up arms in 1775 to pro-
tect subjecthood under the Crown.
Rethinking the imagined community
In this section, I support Anderson’s claim that the distinctively modern character of
nationalism lay in its tendency to internal homogenisation – a dynamic, which also
entailed a new conception of sovereignty, one based on the claim that the nation had a
fundamental right to rule itself. I will establish this through an initial discussion of the
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