Nationalism: a Durable Cause?
| Published date | 01 May 1991 |
| Date | 01 May 1991 |
| DOI | 10.1177/004711789101000302 |
| Author | James Cable |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
227
NATIONALISM:
A
DURABLE
CAUSE?
James
Cable
At
the
turn
of
the
twentieth
century,
men
of
good
will
expected
that
nationalism
had
about
run
its
course....
The
nation-state
would
wither
away....
The
later
twentieth
century
has
disappointed
these
generous
hopes.
Far
from
fading
away,
nationalism
remains
the
most
vital
political
emotion
on
the
planet.’
1
’
Politics
is
the
struggle
for
power
over
people.
The
methods
adopted
differ
greatly.
So do
the
size
and
nature
of
the
arena
in
which
power
is
to
be
pursued.
Most
power
seekers,
however,
need
some
kind
of
doctrine,
justification
or
programme
if
they
are
to
win
the
support
of
an
active
minority
or
to
command
the
acquiescence
of the
passive
majority.
No
doctrine
yet
devised
enjoys
universal
acceptance.
To
be
politically
useful,
indeed,
a
doctrine
needs
opponents
almost
as
much
as
it
needs
supporters.
Opposition
sharpens
the
outlines
of
faith
and
heightens
the
fervour
of
believers.
A
doctrine
that
nobody
attacks
will
soon
bore
its
defenders.
To
be
politically
viable,
however,
a
doctrine
should
not
only
be
readily
comprehensible
and
emotionally
appeal-
ing.
It
also
needs
its
own
constituency:
a
group
of
people
who
can
expect
advantage
if
the
doctrine
prevails.
One
of
the
categories
in
which
such
doctrines
may
be
classified
is
nationalism.
This
embraces
a
broad
spectrum
of
rather
different
views.
Their
common
feature
is
the
assumption
that
the
largest
and
most
important
social
group
to
which
the
individual
can
belong
is
the
nation.
From
it
he
derives
rights,
particularly
to
protection,
and
to
it
he
owes
allegiance.
Those
who
rule
the
nation
have
a
positive
duty
to
prefer
the
interests
of
the
nation
to
other
causes
and
to
preserve
the
option
of
a
national
choice.
If
these
ideas
have
often
attracted
more
criticism
than
support
from
the
academic
community,
one
of
the
reasons
is
the
difficulty
of
defining
the
concepts
involved.
What,
for
instance,
is
a
nation?
Snyder
thought
it
was:
a
group
of
people
living
in
a
well-defined
geographical
area,
speaking
a
common
lan-
guage,
possessing
a
literature
in
which
the
aspirations
of
the
nation
have
been
expressed,
possessing
traditional
heroes
and,
in
some
cases,
having
a
common
religion.2
No
theoretical
definition,
of
course,
can
accommodate
all
the
vagaries
of
political
life.
Millions
of
Chinese
are
born,
live
and
die
outside
the
well-defined
geographical
area
of
China.
The
Swiss
have
four
different
languages
and
some
nations
existed
long
before
most
of
their
members
could
read
or
write.
These
are
quibbles,
but
a
more
serious
omission
is
race.
Racial
homogeneity
may
not
be
an
indispensable
condition
of
nationhood,
but
it
does
make
national
unity
easier
to
achieve.
In
some
states
a
sustained
campaign
of
integration
and
1
Arthur
Schlesinger,
foreword
to
M.
Palumbo
&
W.O.
Shanahan
(eds),
Nationalism,
(Westport:
Greenwood
Press,
1981)
p.
ix.
2
Quoted
in
Palumbo
&
Shanahan
op.
cit.
p.
34.
©
International
Relations,
1991
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