Dimensions Of Nationalism

This edited volume scrutinizes the nature and discourses of nationalisms and identity construction in the post-Soviet Central Asian republics, and elucidates the main strategies and tactics employed at various levels of identity construction in these states.

Nationalism has long been a normatively and empirically contested concept, associated with democratic revolutions and public goods provision, but also with xenophobia, genocide, and wars. Moving beyond facile distinctions between 'good' and 'bad' nationalisms, the authors argue that nationalism is an empirically variegated ideology. Definitional disagreements, Eurocentric conceptualizations, and linear associations between ethnicity and nationalism have hampered our ability to synthesize insights. This Element proposes that nationalism can be broken down productively into parts based on three key questions: (1) Does a nation exist? (2) How do national narratives vary? (3) When do national narratives matter? The answers to these questions generate five dimensions along which nationalism varies: elite fragmentation and popular fragmentation of national communities; ascriptiveness and thickness of national narratives; and salience of national identities.

Nationalism and other forms of group identity underlie many of the destructive conflicts the world is experiencing today. Particularly puzzling in such conflicts is their tenacity and viciousness. Why do people cling to conflicts that are damaging them? Why are the feelings involved so vehement and intense? Understanding the fragile nature of individual and group identity, and how people perceive threats to identity, can answer these questions. By analyzing nationalism in Quebec, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Sri Lanka, this book shows that addressing the psychological dimensions of nationalism can help us understand, and perhaps to intervene successfully in, nationalist and ethnic conflicts.

This book illustrates the historical trajectory of resource nationalism, spanning from its articulation as a legal system to extract resources in the Americas by imperial Spain to an anti-colonial platform developed to increase state control over the energy sector. In a fresh review of this contentious topic, Oil Fire provides a broad introduction to resource nationalism and considers whether the ideology has actually contributed to the economic growth and national development of energy-rich developing countries. Oil Fire is a timely piece that can be used as an advanced textbook for graduate students in international affairs, as well as for energy practitioners who want to expand their knowledge of this topic. General readers will also find the text relevant and applicable to an everyday understanding of the drivers of politics in energy-rich developing countries.

While Middle Eastern nationalism is most often examined from the political viewpoint, this book adds a fresh perspective by exploring the social and cultural dimensions. Although most scholars agree that nationalism is the most significant social and political phenomenon of the twentieth century, shaping individuals, societies, and states throughout the world, they often dispute the complex elements that form and transform it. This book provides a rare comparative analysis of the meaning systems created around nationalism in societies, groups, and the lives of individuals, and proves that these systems are, in fact, as significant in sustaining nationalism as the dominant political form of nation-states. Concentrating on three themes—narrative, gender, and cultural representation—the contributors address how nationalism transforms and is transformed by the lives of individuals and groups from the eighteenth century to the present, with examples ranging from Turkey to Egypt to Iranian immigrants in the United States.

Nationalism is a movement and a state of mind that brings together national identity, consciousness, and collectivities. A five-country study that spans five hundred years, this historically oriented work in sociology bids well to replace all previous works on the subject.

Ethic Dimensions Of Politics And Political Dimensions Of Ethnicity Is An Area In Which Scholarship Has Remained Oblivious For Long. The Present Volume Goes A Long Way In Rectifying This Anomaly.