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What Is a Nation? and Other Political Writings

• Ernest Renan
• Edited by: M. F. N. Giglioli
• Preface by: Dick Howard
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• Language: English
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Copyright year: 2018
• Audience: Professional and scholarly;
• Published: September 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9780231547147

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4 What is a ‘nation’?

Guibernau (1996, p. 47) has defined the nation as: ‘a human group conscious of forming a community, sharing a common culture, attached to a clearly demarcated territory, having a common past and a common project for the future and claiming the right to rule itself’. So awareness, territory, history and culture, language and religion all matter. However, it is rare in the real world to find a case of a nation with a clear-cut and homogenous character in terms of this list of possibilities. Each nation is unique in the (alleged) makeup of its special character and worth. One crucial question is whether – and to what extent – a group must be aware of its alleged distinctiveness from other groups, in order to be classed as a nation. One could argue that a nation can objectively be defined as a group of people which possesses a shared and distinct, historically persistent cultural identity, and which makes up a majority within a given territorial area. If that is the case, then one could argue that even if such a ‘nation’ is not pushing for a right to self-determination (in any form), it nevertheless is a nation.

There are other would-be objective approaches to what might signify nation-ness, including statehood, ethnicity and naturalness.

• Statehood . This view holds that if a group has its ‘own’ state then it constitutes a nation. The common term ‘nation-state’ taps into this sense of nation. But this approach seems a little too neat, and begs many questions. For a start, it would mean that there can be no non-state nations, freezing into place the existing configuration of states that makes up the political map of the world. Defining nation-ness in terms of statehood, although common, rather rigs the game – why should all non-state ‘nations’ have their aspirations dismissed purely by definition?
• Ethnicity . Some interpret the principle of national self-determination as meaning that each ‘ethnic’ group forms a nation, and that each nation should be presumed to have a right to political self-determination. But who is to locate – and worse, to police – where the boundaries of one ethnicity stop and those of another begin?
• Naturalness . Mountains and rivers, for example, are sometimes thought to provide ‘natural’ borders. But, just as much as they divide and separate peoples, mountains and rivers and other features of the natural landscape can bring people together and create common interests and a common sense of community. There is no single or correct way to ‘read’ the social meaning of natural landscapes.

We can see that the problem with so-called objective approaches to defining a nation is finding sound criteria by which one might judge which groups form nations and which do not. How can we weigh different histories, traditions, religions, languages? Any attempt at objective demarcation of national communities is sure to remain contested, not least from among the groups who are thus classified.

This is why most theorists and observers adopt a subjective approach to defining nation-ness. From a subjective point of view, history, religion and language, for example, still count, but awareness and acceptance of a claim that X is a nation among the people of the supposed national group – a real consciousness that this is a group and I am part of it – is the crucial ingredient. This raises an important further question: does the awareness constitute the group, or the other way around? Certainly, a sense of nation and national belonging can be induced and engendered, ‘created’ if you like. Films, paintings, speeches and activities can invoke national heroes and national myths, which in turn can induce a sense of commonality and belonging. It normally serves the interests of those doing the inducing to say that they are merely reflecting what is already there, mirroring people’s pre-existing and deep-rooted feelings of attachment. All of this is routine and familiar, on one level. All governments regulate, to some degree, citizen education, language, culture, sport, travel and so on, and by so doing they establish and reinforce some ‘national’ attributes and discourage others. But extreme, simplistic and coercive peddling of dubious ‘national’ myths for cynical power purposes is common enough also. Hitler’s Nazism and Mussolini’s Fascism were primary twentieth-century examples, but there are many others. As we shall see further below, nationalism has a dark side. It involves inevitable shoehorning of a people under a simplified set of cultural or other characteristics. The degree of this shoehorning and the way it is carried out are important.

From a subjective point of view, to quote Margaret Moore,

the term ‘nation’ refers to a group of people who identify themselves as belonging to a particular nation group, who are usually ensconced on a particular historical territory, and who have a sense of affinity to people sharing that territory. It is not necessary to specify which traits define a group seeking self-determination. (Moore, 1997, p. 906)

Moore goes on to say, echoing our discussion above, that

One advantage of conceiving of national identities in subjective terms, and jurisdictional units in terms of the area on which the national group resides, is that it avoids the problem of contested definitions of what really constitutes a nation. (Moore, 1997, p. 907)

We are able to sidestep all such awkward definitional issues and come down to the view that ‘Ultimately, communities are nations when a significant percentage of their members think they are nations’ (Norman, 1991, p.53). One consequence of this view is that imagination and symbolism become essential for defining a nation in the mind of its (potential) members. Before turning to the issue of nationalism as a political ideology, I want to say something brief on this critical point.

I propose the following definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community. … It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion. (Anderson, 1983, pp. 5–6)

When it comes to defining a particular nation, potent mixes of historical fact and myth are common: ‘“to forget and – I will venture to say – to get one’s history wrong are essential factors in the making of a nation” [Renan] and “Nationalism requires too much belief in what is patently not so” [Hobsbawm]’ (quoted in Archard, 1995, p. 472). Beliefs do not need to be true for people to hold to them and act as if they were true; ‘A group of individuals united in and by the false belief that they share a common history might act collectively and thereby initiate a common history’ (Archard, 1995, p. 475).

There is plenty of scope for the making of representations, in the form, for example, of constructing and presenting national myths which can be fuel for imagining communities in Anderson’s sense. Anderson took the view that ‘communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined’ (Archard, 1995, p. 481). Clearly, not any old claim to nationhood could ‘stick’ – ‘the nation-constituting beliefs must bear some kind of possible relationship to the group of people who are constituted as a nation’ (Archard, 1995, p. 474) – but would-be nation builders would have plenty of scope to discourage some narratives of nation and to encourage others.

One might argue that a nation not only imagines itself, others imagine it too, and offer constructions or representations of it as a friend or as an enemy. These ‘imaginings’ matter. Consider, for example, the Israel/Palestine issue. Some Palestinians portray Israel as a tool of Western imperial power in the Middle East, and Israelis protest at such images. On the other hand, consider the argument of the Palestinian critic Edward Said:

What we must again see is the issue involving representation , an issue always lurking near the question of Palestine … . Zionism always undertakes to speak for Palestine and the Palestinians; this has always meant a blocking operation, by which the Palestinian cannot be heard from (or represent himself) directly on the world stage. Just as the expert Orientalist believed that only he could speak (paternally as it were) for the natives and primitive societies that he had studied – his presence denoting their absence – so too the Zionists spoke to the world on behalf of the Palestinians. (Said, 1979, p. 5)

Maps, too, have proven to be a vital part of ‘imagining’ a nation, in quite a literal sense, creating a visual ‘image’ of a nation as a state. Maps establish, indeed they create, centres and peripheries, locations and borders, and even the very existence of a political unit. Nation-builders know this fact all too well. For example, in the words of Weizman:

From 1967 to the present day, Israeli technocrats, ideologues and generals have been drawing maps of the West Bank. Map-making became a national obsession. Whatever the nature of Palestinian spatiality, it was subordinated to Israeli cartography. Whatever was un-named ceased to exist. Scores of scattered buildings and small villages disappeared from the map, and were never connected to basic services. (Weizman, 2002)

There is a large version of the Israeli Tourism map [PDF] .

View a larger version of Palestine villages Depopulated in 1948 and 1947 .

When one looks more closely at the sheer diversity of those entities that we call ‘nations’ and ‘states’, the strong view expressed by anthropologist Clifford Geertz becomes understandable: ‘The illusion of a world paved from end to end with repeating units that is produced by the pictorial conventions of our political atlases, polygon cut-outs in a fitted jigsaw, is just that – an illusion’ (Geertz, 2000, p. 229). Geertz does not deny the material existence of different political systems and the material reality created by the policing of national borders, for example. But he does want us to question whether these separate splashes of colour in atlases really add up to any strong commonalities between the separated political units.

Finally, it is worth pointing out a quite different, provocative perspective that emerges once the symbolic aspects of nation are accepted, as part of a subjective approach to the definition of nations. One could argue that a nation is not something that ‘is’, but rather it is something that ‘does’. What does it mean, what effect is intended or achieved, by calling a group of people a ‘nation’ (as opposed to a community of some other sort)? Instead of thinking of ‘culture’ or ‘descent’, for example, as fixed things, we can ask how different definitions of the nation work or what they accomplish (Verdery, 1996). A nation is a system for classifying people, as are class, gender and so on. We often take these classifications to be ‘natural’ – ‘nation’ and ‘natural’ possess a common etymological root in the sense of ‘to be born’ – but they can equally be seen as constructed. Classifications are vital to establishing political centres and peripheries on the ground; they are constructions that do real work, and upon which people act. Notice also how seeing ‘nation’ as a symbol and a construct makes it a dynamic concept. After all, if ‘nation’ is a label , it can in principle be peeled off one jar and put onto another. There has been talk of the ‘Arab nation’, for example, over the years, a term used to symbolise a commonality of interest and outlook among Arab peoples regardless of which nation they belong to in the sense of ‘nation-state’. A very different example of the dynamism of this label would be the more recent use of the term in the phrase ‘queer nation’, invoking a sense of commonality among gay communities regardless of what country they are citizens of. This dynamism is clearly one part of what it means for a political idea to be ‘living’.

• There are two main approaches to the definition of nation, the objective approach and the subjective approach.
• The subjective approach is generally favoured by theorists.
• Symbolic and imagined aspects of nationality are important.
• ‘Nation’ as a word and a label is still evolving, and being applied in new contexts.

Nationalism, Self-determination and Secession Copyright © 2013 by Geoff Andrews and Michael Saward is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What is a nation and other political writings.

Ernest Renan. Translated and edited by M. F. N. Giglioli.

Columbia University Press

Pub Date: August 2018

ISBN: 9780231174305

Format: Hardcover

List Price: $85.00 £70.00

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ISBN: 9780231547147

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This wonderfully translated and edited collection offers a welcome opportunity to reassess the political writings of Ernest Renan. M.F.N. Giglioli’s judicious selection of essays allows readers to explore how this influential nineteenth-century liberal understood the major challenges of his day: empire, religion, education, and liberty. A principled mind in an era of revolutionaries and demagogues, Renan inspires reflection on the place of intellectual and political engagement in turbulent times. J.P. Daughton, Stanford University

This welcome volume makes the political thought of a major figure in the liberal tradition accessible to English readers for the first time. Setting Renan's famous lecture 'What Is a Nation?' alongside a series of previously untranslated essays on diverse subjects from Islamic science to the future of Europe to the nature of historical causation, the volume shows Renan grappling with the many legacies of the French Revolution for the modern world. Giglioli's translations are lucid, reliable, and a pleasure to read. His informative and judicious introduction traces the considerable impact of Renan's controversial ideas—about race, religion, civilization, and reform—on thinkers from left to right in subsequent generations. Jennifer Pitts, University of Chicago

Renan was one of the most significant liberal thinkers in nineteenth-century France. His occasional essays and lectures constituted major interventions in, and helped set the tone of, public debate. What Is a Nation? and Other Political Writings makes a fundamental contribution in bringing to the English reader a variety of Renan’s texts which are either unavailable or dispersed, supported by an excellent introduction and supplemented by highly useful explanatory notes. Robert D. Priest, Royal Holloway, University of London

Highly recommended. Choice

• M. F. N. Giglioli's webpage for What Is a Nation? with links to the each essay in French

About the Author

• Philosophy: Political Theory
• Political Science
• Political Science: Political Theory
• European Politics
• International Relations
• Columbia Studies in Political Thought / Political History

What Is a Nation?

This essay, translated by Paul Seaton, is excerpted from the author’s Democracy without Nations? The Fate of Self-Government in Europe

The question in my title is rarely posed, and generally speaking, we are not keen to ask this kind of question. We do not spontaneously ask what a thing is, but we freely expatiate on how good or how bad it is. This is especially the case when addressing political things. Sometimes the nation is considered as a good thing, perhaps even the best human thing; sometimes the nation is considered as a bad thing, perhaps even the worst political thing. In either case there is not much motivation to explore the what —the nature—of the nation.

In my country, the question was asked and answered in 1882 by Ernest Renan in a way that made his answer determinative for modern French self-consciousness (see his famous lecture of that year titled “Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?”). This was a time when the nation was considered the ultimate form of political life, and thus it was not very propitious for a serious study of its nature. But the French nation had just suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Prussia, and as a consequence the German empire had just been founded. So the strong, indeed enthusiastic general adhesion to the nation as such was mitigated by the despondency and anxiety of this particular nation at this particular juncture. There was an opening for the mind. In his 1882 lecture, Renan formulated in a scholarly and moderate tone the views he had expressed more pungently in letters written to David Friedrich Strauss during and immediately after the Franco-Prussian War.

Renan contrasted the French and German ideas of the nation, the latter resting on the brute facts of race and language, the former on the free will of particular populations. The existence of the nation is then compared to un plébiscite de tous les jours, “a daily plebiscite.” While striking, this stark opposition fails completely to convince. However sympathetic we are today to Renan’s thesis, we cannot fail to notice that for a nation to exist it needs the “German” no less than the “French” element. However “open” a nation may be, as the word “nation” itself suggests it is first of all defined by her “children” being born on her soil: 1 a nation is first of all a motherland, or a Vaterland , a patrie . The specific work of the nation is to join and as it were to fuse the brute fact of birth with the free adhesion of the heart and mind. Renan would not deny that, but his defining the nation by merely opposing two different conceptions of it was far from sufficient if we intend to grasp firmly what it is .

That was a long time ago. We no longer think, as Renan and his contemporaries did, that the nation is the most perfect form of human association. For the last half-century in Europe we have even been engaged in a huge enterprise implicitly or even deliberately aimed at the definitive overcoming of our European nations. After three Franco-German wars, two of which have engulfed the world, it seems we have no more use for the French than for the German idea of the nation. But then it would seem a good time for the philosophic bird to again take flight: the nation has become all that it could be, so we are in a position to finally grasp what it is. Alas, the conviction that the nation is the main culprit in the catastrophes of the twentieth century prevents us from seriously trying. Since we are so certain it is bad, why bother to inquire into its nature? Therefore, instead of asking about the nation , most political scientists today study nationalism , understood as the phenomenon uniquely revelatory of the nation’s essence. This procedure is all the more attractive since this noun already includes a judgment and a condemnation. Once we have started on this path, all efforts at an impartial inquiry are fruitless. Of course, one could object that we have no need for impartiality in these matters. What could be the use in our political life for an ample and accurate knowledge of the nation? We are thus tempted to “forget about it.”

I do not think that we can indulge in this sort of avoidance or consignment to oblivion. Among the many reasons I could adduce, the following is sufficient. After more than a half-century of trying, the European enterprise, the effort “to construct Europe,” has not succeeded in overcoming our old nations. And nobody expects it will succeed any time soon. For all practical purposes, for the foreseeable future the frame of our lives will retain a national character. Our nations are here to stay for a while longer. To be sure, they are now and will be in the future very different from what they were at the time of Renan and Strauss. But this complex of facts means that an investigation into the nature of the nation is incumbent upon us. Even if we are to live in nations that will be mere shadows of their former selves, we need to know what they were when they really were themselves.

In this way, too, an unexpected and yet reassuring constellation begins to take shape: Europe and its nations appear less and less as opposite and exclusive forms of political association—with the former irresistibly taking the place of the latter; they are interdependent and inseparable modalities of an enormous, still unfinished, and rather mysterious historical phenomenon. In any event the idea is dawning on us that what we call a nation is the political form proper to Europe, since it was produced by a complex of circumstances and purposes exclusive to Europe, and also to its American offspring.

Before the Nation: From the City to Empire

Until now we have stayed among the nations, so to speak, letting ourselves be guided by differences between them, for instance between France and Germany as discussed by Renan. We need to take a step back. As you will soon see, it will of necessity be a major step back.

We need to look at the nation from the outside . How can we do that, since we have lived in nations from time immemorial? Thankfully, our Western memory is longer than our respective national memories. At least intellectually, we have access to other political forms which we can press into service for a methodical comparison with the nation. Luckily, the number of political forms is not indefinite. Indeed, it is very small. As far as they interest us politically, their number is no greater than three. In addition to the nation, and for the purpose of a defining comparison, we need to take into account only two other political forms: the city and the empire.

The city and the empire are the political forms characteristic of Greek and Roman antiquity. So chronologically, and perhaps genetically, they come before our nations. This chronological advantage is compounded by a logical advantage: they are easier to define than the nation.

Let us begin with the city. Of the three political forms under consideration, it is the only one of which we can give a complete, and thus a completely satisfactory, definition. The city is particularly susceptible to being defined because it is constituted by its fines , by its limits. In Leo Strauss’s felicitous formulation, “the polis is that complete association which corresponds to the natural range of man’s power of knowing and of loving.” 2 In such a definition the ought is included in the is . Let us listen to the best analyst of the ancient city: “the best defining principle for a city is this: the greatest number of members with a view to self-sufficiency of life that is readily surveyable.” 3 We need to keep in mind this defining trait of the city: the city is readily surveyable, it is eusunoptos .

The empire is less easy to define because in opposition to the city its defining trait is to be limitless. Far from being eusunoptos , it extends well beyond the horizon. To be grasped it requires the imagination, which it stirs and even inflames. You could retort that with all this indetermination the empire implies a clear definition inasmuch as the notion points toward the all-encompassing gathering of all peoples under one rule, ultimately the gathering of the whole human race under the same rule. The objection is valid, except for the fact that this gathering of all men, contrary to the civic association, is an imagined gathering: the most extended empires in history have left out big chunks of humanity. Thus, practically speaking the notion of empire is a performative one: it involves the impulse and efforts toward the greatest possible extension of a domination. Aiming ultimately at the humanly impossible gathering of the human race, it therefore tends beyond humanity. Only a super-human ruler would be able to govern the whole human race. The emperor has to have a godly or divine nature.

Empires are able to be found in all parts of the world, in all civilizations. In China, in Africa, in Central America, in ancient and modern Europe—one could go on and on. This is not the case with the city. However natural it may be (as Aristotle argued in the Politics ), the city has fully developed only in the European domain broadly understood, that is, from the Greek poleis through the cities of northern Italy and northern Europe to the townships of New England discussed by Tocqueville. What I stated earlier is therefore in need of correction. The empire and the city are the political forms characteristic of Greek and Roman antiquity inasmuch as the empires there came after, and in some sense rested upon, a previous civic life. This was not the case with the other empires to which I have alluded.

The articulation of the empire and the city was very different in the case of the Hellenistic empire and that of the Roman empire. However dependent the former was upon the Greek idea of the human species, however dependent Alexander was upon Aristotle, the Macedonian empire superimposed itself on the Greek cities without radically transforming them. In the case of Rome, on the contrary, the empire was born from the city, from the entrails of the city which it eventually tore apart. Although you may have the impression that I have set out to discourse on everything under the sun, I will mostly skip this—admittedly huge—speck of the Roman empire. Let me briefly sketch what interests me about Rome in this inquiry into the genesis and nature of the nation.

It is worth asking what made Rome so fascinating in the centuries following its demise, since much of what had happened under the name “Rome” had been of unparalleled squalor and ugliness. Different answers are possible and legitimate. I submit this one: Rome fascinates because it underwent the greatest political transformation ever seen. The Greek cities—especially Athens—had of course undergone profound transformations. You could argue that classical political science came into being for the purpose of understanding political change, more precisely the change of regime. But however deep and significant these changes were, they did not touch the political form itself, they did not affect the city as such. Athens submitted to Philip of Macedon while keeping its form as a city. Rome, on the contrary, underwent a complete transformation as a political form; from a city it became an empire, a change of form which also included a change of regime.

What is most fascinating in this fascinating story is the protracted, convulsive, and bloody process of transition between the two forms. A standard and convenient way of shedding light on this process is to understand it as a conflict between two regimes—an aristocratic republic on one hand, an absolute monarchy on the other, these two regimes being embodied by two extraordinary men, Cato and Caesar. However enlightening it may be, this interpretation leaves out much. One can get at its omissions by asking the Plutarchian question, What makes the great men of Rome different from the great men of Greece? In Greece, even in Athens, however willing they were when crossed by their fellow citizens to offer their services to the Great King or to another city, they could not control the forces of the city independently from the regime of the city. In Rome, on the other hand, the energies of the republic detached themselves from the senatorial regime and were, so to speak, at the disposition of the one able to handle them. Think of Caesar’s conquest of the Gauls, which was single-handedly pursued for nearly a decade not only without the approbation but against the mind of the senate. The German historian Christian Meier’s convincing thesis is that the difference between Sulla and Pompey on one hand, and Caesar on the other, lies in the former having some respect for the senatorial regime (if not for the senators themselves: Sulla can be said to have reformed the senatorial regime against the grain of the senate). Caesar, however, felt no less contempt for the regime than for the persons of the senate. Did Caesar deliberately aim at founding another regime, a monarchical one? The question is perhaps moot, and not only because he died before he was forced to show his hand. We get the distinct impression that he simply enacted his sovereignty without bothering to give an account of it.

One of the main causes of the separation of the forces of the city from its regime was the blurring of the difference between inside and outside, between citizen and foreigner. The blurring came to a head in the first century B.C. during the war with the allies about their getting full rights as Roman citizens. 4 Sulla was the first to enter Rome as a conqueror and to treat his fellow citizens as he would the enemies of Rome. He thus prepared Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon.

The European tradition, even the republican one, did not simply side with the republican killers of Caesar. This was because he did not simply embody monarchy, or despotism, or tyranny, as opposed to a republic or a free regime. His personal, quasi-divine ascendancy paradoxically rested upon, and brought to ultimate fruition, a “republican” confidence in one’s own forces. Blurring the opposition between republican self-government and monarchical domination, he embodied and brought about the consummation of pagan pride. Among the numerous titles borne by the pope in Rome, none is more beautiful than servus servorum Dei (servant of the servants of God). To the titles which have been piled on Caesar’s head, I propose, somewhat belatedly, that we add the following : Dominus dominorum mundi (Lord of the lords of the world).

The Church and Europe’s New Political Form

We are a long way from home but we haven’t lost our way. We needed to give a sketch of the ancient pagan dynamism and trajectory, a sketch that provides us the broadest and most direct access to the natural order of political things. During the first centuries of the Christian dispensation and for quite a long time after that, city and empire were the only available political forms. Cities naturally grew up, particularly in northern Italy and northern Europe. And the prestige of the Roman Empire was such that in western Europe a Holy Roman German Empire evolved. However, despite this imperial prestige, despite the magnificent flowering of so many cities from Florence through Venice to Köln and Amsterdam, the most significant fact of our history is that Europe did not organize itself durably in the form of cities or an empire. It was forced to produce a radically new political form. The way to break the stand-off between city and empire, between Guelphs and Ghibellines, was to invent a political form unknown to the ancients. This was the nation, the European nation, the political form that is so familiar to us.

The ancient, or natural, conflict between city and empire did not issue in the ancient or natural outcomes, whether the victory of one or a complex equilibrium between the two. The old dynamics no longer ruled, no longer produced the accustomed order or disorder. Why? A third party, but not a political one, had introduced itself, purporting to mediate the tension between city and empire. I am alluding to the Church, of course. The Church is not strictly a political form, but it introduced such a deep reconsideration and recomposition of the human association that it would be prudent to include it among the political forms, if only never to lose sight of the part it played in the constitution of the European political landscape. I have already been brazen enough to give an account of pagan or natural politics in a few pages. I have at my disposal even less space to draw a sketch of the political meaning and effects of the Church. Well, it is too late to bow out now.

In some politically relevant sense, the Church is stronger than either the city or the empire. It is stronger for spiritual reasons that have political consequences. The Church, as a purported perfect society—if you prefer, as an imagined perfect society—undermines the moral conditions of the city and the empire as human associations. Through the specific affect which animates her—that is, through charity—the Church goes deeper than the city and farther than the empire. The mere notion of charity—the love of the neighbor for the love of God—opens up perspectives and possibilities that are enough to reorder the way we look at the human association.

Now, without entering into the question of the virtues and the vices of the Church, it is enough to remark that the Church is not of this world. It is, or in the event was, essentially unable to make charity the animating principle of our political associations. If you don’t believe me, I am sure you will believe Machiavelli, who explained that the Church in Italy was too strongly opposed to the profane institutions but too weak to be able to replace them. Here is the heart of the matter. The Church decisively and definitively changed the way Europeans looked at the human association, and thus it decisively and definitively transformed the conditions of their political life, but without ever being in a position to govern them politically. On the hoary subject of the relation between politics and religion in Europe, the most important point, to my mind, is the following one: in the whole course of our history the Church, or Christianity, never governed Europeans politically , including during the period when the Roman Church claimed for itself the plenitudo potestatis, the plenitude of power. The proposition is familiar to us through the polemical formulations of the modern philosophers, who from Machiavelli through Hobbes to Rousseau affirmed that the political contribution of Christianity is, in Rousseau’s formulation, “to make impossible any good political regime in the Christian States.” Stripped of its polemical or anti-Christian edge, the proposition is all the more enlightening and true.

The incompatibility between the Church on the one hand and the city and the empire on the other goes both ways. The Church is stronger than either the city or empire because it goes deeper than the city and farther than the empire. Conversely, the city is peculiarly inimical to the Church because of its civic passions, which bend the human heart toward human affairs, while the empire too is inimical to the Church because it entertains universal claims. To summarize: our forebears had at their disposal three modes of human association, three political forms, which could not be reconciled nor made compatible. How did the nation evolve from such a hopeless situation? How did a nation-based order develop from this chaos? I do not underestimate the role of subpolitical factors—of geography, languages, mores, etc. But they belong to what Aristotle would call “material causes”; as such they do not give access to the form, precisely, of this unprecedented political form. The nation could come into being only through the action of the form itself, of what is the most formal in the form, that is, its unity. The entering wedge of the nation-to-be was the king, the Christian King. The European nation came into being through obedience to the Christian King.

The Christian King

Just as the defects of city and empire in their relation to the Church go both ways, the advantages of the Christian King also go in both directions. He is more acceptable to the Church than either the citizen-body of a city or an emperor. Citizens are carried away by passions that make them forgetful of their souls, while the emperor aims at a plenitudo potestatis thatnecessarily rivals that which is claimed by the Church. In contrast the Christian King bends the will of his subjects toward obedience, thus disposing them to obey the law of God and the injunctions of the Church. At the same time, the extension of his power is confined within the limits of his realm, thus conceding to the Church her exclusive claim to universality. Conversely, this King who in these ways is quite agreeable to the Church is in a position to defend the prerogatives of the secular domain against the encroachments of the Church. He can do so much more efficiently than the republican citizen-body, which is always prone to agitation and disruption by the promises and threats of the Church. He is also more effective than the emperor, whose unwieldy domain is even less susceptible to a rational government. Thus, the Christian King appears as a historical agent of great magnitude. He can cooperate with the apostolic mission of the Church (think of Alexander VI’s bull in 1493 giving the Spanish Crown an apostolic mission in the Indies), while striving mightily to have his government freed as much as possible from the demands of the Church.

I readily admit that, however valid, this short description of the Christian King is very far from giving us a sufficient grasp of the nation of which he was the head. At the very most we have limned a fairly suggestive idea of the formative soul of the European nation. But what of its body? After all, we speak of “political bodies,” not of “political souls.” However addicted to inference and deduction I may appear, I do not intend to deduce the bodies of the European nations from their kingly souls! Innumerable circumstances, both natural and human, contributed to their extraordinary variety. More importantly, the contingent character of their bodies belongs to their essence: they are a kind of mean between the powerful localism of the city (a Florentine citizen is loath to venture very far from the Ponte Vecchio) and the imperial impulse to look toward the unsubdued regions beyond the horizon (there is always an expedition being prepared against the Parthians).

This does not mean that these bodies were simply divorced from their souls. The latters’ faculties played their roles, including what one may call “the national imagination.” The national imagination has this singular character of being at the same time quite ample and neatly circumscribed, a reflection of which is to be found in our meticulously drawn national boundaries. In this connection I submit this thesis, or rather, this hypothesis. This searching for the mean, this circumscribing of the national imagination, presupposed and built upon Christian affects. Because every human being is my neighbor, charity alleviates the pressure of those naturally close to me while it draws closer those who live faraway; it weakens the grasp of localism while it assuages the vertigo of faraway domination. Again, I am not suggesting that charity as a theological virtue was directly productive of these political effects, only that the perspective deriving from charity informed the imagination of our forefathers and helped them to discover a middle dimension between the little and the immense, thus preparing their souls for the nation-in-formation.

Although this kind of analysis does not point toward particular events or a neatly determined period, it nevertheless aims to shed some light on the long and confused development during the course of which Christian princes tried to enforce a more and more exact obedience, while the body of their subjects, more and more neatly circumscribed, was feeling its way toward self-awareness: that is, national self-awareness.

The Christian Nation and the “Middle Dimension”

Then came the crisis, the contentious joining together of soul and body, of obedience and fellow-feeling. I am referring to the crisis of the Reformation. In the context of these reflections, the Reformation appears as the period of the nationalization of Christianity—or, more precisely, of the national appropriation of Christianity. The translation of the Bible into national languages is the most revealing and effective instrument of this appropriation. The national appropriation of Christianity is necessarily its subjective appropriation. Only through the crystallizing of the nation can Christian liberty coincide with Christian obedience. At that time Christendom was broken apart and the “commonwealth of Christian subjects,” the Christian nation, was born.

The pivotal role of the Christian king shows itself in the fact that he, or indeed she, morphed into, or prepared the way for, or had to make way for, the secular, neutral, or, as Hobbes put it, the “abstract” state. Indeed Hobbes, the most sober, reasonable, and persuasive enemy of the Christian name in European history, is a credible witness to the truth of the thesis I am trying to defend. He offered to put an end to the disorders consequent on the Reformation by founding a new political form exclusively on the heretofore unheard-of basis of the absolute unity of command. He made admirably clear that the solutions deriving from the two great Roman experiences—republican liberty and imperial-Catholic authority—as well as from the evangelical or Protestant confidence in individual grace, made the disease more virulent rather than curing it. Therefore he proposed a science of obedience “built upon sure and clear principles.” He proposed the modern state, for which he drew up the plan. He grasped with perfect clarity that it meant the end of the Church as it had been understood until then. He wrote the following: “And therefore a Church, such a one as is capable to command, to judge, absolve, condemn, or do any other act, is the same thing with a civil Commonwealth, consisting of Christian men; and is called a civil State , for that the subjects of it are men ; and a Church , for that the subjects thereof are Christians .” 5 But if Europe was composed of “commonwealths consisting of Christians,” then the sovereign, neutral, abstract state was concretely in need of a Christian commonwealth, also known as a Christian nation .

Now if we go back to the point from where we started, we understand that the conjunction of a neutral state and a Christian nation finally solved the “Roman problem,” which had never ceased to be our problem. Since the beginning of the first century B.C., the Romans had been torn between the republican city and the monarchical empire, between a rather narrowly limited natural body politic and an enormous, indeed limitless one. That was the problem of political physics we needed to solve without having recourse to the imperial solution that the Christian Church had robbed of legitimacy. As I have tried to argue, Europeans distributed themselves among a plurality of large but limited political bodies, made possible and in some sense necessary by the pressure of the Christian affirmation.

I need not prolong the story: how, after the Christian king had become the sovereign and neutral state, the national-Christian fellow-feeling became less and less Christian and more and more “purely national”; how the political imagination of most European nations caught fire at the thought of the endless territories beyond the horizon, with their benighted populations waiting to be baptized, civilized, or simply exploited; how, as the nineteenth century was drawing to a close, new imperial ideas of class or race superseded the national imaginations. Soon nationalist, or rather imperialist Europe would destroy itself.

And where are we now? We are back to square one, in the sense that we are again confronting the meaning of the European nation as such , shorn of its nationalist or imperialist fantasies and pretensions.

More precisely, whether we are French or Germans, Italians or Spaniards, we no longer define ourselves as belonging to Christian nations. We have discarded, or at least greatly curtailed, the claim to national sovereignty; we have even agreed to erase our borders, which were so carefully drawn and passionately defended until not so long ago. And as I speak, uncomfortably set between our rump nations and a half-baked Europe, we are asking ourselves whether to go farther in the direction of a limitless European empire of universal fellow-feeling, or to stop at this point and confront our necessities—or perhaps even to go back a little and try to breathe some new life into our old nations, since we are not sure after all that it is possible or desirable to live a “post-national” life.

Thus we are caught again in the “Roman syndrome.” We are torn between the opposite directions of the imagination I tried to describe. On one hand we experience the passion for the little platoon, morally much smaller than the ancient city since it is deprived of political self-government, and on the other hand we experience the imperial urge toward what is beyond the horizon, beyond the borders of Europe, however defined. We are fast losing the middle dimension, with its inseparably physical and spiritual aspects, on which we predicated everything worthy of still being cherished in our several national histories as well as in our common European history. In this sense, I think that we are on the verge of self-destruction. To parry this threat, nothing is more important than to get a grip on our centuries-old development, and that means first of all becoming fully aware of the originally Christian character of our nations. As should be clear by now, there is not the slightest suggestion for a rollback of the secular state in this claim; in fact, as I have tried to argue, the neutral state and the Christian nation go hand in hand. Neither am I pleading for some “cultural” transmogrification of religion, some wishy-washy affection for our “roots.” It is not a matter of “remembering our roots”! It is rather a matter of becoming aware of our political genesis and substance.

For the sake of contrast, just imagine what could happen if this middle dimension does not hold. First, Europe would crumble into more and more numerous, and more and more unrelated, segments; second, its allegedly common institutions and its supposedly governing classes would lose themselves in the hollow representation of, and futile aspiration toward, a homogeneous and limitless human world. Our common capacity for human experience and rational response to it would inevitably erode.

To strike the middle ground between the puny and the immense, the petty and the limitless, is not a matter of individual or even collective capacity or striving. You cannot produce it at will, as you can embark at will on the fabrication of whatever big institutional scheme has caught your imagination. It is a disposition of political things that has come to pass, depending on the “historical contingency” to which I referred earlier. These political bodies—the nations—have nothing natural about them, even though, and I say this on good authority, man is a political animal by nature. These political bodies have resulted from our forebears’ efforts to govern themselves under the unprecedented possibilities and constraints of the Christian dispensation. It is only with the most strenuous exertions that we can become aware again of these possibilities and constraints and of their indirect but no less formative power. Currently, in the best of cases we find our nations to be like boring domestic animals, offering the comfort of their fur against the cold winds of globalization. Thus, they are for us only the puny, and we look with dread toward the immense. In truth, the European nations envelop the puny and the immense because they result from the effort to strike an unprecedented balance between the two, an effort made possible by the Christian affirmation. It is not that we have become too open-minded for our old national selves. It is rather that we are no longer able to grasp or even to feel the strength and delicacy of this balance.

• “Nation” comes from the Latin nasci , which means to be born or generated. (Trans. note.)
• See Natural Right and History . (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 254, n.2.
• See Aristotle’s Politics , 1326b, trans. Carnes Lord. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 205.
• In America this is often called “the Social War” (91–88 B.C.). “Social” comes from the Latin word socius/socii, or ally. (Trans. note.)
• See Leviathan , ch. 39, in fine.

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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

A nation is a territory where all the people are led by the same government. The word “nation” can also refer to a group of people who share a history, traditions, culture and, often, language—even if the group does not have a country of its own.

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A nation is a territory where all the people are led by the same government . The word “nation” can also refer to a group of people who share a history, traditions , culture and, often, language—even if the group does not have a country of its own. People within this type of nation share a common identity, and think of themselves as belonging to the same group. Palestinians, who live in and near the nation of Israel, fit in this category. Though Palestinians share a national identity , elect their own government , and share cultural beliefs, they do not have an internationally recognized nation of their own. The United Nations currently recognizes 193 nations around the world, though only 192 are members of the UN's General Assembly . (Vatican City, which is led by the Roman Catholic Church, is recognized as a sovereign nation but is not a member of the General Assembly.) Other nations are not recognized by one or more states for varying reasons. Sometimes, a single nation does not recognize another nation. North Korea and South Korea do not recognize each other as nations, for instance. They each oppose the politics of the other. The leaders of some unrecognized nations maintain a “ government in exile .” These leaders were ousted by social change , such as a revolution , in their country. The leaders currently live in another country, but consider themselves the leaders of their nation. Sometimes, people of that nation want the leader to return. Many Tibetans, for instance, look forward to a time when the Dalai Lama , the leader of Tibet’s government in exile, will return to the country. The Dalai Lama has not been to Tibet since 1959, when Tibet became a part of China.

Other times, a government in exile can form entirely outside the nation it wants to govern . The Free Republic of Vietnam considers itself a government in exile of the nation of Vietnam. The Free Republic of Vietnam was formed after the Vietnam War by emigrants who did not want to live in the new, socialist government of Vietnam.

First Nations Native American tribes are considered independent nations in the United States and Canada. There are hundreds of nations, from the Ho Chuck Nation of Wisconsin to the Makah Nation of Washington state. For many Americans, the term First Nations has become a term for indigenous people of North America. First Nations is the official term for Canadian tribes. First Nations include the Dene in Canadas Arctic, the Mikmaq Confederacy on Prince Edward Island, and the Grand Council of the Crees in Quebec.

Nationality One nation may extend across several countries, and one country may include many nations. Kurdistan is an unrecognized nation that includes parts of Turkey, Armenia, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. The United Kingdom is a nation that includes the countries of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

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Article contents

Race, ethnicity, and nation.

• Polly Rizova Polly Rizova Center for Governance and Public Policy Research, Willamette University
•  and  John Stone John Stone Department of Sociology, Boston University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.470
• Published in print: 01 March 2010
• Published online: 11 January 2018
• This version: 26 April 2021
• Previous version

The term “race” refers to groups of people who have differences and similarities in biological traits deemed by society to be socially significant, meaning that people treat other people differently because of them. Meanwhile, ethnicity refers to shared cultural practices, perspectives, and distinctions that set apart one group of people from another. Ethnic differences are not inherited; they are learned. When racial or ethnic groups merge in a political movement as a form of establishing a distinct political unit, then such groups can be termed nations that may be seen as representing beliefs in nationalism. Race and ethnicity are linked with nationality particularly in cases involving transnational migration or colonial expansion. Anthropologists and historians, following the modernist understanding of ethnicity, see nations and nationalism as developing with the rise of the modern state system. This culminated in the rise of “nation-states,” in which the presumptive boundaries of the nation coincided with state borders. Thus, the notion of ethnicity, like race and nation, developed in the context of European colonial expansion, when mercantilism and capitalism were promoting global movements of populations at the same time that state boundaries were being more clearly and rigidly defined. Theories about the relation between race, ethnicity, and nationality are also linked to more general ideas concerning globalization and populist nationalism.

• nationalism
• transnational migration
• colonial expansion
• globalization
• populist nationalism

Updated in this version

Updated references, enhanced discussions of globalization and populist nationalism.

Introduction: Three Variations on a Theme

The three terms—race, ethnicity, and nation—represent forms of group identification that may be the result of internal choice, external categorization, or some combination of the two perspectives. “Race” is the most controversial term since it is based on a false biological premise that there are distinct groups of genetically similar human populations and that these “races” share unique social and cultural characteristics. This assumption was common among many thinkers during the 19th and much of the 20th centuries and still has a considerable following in folk theories and everyday discourse, but it has been completely discredited by scientific knowledge in biology and genetics. The popularity of such racist thinking is linked to its utility in justifying all types of group oppression and exploitation, exemplified by slavery, imperialism, genocide, apartheid, and other systems of stratification and segregation. Ethnicity, or the sense of belonging to a community based on a common history, language, religion, and other cultural characteristics, is a central concept that has been used to understand an important basis of identity in most societies around the world and throughout human history. When ethnic or “racial” groups combine in a political movement in order to create or maintain a distinct political unit, or state, then such groups can be termed nations and such movements may be seen as embodying ideologies or beliefs in nationalism.

In reality, there is a considerable overlap between racism, ethnicity, and nationalism. Extreme forms of nationalism often have a racial ideology associated with them, as was the case with German nationalism during the Nazi period ( 1933–1945 ) or Afrikaner nationalism in the era of apartheid ( 1948–1990 ). While some scholars use the term “ethnonationalism” (Connor, 1993 ) to merge the forces of ethnicity and nationalism, others draw a distinction between ethnic and civic forms of nationalism. The former comprises a sense of belonging based on common ancestry, while the latter focuses on membership in a shared political unit that can include citizens from diverse ethnic origins. However, the types of identity associated with these two variants of nationalism are rarely clear-cut and empirical cases usually consist of a mixture of features drawn from both phenomena (Brubaker, 2004 , pp. 132–146). Academic studies of racism, ethnicity, and nationalism reveal the same imprecise boundaries between them, which suggests they should be treated as variations on similar social and political themes.

Historians have argued at length concerning the legitimate application of the terms to different forms of social relationships and intergroup attitudes. While slavery has existed in many societies throughout human history, a question remains as to whether it is reasonable to regard the position of Greek slaves in the Roman Empire as on a par with that of African slaves in North America, the Caribbean, or Latin America. If the specific form of “racism” in the United States was a product of a particularly vicious system of chattel slavery, to what extent then can we make generalizations about this term m to cover other historical cases of group domination? Many of the same problems arise in the case of nationalism, but here the arguments have centered on the issue of the origins of the phenomenon. When can we say that a sense of national identity first arose: in the Ancient World, during the 16th century in England (Greenfeld, 1992 ), or as an outcome of the American and French revolutions? Was nationalism a deeply rooted and continuous force in human history, or a relatively recent “invention” that acts as a convenient cover for other, more fundamental changes (Gellner, 1983 ; Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983 ; Smith, 1986 , 2008 )? Volumes have been written attempting to date the origins of nationalism and the types of forces that can be seen as central to its emergence as a major factor in the modern world. Like so many academic debates, much depends on one’s definition of nationalism—whether, for example, it is viewed as a mass or an elite phenomenon—and what combination of causal variables one chooses to include in its formation.

It is partly the association with difficult-to-change biological properties that has made racism so controversial and yet so attractive for dominant groups. In the middle of the 19th century , Gobineau’s ( 1853–1855 ) Essay on the Inequality of Human Races set out an analysis of human society and history using a racist model, and its popularity and widespread adoption by other thinkers served to reinforce the political realities of group domination for almost a century. It was cited approvingly by several influential American sociologists and historians in order to justify Southern slavery in the United States and acted as a precursor to the influential theory of an “Aryan” master race destined to rule or exterminate “inferior” racial groups, which underpinned the cultural and political thinking of such figures as Richard Wagner, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and Adolf Hitler. Similar conclusions developed along parallel tracks in Anglo-American intellectual circles that employed a distortion of Darwin’s ideas of natural selection introduced by an influential group of thinkers, the Social Darwinists. Perhaps the best refutation of Gobineau’s assumptions was found in the critique by his friend and colleague Alexis de Tocqueville, the author of Democracy in America ( 1835–1840 ) and The Ancien Regime and the Revolution ( 1856 ). Tocqueville pointed to the historical tendency of all-powerful groups to assume the permanent nature of their superiority over those whom they had conquered and continued to dominate. A simple understanding of the rise and fall of empires and nations showed how improbable the assumption was that any particular system of group domination would last indefinitely. This implicit power model of race relations, while by no means the only system of thought designed to account for racial hierarchies in nonracial terms found among scholars, nevertheless recurred in the writings of social scientists and historians during the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th centuries . Despite their often less than progressive ideas on many issues affecting the society of their day, prominent thinkers such as Herbert Spencer and Vilfredo Pareto understood the political basis of imperialism and colonialism and were very much opposed to both of them. Thus, the former referred to European imperialist policies as “social cannibalism,” and the latter attacked the hypocrisy of the so-called civilizing mission of the colonial powers as nothing more than an excuse for exploiting their superior force (Stone & Rizova, 2014 ).

One of the clearest developments of this type of explanation of race, ethnicity, and nation can be seen in the writings of the influential German sociologist Max Weber (see Stone & Dennis, 2003 ). In keeping with his general framework that stressed the analogies between economic and social life, Weber conceived of these three types of group formation as another manifestation of the general tendency toward monopolization frequently found in economic life as well as in society as a whole. Such a formulation helped to explain the variety and often quite arbitrary nature of group boundaries—in one situation it would be religion, in another it would be language, or in a third it could be “race”—which happened to be used as the markers defining membership or exclusion from the group. Sometimes all three factors might be superimposed on each other to create the boundaries separating the dominant from the subordinate groups; on other occasions these characteristics appeared to cut across group membership in one or another combination. Nevertheless, the defining feature of this historical process was to establish increasingly strict criteria for membership and exclusion that, once set in motion, became a self-reinforcing process. Just as economic competition in the long run often results in monopolies under market capitalism, so too do groups seek to monopolize the life chances and other benefits of social hierarchy within multiethnic and multiracial states, or between states in the international arena.

In the middle of the 20th century , the defeat of the Axis powers of Germany and Japan, and the unraveling of colonialism, combined with powerful protest movements such as the civil rights struggle in the United States and the antiapartheid campaign in South Africa, were some of the forces diminishing the crude divisions between racially defined groups on a global scale. That said, the importance of ethnicity and the persistence of nationalism have proved to be surprisingly resilient. Premature declarations that modernity and globalization would inevitably undermine peoples’ allegiance to ethnic attachments, or spell the end of national sentiment, have turned out to be unfounded. This is not to claim that in certain spheres the influence of ethnicity and nationalism has become relatively less powerful, or indeed that racism has been abolished, but rather to point to the protean character of these basic types of identity and their ability to adapt, mutate, and reemerge as historical conditions unfold. Thus, the end of the Cold War reduced the ability of ideological rivalries to mask and submerge all manner of ethnic and national divisions in a wider global struggle. As a result, toward the final decades of the 20th century , a Pandora’s box of previously muted national sentiments burst open in the Balkans (Rizova, 2007 ) to provide a counterexample to the surprisingly peaceful transition from apartheid to nonracial democracy in South Africa.

Race: Biology as Destiny

In spite of the intellectual demolition of the genetic basis of racial theorizing since the second half of the 20th century , the legacy of racism lives on. This is hardly surprising given the coalescence of European colonialism, the slave trade, and the imbalances of global power over the past 500 years. All of this began to unravel during the 20th century in a way that first questioned and then started to undermine the customary hierarchies of half a millennium. The intellectual evolution of human biology initially provided what appeared to be a simple explanation for the apparent correlation between power and race. In the 19th century , biology rivaled theology as the perfect way to legitimize group domination. Subordinate groups no longer had to be damned by the Almighty to perpetual inferiority when they could be damned by their genes. In some ways the utility of biological excommunication was rather less than that justified by faith since the former was always subject to empirical refutation. As knowledge in the biological sciences progressed, greater evidence supported the view that all human population groups shared an overwhelmingly common genetic heritage and what was even more compelling was the fact that variations within so-called races were far more significant than any variations between these categories. As biological explanations seemed harder to sustain, a new consensus started to emerge in academic circles that races were social constructions and therefore that differences were the product of cultural traditions and historical circumstance that could, and no doubt would, change with time. The biological explanations of racial differences were thus false and so other factors needed to be used to explain the social reality behind group differences.

What Alexis de Tocqueville understood as a result of his historical perspective, and Max Weber appreciated by his comparative research, was increasingly supported by the scientific advances in the field of human biology. Not that this was a smooth transition from a paradigm of racial theorizing to an understanding of human difference in terms of resources and power. The elegance of justifying inequality as a consequence of scientific inevitability continually reoccurred in one form after another. Often the proponents were not “racist” in a direct sense of the term, and some had strongly antiracist credentials, but the result of this form of theorizing was almost indistinguishable from earlier biological arguments. Thus sociobiology, based on the twin concepts of kin selection and inclusive fitness, might be seen as entirely divorced from vulgar racial thinking. However, by elevating the “selfish gene” to the master explanation of all human activity and creation, this argument had the potential to offer an approach uncomfortably close in its implications to the theory that Gobineau had proposed a hundred years earlier. It is no surprise that the experience of biological theorizing and its consequences throughout the 20th century have subjected such ideas to a far more skeptical appraisal and caused their proponents to be rather more cautious in linking genetic characteristics to cultural and social outcomes.

Nevertheless, racism has been a persistent and powerful influence on social life for much of the 20th century . The frequently quoted prediction of W. E. B. Du Bois ( 1903 ) in The Souls of Black Folk , that the color line would be a defining division in human society for the following hundred years and that it would be not merely an American conflict but global in its reach, has been more than fulfilled by the passage of time. Against the backdrop of the history of the 20th century , which witnessed the decline of European domination over much of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the struggle for civil rights in the United States and South Africa, and a succession of genocidal massacres that stretched from the gas chambers of Auschwitz to the killing fields of Rwanda and Darfur, it is often hard to imagine why racist ideas have not been totally discredited. Although some people, perhaps those coming from societies less conscious of the civil rights and liberation struggles of the 20th century , may still believe in the fallacy of racial difference, among the educated populations of the world these beliefs appear to be of diminishing significance. That said, it would be completely wrong to regard racism, and antagonism based on racial divisions, to be no longer a significant element in the conflicts that continue to tear apart much of the fabric of contemporary global society. This paradox, of greater understanding of the nature of “racial” conflict on the one hand, and yet the continuing persistence of race on the other hand, requires a careful dissection of the meaning of “race” in contemporary society. The complexity of the topic and the manner in which such thinking has subtly shifted has led some social scientists to write about “racism without racists” (Bonilla-Silva, 2006 ) and still others to devote much scrutiny to a related, counterintuitive phenomenon, “ethnicity without groups” (Brubaker, 2004 ) and the “slippery nature” of contemporary racisms (Solomos, 2020 ).

It is already generally accepted that race is a social construct, an idea—in this case a scientifically erroneous one—that is in the minds of people. The enormous variability of racial systems from one society to another, and in different historical periods, demonstrates that racial background has little intrinsic importance, and that racial identity is rather a powerful legacy of cultural tradition and social inertia. Nevertheless, the changes that still need to take place in order for all white Americans to accept their black fellow citizens not only as governors, leading officials, and even as their President, but also as residential neighbors, remain to be realized. Despite the two-term Obama presidency ( 2008–2016 ) and the premature use of the term “post-racialism” to describe it, such unexpected progress has been quickly put to rest by the arrival of the explicitly racist language and actions of the Trump administration (Stone & Rizova, 2020 ). The Black Lives Matter movement (Dennis & Dennis, 2020 ), along with the rise of white nationalism, part of a global trend toward populist nationalism, provide widespread evidence of the continuing significance of race throughout the world.

The long-term difficulty in overcoming this legacy can be explained in part by what Charles Tilly and Thomas Shapiro have termed “opportunity hoarding,” the passing on of assets between generations that favors whites over blacks at a ratio of 10 to one (Shapiro, 2004 ; Tilly, 1998 ). Another historical perspective that helps to explain the entrenchment of racial privilege is the manner in which the discussion about “affirmative action” has been framed. Increasingly, scholars are linking dominant “affirmative action” to the New Deal and to those policies designed to assist white veterans, notably the GI Bill, after World War II (Katznelson, 2006 ). A parallel discussion is to view the implementation of apartheid in South Africa, between 1948 and 1990 , as another type of affirmative action for the benefit of the dominant (white) political group. Its demonstrated effectiveness in raising the lower class of Afrikaners—the bywoners —out of poverty helps to explain some of the subsequent levels of racial inequality in postapartheid South Africa.

Returning to the American case, one only needs to drive through the heart of major, or for that matter minor, American cities, examine the student populations of so many of the worst American public schools, or simply consider the statistics describing the inmates of the American penal system (Alexander, 2010 ), and the reality of the continuing significance of race is hard to deny. Furthermore, the health disparities exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 revealed the heavily disproportionate numbers of black and brown casualties among the infection and death rates in America. These figures, together with the often lethal police violence exposed, yet again, by the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis, show how black and white lives are by no means subject to the same opportunities and risks in contemporary America.

To focus on the American case is to survey only part of the problem. However, because of its high ideals—crafted by the slave-owning proponents of democracy for a “civilized” elite that did not include either women or minorities—the United States has been at the center of a storm of ethical debates about who should be granted full membership of, and who should be excluded from, the rights and privileges of freedom. The problematic nature of this debate can be seen in the preference of so many black slaves to join and fight with the British colonial forces in the 1770s against the advocates of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Given the bias toward white property-owning males, this decision was based on a rational calculation that London was more likely to end the “peculiar institution” than the slave-owning “democrats” meeting in Philadelphia (Schama, 2006 ). This is not to glamorize the motives of the British who, no sooner had they lost the fight in North America, went on to pillage Africa, Asia, and other exploitable parts of the globe as they scrambled to “civilize” the rest of humanity.

But racism is certainly not confined to the Anglo-American world. The evolution of rather different patterns of racial hierarchy and group conflicts can be seen in Latin America, Africa, and Europe. As Edward Telles ( 2004 ) has argued in Race in Another America , Brazil has been plagued by powerful traditions of racial distinction, but the dynamics of race relations follow a different logic from that underlying the pattern found in the United States. Despite the ideology of “racial democracy,” formulated in its classical manner by Gilberto Freyre’s ( 1933 ) The Masters and the Slaves , few social scientists or historians would seriously deny that Brazilian society is permeated by considerations of color (Bailey, 2020 ; Fritz, 2011 ). The fundamental difference is, in some cruel paradox, that individuals, under the rules of the Brazilian system, can, so to speak, “change their race,” while blacks in America, conforming to the pressures of the one drop rule, cannot.

Individualism in the United States may be characterized the philosophy of social mobility, but it does not breach the color line. The very fluidity of the Brazilian system has made it in the past a more subtle and complex problem to solve, although the election of President Jair Bolsonaro in 2018 —the “Trump of the Tropics”—revealed a new, and hardly nuanced, slant on racial democracy. The Brazilian case can be seen as a cautionary tale concerning the strengths and weaknesses of a comparative perspective. On the one hand, viewing the patterns in one society in isolation from a wider lens invites a form of myopia that greatly diminishes the value of the exercise; on the other hand, embarking on elaborate comparative analyses without a close understanding of the complexities of each situation invites another type of bias. Nevertheless, trying to place rather different systems within a wider framework has become increasingly necessary as the forces of globalization continue to foster closer links between virtually all societies as they are bound together by the ties of an interlinked global system. The exercise becomes even more challenging when one recognizes that there are “many globalizations” (Berger & Huntington, 2003 ) and that no society is ever static as far as its intergroup relationships, or indeed most other aspects of its structure and culture, are concerned. In many of the classic attempts to formulate such broadly comparative models of racial conflict—Pierre van den Berghe ( 1967 ) and Anthony Marx ( 1998 ), for example—the United States, Brazil, and South Africa are often the key reference points. But the shifting nature of race relations in all three of these societies reveals how difficult it is to predict the future direction of multiracial societies.

From being the bastion of racial oppression under the apartheid regime, South Africa has been regenerated as a society where nonracial democracy is the dominant political consensus.

The full implications of this profound and, in many respects, surprising transformation of a rigid racial hierarchy raised enormous hopes for the future direction of the country. However, understanding the nature of social change and how far it has affected the lives of most citizens of the new South Africa is an important illustration of the dynamic nature of most racial systems over time. It is also an excellent way to develop insights into the generation of racial conflict by analyzing those situations where, despite the presence of so many of the characteristics that are often associated with violence, it simply did not take place on anything like the scale that most experts, politicians, and ordinary people predicted. Nevertheless, a quarter of a century later, we have a more realistic assessment of the degree to which “Mandela’s miracle” has transformed South African society or rather has replaced one elite, which was racially defined, with another system of privilege, but one less loosely linked to racial divisions. A succession of disastrous political leaders following Mandela, from Thabo Mbeki, with his tragic refusal to address the AIDS crisis, to the rampant corruption of Jacob Zuma, has squandered much of the promise of a democratic South Africa (Moodley & Adam, 2020 ).

Ethnicity: Group Divisions Rooted in Culture

The power of race as a boundary marker has been continuously demonstrated for the past two centuries in many societies throughout the globe. Its persistence, despite the intellectual bankruptcy of its genetic rationalization, cannot be attributed solely to ignorance, and this explains why education alone is often an insufficient antidote to racial thinking and hierarchies built on racial divisions. Economic, social, and political changes are all part of the process by which racial stratification is challenged, modified, and in some cases overturned. Claims about the relative significance of race or class, and whether strategies emphasizing political mobilization or economic self-sufficiency and advancement hold the key to transforming racial disadvantage and oppression, have been at the core of racial debates throughout the 20th century . Another complication is the overlap between racial markers and ethnic boundaries that often exacerbates such conflicts. Ethnic divisions can be just as deep-seated and ethnic conflicts just as violent as those linked to a racial divide. Language, religion, history, and culture merge and intersect in varying degrees in many of these conflicts. Which factors prove to be salient in any one situation largely depends on the particular historical circumstances that frame the subsequent patterns of ethnic relations.

Among the critical events that influence ethnogenesis and ethnic conflict are patterns of global migration and the related forces of conquest, genocide, settlement, and types of assimilation, integration, and pluralism. Migration has been an endemic force in most societies and in recent centuries has even been incorporated into the founding myths of states that view themselves as based on migration, rather than being derived from some claim of indigenous ownership of a specific land. Such migrant societies include not simply the United States—a self-proclaimed “Society of Immigrants”—but also Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, and Canada. In reality, most societies over time have experienced considerable influxes of new peoples and large outflows of population groups motivated by a variety of factors including the search for economic opportunities, flight from political persecution or military destruction, and the quest for freedom of religious practice and expression, to mention just a few. Some societies encounter inflows and outflows simultaneously, while others include migrants and settlers of varying lengths of time—seasonal migrants, “guest workers” ( gastarbeiter ), transnational communities, nomadic peoples, diasporas, “global cosmopolitans,” undocumented workers, and refugees—and most change the composition and scale of migrant flows and influence over time. Thus, Italy and Ireland were major sources of global migration, particularly the transatlantic movements to North and South America, for much of the 19th and most of the 20th centuries . However, by the turn of the 21st century , it was the impact of migrants trying to enter these two parts of the prosperous European Union (EU), as opposed to the previous tradition of sympathizing with poor migrants escaping famine and rural poverty, that became the salient issue in both societies (O’Dowd, 2005 ). A similar dramatic reversal in perception could be seen in the opposition and violence directed at refugees and economic migrants from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and other sub-Saharan African states living in urban townships around Johannesburg in 2008 .

Different societies have different mechanisms for accommodating ethnic diversity. Some seek to assimilate newcomers as rapidly as possible, while others have more fluid systems of differential incorporation—segmented assimilation, to use one of the common terms employed in the North American literature—with a variety of possible forms. Not all migrant groups wish to become completely integrated into the mainstream of the dominant society; many do but are not accepted without a long period of acculturation and a fierce struggle for structural inclusion. The constant interaction between racism and ethnicity can also be seen in the manner in which some ethnic groups are more readily accepted than others and, in certain cases, migrant groups of one ethnic background may receive advantages denied to oppressed indigenous minorities. In the United States, many of the white ethnic groups, in order to achieve greater acceptance by the core society, quite specifically distanced themselves from blacks and Native Americans, who had been living as stigmatized sectors in the society for centuries prior to their arrival. How the Irish “became white” (Ignatiev, 1995 ; Roediger, 2007 ) was a pattern repeated by many other immigrants, such as the Italians, Poles, and Eastern European Jews, who arrived toward the end of the 19th and in the first two decades of the 20th centuries . Other ethnic groups were also assimilated in patterns that reflected the particular set of characteristics that they possessed, in terms of human and social capital, as well as the economic, social, and political conditions prevailing during the period of their arrival. Thus, Cubans fleeing the Castro revolution in 1959 , and for the duration of the Cold War, benefited greatly from the ideological struggles of the period. Haitians, arriving in Florida at much the same time and escaping the murderous regimes of the Duvaliers, received far less support. Although color may have been part of the equation, the political advantage of being fervent anticommunists was probably an even more important factor.

While North America and Western Europe shared many similar patterns of migration and assimilation during the first two decades of the 21st century —unlikely parallels between Mexican and Muslims having been raised by social scientists on both continents (Huntington, 2004 ; Zolberg & Woon, 1999 )—even societies with a strong ideology of ethnic homogeneity were forced to confront their actual diversity. Germany’s powerful ethnic nationalist tradition (Alba & Foner, 2015 ; Alba et al., 2003 ) has had to be modified by the increasing integration of the European Union, so that second- and third-generation Germans of Turkish ethnic background could no longer be regarded as permanent aliens. Much the same is true of Japan, and not only Ainu and Burakumin, but also Koreans, Chinese, and Okinawans are increasingly self-conscious minorities that have started to challenge the monoethnic ideology of post-World War II Japan (Lie & Weng, 2020 ; Tarumoto, 2020 ). In China, with its enormous population of 1.3 billion, relatively small numbers of ethnic and religious minorities nevertheless constitute a group of approximately 100 million people, and the situation of the Uighurs, Tibetans, and Hui have started to receive greater scholarly and political attention (Hou & Stone, 2008 ). This is hardly surprising given the monumental transformation of Chinese society as the workshop of the modern world, and the types of pressures that such an economic transition creates for all peoples involved in this historic process. Not only are there massive internal migratory movements linked to rapid industrialization and urbanization (Luo, 2020 ), but the adaptation of minorities to these forces almost inevitably results in language change and perceived threats to traditional ways of life. As for the Tibetan case, China’s vast population has allowed a pattern of outside migration of Han Chinese that for the nationalist critics is seen as tantamount to “ethnic swamping,” a variant on ethnic cleansing with a veneer of democratic legitimacy. Contemporary China is facing yet another policy dilemma between playing an increasing global role on the one hand, and using the forces of rising nationalism on the other hand (Hou, 2020 ).

In Africa, ethnic divisions have been a continuing legacy of imperialism that has followed on into the postcolonial era and resulted in much conflict and bloodshed. Even decades after independence, many African states are still permeated by political systems closely linked to ethnic (tribal) loyalties, making a winner-takes-all electoral system unsuited to resolving the problems of state-building and economic development. Nigeria’s war to prevent the Biafran secession ( 1967–1970 ), the genocidal massacres in Rwanda ( 1994 ), and the killings in the Darfur region of Sudan ( 2003 –) are some prominent examples of independent Africa’s struggles with the impact of ethnic conflict. The South African situation was another case where a society that was deeply divided by racial and ethnic boundaries managed to resolve these conflicts in a remarkably peaceful form of negotiation. The society simply redefined the racial and ethnic boundaries to include all groups on the basis of full citizenship for everyone. Whether the South African model, with its distinctive use of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and many other unique features, can be a successful long-term experiment in nonracialism remains to be seen. However, some of the lessons learned from the South African case have been applied to other conflict-torn areas of the world, such as Northern Ireland and the Basque region of Spain.

The last two cases illustrate the diverse boundary markers that can be found in regions plagued by ethnic conflicts. In Northern Ireland, “religion” was the ostensible ground for group solidarity and division, the centuries-old difference between the Protestant ruling group and the Catholic minority being the manner in which the conflict was framed. However, the underlying struggle appeared to most analysts to have little or nothing to do with doctrinal matters and much more to be based on those who regarded themselves as part of Britain (the “Protestants”) and those who identified with Ireland and being Irish (the “Catholics”). In the Basque case, language and cultural divisions, closely tied in with feelings of historical separation, represented the ethnic glue behind a strong sense of Basque identity and the movement for separation from Spain (Conversi, 1997 ). For both situations, however, many social scientists interpret the struggle as one between groups divided on the basis of nationalism. Once an ethnic group moves toward mobilization with the goal of creating a separate state, or joining a different state from the one that it is currently a part, then ethnicity is transformed into nationalism.

The nature of these movements has been explored by scholars who emphasize a variety of different factors to account for the changing salience of ethnic and national struggles over time (Fearson & Laitin, 2003 , 2005 ). Most of these factors are related to the relative power of ethnonationalist movements compared with the state structures they are fighting against. The components of the power equation can include many influences, including the legitimacy of the groups’ claims for national independence; whether such movements are united or consist of a coalition of conflicting parties; the extent to which ethnic groups and nationalist movements are spread across multiple state boundaries and are geographically concentrated or dispersed; the strength and resilience of the states that oppose them; and the geopolitical context in which the conflict is taking place. The situation of the Kurds illustrates several of these elements, such as the opposition to statehood from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, and the opportunities for greater autonomy presented by the collapse of centralized political control that emerged as a consequence of the 2003 Iraq war (O’Leary et al., 2005 ). While the Kurds played a significant military role in the defeat of ISIS during the Syrian civil war ( 2011 –) after the Russian support for President Bashar al-Assad proved decisive, the Kurdish forces were rapidly abandoned by their former allies, reflecting the number of states opposed to any idea of an independent Kurdish state.

The Continuing Significance of the Nation

Thus, ethnicity and nationalism form different stages along a continuum. Some ethnic groups, particularly those living in explicitly multinational states, are content to remain as part of a wider political unit. In certain cases, such as Switzerland, the state is fundamentally based on these separate group components, coexisting in various types of federal structures. The Swiss canton system is a long-established version of federalism that has been able to contain at least three major linguistic groups—German, French, and Italian speakers—in a united state structure.

However, the Swiss example is in many respects exceptional. The clear recognition that these types of arrangements may combine a high degree of autonomy for each national group while retaining the cohesiveness of the overarching political unit is but one way to manage ethnic diversity. Much depends on the perceptions of equal treatment and a just division of power and resources, which explains why these federal solutions are often difficult to maintain. Conflicts between Canada and Quebec, between Flemings and Walloons in Belgium, between Muslims and Christians in Lebanon, and between Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds in post-Saddam Iraq all point to the complexities of trying to contain the aspirations of diverse ethnonational groups within a single political structure. Lebanon was once regarded as the “Switzerland of the Middle East” before it descended into religious divisions amid corruption and outside interference.

Europe in the postcommunist period provides some interesting examples of failed federalism and federalist expansion taking place simultaneously. The collapse of Yugoslavia, which under Josip Broz Tito had been one of the most genuinely devolved, ethnically diverse states in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe, demonstrates how rapidly such arrangements can disintegrate in the aftermath of political change (Sekulic, 2020 ). With the initial breakaway of Slovenia, followed by the wars between Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, what had once been a unified power-sharing arrangement rapidly degenerated into a power struggle articulated in nationalist terms. The split with Montenegro, and the declaration of independence by Kosovo in 2008 , finally left Serbia on its own, thus completing the total disintegration of what had been a unified state since 1918 . While Yugoslavia was falling apart, much of the rest of Eastern Europe, having emerged from the political control of the Soviet system, was involved in a scramble to join the European Union. Just as one part of the continent was fragmenting into an increasing number of units defined by their dominant ethnic population, other parts, comprising firmly established states, were voluntarily surrendering some of their sovereignty in order to enjoy the benefits of an enlarged economic and political community. Thus, a continuing dialectic of national fission and fusion demonstrates that there is nothing inevitable about the strength and direction of nationalist sentiment, which can wax and wane depending on a range of economic, social, and political factors. The component parts of the former Yugoslavia would also join the scramble for EU membership in the early decades of the 21st century .

While European consolidation during and after the 1990s was a remarkable transition from centuries of rivalry and warfare, even this has to be seen as an ever-changing development. After having narrowly defeated the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014 , the United Kingdom was locked in a struggle to leave the EU in June 2016 , after almost half a century of membership. While this was in part a political miscalculation by Prime Minister David Cameron designed to silence critics within his party, the surprising outcome and the protracted negotiations to work out an exit from the EU—Brexit—came to a head with the electoral victory of Boris Johnson in 2019 . This outcome resonated with other global trends, including the unexpected electoral victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 American presidential election together with a string of parallel political movements from Turkey to Brazil, from India to Indonesia, and including Russia and China. This revival of populist nationalism can be seen in part as a massive reaction to the uneven outcome of accelerated globalization (Brubaker, 2017 ; Stone & Rizova, 2020 ).

Furthermore, the expansion and internal dynamics of Europe were also influencing the types of internal “national” conflicts taking place between member states. Thus, the gradual solution of the centuries-old Northern Ireland struggle can in part be attributed to the lower salience of national boundaries resulting from the increasing influence of Brussels and Strasbourg. While many Unionists (Protestants) and Nationalists (Catholics) had a visceral dislike of dealing with Dublin and London respectively, the prospect of a fundamental shift in the European political center of gravity meant that both groups could increasingly bargain with a third party. This was the politically neutral European Parliament and Commission (bureaucracy), which rendered their traditional foes much less important and prevented compromise from looking like capitulation. No one would suggest that this was the only factor involved in the lessening of tensions and facilitating the historic power-sharing arrangement. The phenomenal growth of the Irish economy—the emergence of the Celtic Tiger—and the changed attitude of the American public toward “terrorism” (and hence financial support for the Irish Republican Army) in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon were also critical developments pushing the parties in Northern Ireland toward completing the negotiations. However, given the earlier emphasis on the ever-changing nature of these group relationships, the arrival of Brexit raised a totally new obstacle to sustained peace in Northern Ireland. Whether peaceful cooperation can withstand the complex border issues resulting from the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU remains to be seen.

The academic scholarship on nationalism has involved a series of debates about the fundamental nature of the phenomenon that is being analyzed. Proponents of primordialism, ethnosymbolism, and modernism, the three most influential perspectives in the literature, have argued extensively about the content and origin of nationalism. Some maintain that this form of identity is rooted in a long and continuous association of specific peoples, whether it is tied to a perceived cultural history often stretching back over centuries, if not millennia, or whether it is, in fact, a relatively recent form of identity. Others date nationalism to the Industrial Revolution and/or the political revolutions in America and France in the late 18th century and claim it was largely “invented” by modernizing elites in an attempt to unify political structures. There are a large number of permutations and combinations of these basic perspectives. Most primordialists avoid the genetic mechanisms associated with sociobiological arguments—Pierre van den Berghe being a notable exception—for the same reason that the overwhelming majority of scholars analyzing “race” are careful to emphasize that they are describing a fictitious construction based on a poor understanding of biological processes. Thus, sociologists such as Edward Shils and Steven Grosby stress cultural and social mechanisms that bond human groups together on the basis of family, culture, and territory. While not biologically programmed, these cultural affiliations are deeply felt and are often experienced with great intensity, which helps to explain the power and resilience of nationalist sentiments. A related emphasis on the strong psychological basis of much nationalism can be found in Walker Connor’s analysis of what he calls ethnonationalism (Connor, 1993 ). Connor draws a firm distinction between two closely related, but he would insist distinct, sources of identification: nationalism, which refers to loyalty to an ethnic group or nation; and patriotism, which is defined as political identification with the state.

The fact that the nation-state, a perfect overlap between one specific ethnic group and a given political unit, only exists in a few cases, and even then is only an approximation to reality, explains the nature of so many types of nationalist conflict. States often seek to incorporate minority ethnic groups into the structures and culture of the dominant group, and this can often result in reactive resistance by the minority group(s): subordinate nationalism to counter dominant nationalism. A related distinction that is frequently made is between ethnic and civic nationalism, a difference between those states that explicitly attempt to fuse the nation and the state and those that try to maintain an ethnically neutral political organization. In practice, this too is an analytical dichotomy that was initially developed to contrast the types of nationalism found in Eastern Europe and those typically prevailing in the Western states of the continent. Once again, no matter how much the civic ideal-type is professed, it is rarely pure in form, and many of the cultural characteristics of the dominant group are subtly, or often less than subtly, incorporated into the basic assumptions of the state.

Other theorists of nationalism tend to emphasize the modern nature of the phenomenon, insisting that none of the forms of identity that characterized society for long periods of human history share the vital ingredients of the modern understanding of the term. There are several variations on this perspective, some coming out of the Marxist tradition that dismisses nationalism, like religion, as yet another form of false consciousness, and others that view the emergence of nationalism as an integral element of modernity. The former perspective regards nationalism as an ideological smokescreen hiding the “true” interests of the working classes so that the owners of the means of capitalist production can better exploit them. It is a variant on the divide and rule strategy that promotes ideological confusion and pits worker against worker on the basis of a totally irrelevant set of distinctions. Modernity theorists, meanwhile, do not link the rise of nationalism with the growth of capitalism alone but see it as stemming from a combination of political, social, and economic forces generated by the Enlightenment. One result of the economic and political revolutions of the 18th and early 19th centuries , and the scientific and technological advances associated with these historical transformations, is the need for mass education to build a culturally homogeneous platform to sustain these developments (Gellner, 1983 ). Central to these changes, and resulting as an unintended consequence of the functional requirements of a modern lifestyle, are conditions that encourage and sustain nationalism.

The ethnosymbolists, exemplified by the writings of Anthony Smith ( 1986 , 2008 ) and John Hutchinson ( 2005 , 2017 ), take a middle position between modernist social construction and the sense of historical continuity. While Smith and his colleagues are fully aware of the cultural foundations of nations, they are also equally cognizant of the role of myths, symbols, and the frequently distorted collective memory that underpins all the major forms of nationalist movements. This middle path between the extremes of construction and continuity provides a valuable balance that helps us to understand a wider range of nationalist movements, from those with a pedigree stretching back millennia to the nationalisms of the postimperial era during the 19th and 20th centuries . With the emergence of a variety of interpretations of how and when nationalism developed in modern society, much of the current debate concerns an assessment of the impact of such forces as globalization, religious fundamentalism, and international nonstate terrorism as factors that may shape the continuing importance, growing salience, or declining significance of nationalism in the future.

Globalization and Populist Nationalism

Is it possible that racism, ethnicity, and nationalism will become much less salient in the coming decades? If so, what would be the explanation for such trends? Social scientists do not have a particularly good record in predicting far into the future. While W. E. B. DuBois was remarkably prescient in seeing the power of the color line throughout the 20th century , other predictions have proved to be far less accurate. For example, a claim that the advance of science and technology, as a crucial component of the “rationality” of modernization, would make religion obsolete in the latter half of the 20th century has not turned out to be correct. The particular forms of identity that are likely to be salient or, in contradistinction, may quite probably diminish in significance in the decades to come remains an enduring question.

Of the three elements, racism seemed, until the arrival of Trump, to be the least likely candidate for a rapid revival as a basis of group categorization. There are several forces that could strengthen a general antiracist trend in modern global society. Olzak ( 2006 ) has stressed the need to integrate the changing nature of international organizations and processes into the analysis, particularly the complex ramifications of globalization with its impact on migration, transnational communities, suprastate institutions, and transnational corporations. Increased diversity in all the major societies as a result of the global transformation of the world economy, and the interconnections of capital and labor, can be expected to increase during the successive decades of the century. This will apply not only to the postindustrial societies of the First World, but also to the intermediate developing economies and to the Third World. The sheer diversity of migration patterns, internal flows within regional free trade areas, transnational communities whose dynamics will be enhanced by accelerated innovations in communication technologies and transportation, growing groups of highly skilled global migrants, and the unpredictable flows of refugees from political persecution, famines, and genocidal massacres, will all combine to increase the multiracial complexion of states and federations throughout the world. No one would expect these trends to be entirely in one direction, or to be without the potential for strong backlashes or reactive political movements against the type of social changes that such developments represent.

Ethnicity and nationalism, meanwhile, will probably be rather more persistent markers of group boundaries. There are several reasons for this conclusion. While the United Nations, as a global organization for political governance, has a role to play in trying to respond to crises and catastrophes that cut across state boundaries or involve multiple state conflicts, its structure is fundamentally state-bound. The Security Council’s veto power means that a coordinated response is extremely difficult when a particular state, or power bloc, deems such action to be a threat to their “national interests” or to set a precedent that can be viewed as “interference in the internal affairs of a member state.” Thus, on issues such as genocide, torture, brutal ethnic repression, and the blatant disregard for human rights, UN conventions are invariably ignored when geopolitical interests are involved.

If one overarching political structure is unlikely to reduce ethnic and nationalist sentiments, what about the impact of intermediate-scale organizations that bunch together clusters of states in regional groupings? What will be the net effect of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the African Union, the EU, NAFTA, and related supranational, but not global, institutions and treaties? Will they, on balance, help to diminish the types of ethnic and national mobilization as increased cooperation and mutual dependency in economic, social, and political ties start to extend the traditional boundaries of group interaction? Or will they lead to strong opposition, with political parties appealing to xenophobic solidarity, to setting up “Fortress Europe,” or building fences to try to curtail the increasing flows of illegal economic migrants that are a direct outcome of the trade and economic policies forcing capital and labor to seek out a new equilibrium? If we add the factors of international terrorism, environmental pressure resulting from global climate change, the worldwide implications of drug policies, and the competitive rivalries of major religious faiths, a volatile mix of influences will undoubtedly be unleashed.

Some sociologists such as Richard Alba ( 2008 ) point to demographic factors that could exert pressure on societies such as the United States to move toward greater economic and social justice for ethnic minorities. Given the differential fertility rates of dominant whites and those of minorities, particularly minorities of color, Alba suggests these trends will have a tendency toward minority inclusion in the upper levels of the U.S. stratification system. While in the past immigration from Europe was one mechanism that provided an alternative reservoir of talent to fill a range of positions in the economic hierarchy, since the 1960s the shortfall in the supply of scientific, technical, and managerial talent has often been filled by foreigners, either those directly recruited by U.S. corporations or American-trained aliens who choose to remain in the country and work after completing their higher education. Alba argues that this pool of talented individuals will be subject to increasing competition from many other growing economies and that, combined with the domestic demographic shortfall, the result will be the incorporation of more American minorities into professional, managerial, and technical positions. What is true of the United States is likely to be repeated in Europe with its even lower demographic rates of reproduction and similar patterns of migration both within the enlarged economic community and from the peripheral regions surrounding it.

None of these macro sociopolitical trends necessarily diminish the tensions that arise from increasing globalization that can be channeled along ethnic and nationalist grooves. In fact, the very success of the integrative economic forces may exacerbate ethnonational mobilization as a way to maintain meaningful identity in a world subject to mounting anomic strains associated with rapid and discontinuous social change. What Mann ( 2005 ) has characterized as “the dark side of democracy” is simply a further elaboration of the argument about the dual-edged sword of modernity, which has its intellectual roots in Weber’s pessimistic analysis of “rationality.” From the “banality of evil,” to cite Hannah Arendt’s classic formulation, genocide and ethnic cleansing are not so much a reversion to primitive violence as a logical outcome of many of the forces inherent in modern society. While it is true that there may also be a “banality of good” that can, on occasions, help to counter such threats (Casiro, 2006 ), it is unlikely that this will be the dominant outcome. “Rational” bureaucratic techniques tend to be harnessed to the goals of modern states, multistate alliances, and nonstate global actors such as multinational corporations. These modern methods can combine the destructiveness of scientific means with the tenacity of group identity to attain highly particularistic ends. Regrettably, there is nothing intrinsically benign in the forces underpinning the societal changes that have taken place during the first two decades of the 21st century . The precise balance between racism, ethnicity, and nationalism remains unclear but their possible eradication from future social, economic, and political conflicts seems highly unlikely.

Further Reading

• Acosta, D. (2018). The national versus the foreigner in South America: Two hundred years of migration and citizenship law . Cambridge University Press.
• Boucher, A. , & Gest, J. (2018). Crossroads: Comparative immigration regimes in a world of demographic change . Cambridge University Press.
• Cramer, K. (2016). The politics of resentment . University of Chicago Press.
• Elias, S. , & Feagin, J. (2016). Racial theories in social science: A systemic racism critique . Routledge.
• Esch, El. (2018). The color line and the assembly line: Managing race in the Ford empire . University of California Press.
• Favell, A. (2015). Immigration, integration and mobility: New agendas in migration . ECPR Press.
• Hanchard, M. (2018). The spectre of race: How discrimination haunts Western democracy . Princeton University Press.
• Noble, S. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce RACISM . New York University Press.
• Stone, J. , Rutledge, D. , Rizova, P. , & Hou, X. (Eds.). (2020). The Wiley-Blackwell companion to race, ethnicity and nationalism . Wiley-Blackwell.
• Suarez-Orozco, M. (2019). Humanitarianism and mass migration : Confronting the world crisis . University of California Press.
• Tesler, M. (2016). Post-racial or most racial? Race and politics in the Obama era . University of Chicago Press.
• Alba, R. (2008). Blurring the color line: Possibilities for ethno-racial change in early 21st century America . Harvard: The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures.
• Alba, R. , et al. (Eds.). (2003). Germans or foreigners ? Attitudes toward ethnic minorities in post-reunification Germany . Palgrave Macmillan.
• Alba, R. , & Foner, N. (2015). Strangers No More: Immigration and the Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness . The New Press.
• Bailey, S. (2020). Latin America. In J. Stone , D. Rutledge , P. Rizova , & X. Hou (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell companion to race, ethnicity and nationalism (pp. 183–201). Wiley-Blackwell.
• Berger, P. , & Huntington, S. (Eds.). (2003). Many globalizations: Cultural diversity in the contemporary world . Oxford University Press.
• Bonilla-Silva, E. (2006). Racism without racists : Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States . Rowman & Littlefield.
• Brubaker, R. (2004). Ethnicity without groups . Harvard University Press.
• Brubaker, R. (2017). Why populism? Theory and Society , 46 , 357–385.
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University Writing Program

What is a nation, by marika neufville.

Lens Essay | UWS 41b: Huddled Masses: Immigrants in America | Diana Filar

About this paper  |  This paper as PDF : MLA format

The rise of powerful nations is considered a relic of the past and frequently goes unquestioned. What characteristics of these nations make them so great? What compels the people of these nations to put their lives on the line to protect their fellow members? Benedict Anderson, a Marxist historian and political scientist, tackles these questions and the origins of nationalism in his book Imagined Communities. Anderson begins by addressing several paradoxes of nationalism, the most pertinent being the lack of a concrete definition for nationalism. He proposes a workable definition of his own wherein nationalism invents nations where they do not exist (6). In his view, a nation is defined as a socially constructed community distinguished by the style in which it is imagined (6). Nations are perceived to be imagined because members of the community will never know each other face to face, but they will share similar interests, as well as identifying as part of the same nation. Throughout Imagined Communities, Anderson places emphasis on the key ideals of a nation: their status as imagined, sovereign, limited, and a community. These key ideals are also reflected in the graphic novel American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang. American Born Chinese tells the story of three individuals — the Monkey King, Jin Wang, and Danny (Jin’s alter ego) — on a journey that ultimately intertwines their destiny. In the process of depicting their stories, American Born Chinese tackles the struggle of maintaining cultural values as an immigrant in a new place that pressures you to assimilate. In all the story lines, the main character feels judged by his surrounding community. This analysis will argue that American Born Chinese magnifies Anderson’s idea of nations being imagined while also exposing a shortcoming in his claim regarding nations being imagined particularly as a community. For the purposes of this paper, I will focus on the story of Danny and his cousin Chin-Kee because their story explicitly addresses Anderson’s claim regarding nations as both imagined and as a community.

According to Anderson, nations are perceived to be imagined as a community because “regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship” (7). This idea revolves around the notion that no matter how much injustice may prevail in a nation, there is still a sense of pride and a common sense of understanding and values that binds members together. ABC highlights this concept with Danny and Chin-Kee, his cousin who visits yearly from China. Danny, who happens to be the white alter ego of second-generation Chinese immigrant, Jin Wang, is a popular high student who is starting to get nicely accustomed to his new high school. That is, until the untimely arrival of Chin-Kee. When Chin-Kee first arrives at Danny’s house, he is dressed in traditional Chinese clothing and depicted as a happy and loud giant (Yang 49). Chin-Kee, standing next to Danny’s father, occupies more space in the frame. Chin-Kee’s size contrasts that of the door behind him and the lamp beside him because it shows that he is drawn in an exaggerated fashion, not true to scale, or else he would not have fit through the door. The change in size is meant to emphasize how out of place Chin-Kee is when he is around Danny and his family. This foreshadows how Chin-Kee will be negatively treated and exploited throughout his time in America. Despite knowing what lies ahead based on his previous visits, Chin-Kee’s first remark, “Harro Amellica!” (Yang 49) demonstrates how happy he is to be visiting again. The caption on the bottom of the frame says “HA HA HA…CLAP CLAP” in all capital letters which mimics his movements because one of his feet is in the air, implying that he must have been doing a loud dance to show his barely contained excitement.

Though Chin-Kee is happy to be visiting again, the feeling from Danny is not mutual. In actuality, Danny despises his cousin when he visits every year. On his first day at school with Danny, Chin-Kee endures several judgments from other students and Danny himself. In a prime example, Chin-Kee is seen eating lunch with an annoyed Danny sitting next to him (Yang 117). Danny has his hands folded on the table and his lips are slanted to show how annoyed he is to be sitting with Chin-Kee. The frame is zoomed out to capture the other students who are freaked out and pointing at Chin-Kee and Danny sitting at the table. With the frame zoomed out, both Chin-Kee and Danny are placed at the center of criticism. As a popular student, Danny is concerned about what others would think of him sitting at a table with his weird cousin. In the following frame, Chin-Kee asks Danny if he wants to try “Clipsy Flied Cat Gizzards Wiff Noodle” (Yang 117). Danny answers him with “Leave Me Alone,” but his attention is on the two members of the basketball team standing disgusted behind Chin-Kee. The negative reaction of the students is an example of what Anderson claims to be the inequality some may face within a nation. Chin-Kee continues to come to America despite already knowing how Danny and other people react to his presence. The negative images created by Chin-Kee linger long after he has returned to China and because of his affiliation, Danny is left with no choice but to start over at a different school. This time around, Danny tries harder to minimize the usual damages of Chin-Kee’s visit by limiting who his cousin speaks to and how he behaves in public. When Danny finds Chin-Kee singing on top of a table in the library, he quickly grabs him by the hair and pulls him outside. When outside, Danny releases his pent-up frustration in the form of verbal and physical attacks toward Chin-Kee (Yang 205). Even after their altercation, Chin-Kee tells Danny that no matter how much he gets attacked he is still coming back to America. He states, “Sirry cousin Da-nee. Chin-Kee ruv Amellica. Chin-Kee rive for America. Chin-Kee come visit evely year…forever (Yang 211). This level of commitment is what Anderson believes compels people to fight for their nation. So many millions of people are willing to die for the limited imaginings a nation entails because of the sense of fraternity created (Anderson 7). Chin-Kee probably continues to overlook his mistreatment because he is able to fulfill needs he otherwise may not have been able to fulfill in China. For instance, he goes to school with Danny every year and because he is receiving an education he may not have access to in China, he has something more than marginalization to look forward to whenever he visits.

However, with that being said, Chin-Kee’s determination to stay in America reveals a flaw in Anderson’s claim regarding nations as a community. Anderson fails to account for nations like America that are comprised of many different nationalities, heritages, and ethnicities. There is a wide array of nationalities present within America, but there is still a desire from those with multiple nationalities to protect America. An example of this is an Australian born person serving in the U.S. army and willing to fight against Australia if necessary. Anderson does not provide an explanation as to why some people renounce their membership from a nation to join another nation. Additionally, Anderson does not elaborate on what aspects of a nation make horizontal comradeship outweigh the inequality one may face in one nation if they also belong to another nation. For example, Chin-Kee faces criticism in America that he would not necessarily face in China, but he insists on still visiting America every year. Anderson’s claim regarding nations as a community does not explain why someone like Chin-Kee, who belongs to more than one nation, would choose to protect a nation that mistreats him as an outcast, when he can go back to his other nation and fit right into society. There are possibilities to consider like a war or a lack of opportunities that could explain why someone like Chin-Kee would still make the journey to an unjust America. Whatever the case may be, Anderson fails to provide any sort of explanation for people in Chin-Kee’s situation, as well as those who choose to abandon a nation for another one entirely.

Chin-Kee is depicted as an outcast because he is meant to symbolize the many stereotypes that exists against Asians. One such stereotype is academic superiority, which is depicted on the first day Chin-Kee attends school with Danny. In the first class, Chin-Kee raises his hand to name the three branches of government. He goes, “Ooh Ooh! Chin-Kee know dis one!” (114). Danny immediately says “Put your hand down!” (114). When Chin-Kee answers the question correctly, the teacher follows up with “You know people — it would behoove you all to be a little more like Chin-Kee” (114). This annoys Danny even further because it is Chin-Kee’s first day of American school, and he already knows more than a great majority of students in class, calling attention to himself. For the next four classes, history, science, math, and Spanish, Chin-Kee has his hands raised in the exact same position and Danny has his hands over his eyes to hide his frustration with Chin-Kee. The repetition of these frames highlights how Chin-Kee exemplifies the American narrative that Asians kids are the smartest ones in class. This narrative is how many Americans justify the mistreatment of Asians within schools because they are perceived to be nerds susceptible to being bullying by “typical” Americans.

Another such inequality is the depiction of Asian cuisine as comprised of disgusting creatures. During lunch time with Danny, Chin-Kee appears to be eating cats, lizards, and noodles (Yang 117). The other students in the lunch room are all looking and pointing at Chin-Kee’s food with shock and disgust (Yang 117). This captures the misguided and problematic belief in America that all Asians only eat cats and rats. Furthermore, as Danny is on his way to serve detention for being late to class, he hears laughter coming from behind him. Two students stand in the hallway mimicking Chin-Kee’s eyes by pulling their own back and sticking out their front teeth like a rat (Yang 124). Though these inequalities seemingly mimic Anderson’s claims regarding the inequality that appears in a nation, they actually further expose the holes in his argument. The attack on Chinese culture is an inequality that takes place in America, but not in China. Anderson claims that nations are imagined by individuals with shared interests, but Chin-Kee does not appear to have any similar interest with anyone in ABC. Anderson’s shallow claim leaves one to wonder why Chin-Kee would leave China just to face inequality and exploitation.

It can be concluded that Danny mistreats Chin-Kee because he is not a part of Danny’s imagined community which comprises of the jocks and students who make up the popular crowd of “normal” white Americans. After all of Chin-Kee’s visits, Danny is forced to transfer schools because his imagined community no longer sees him as a worthy member. When Steve from the basketball team asks Danny if he is “Ah…Hanging with a new crowd?” (118), Danny responds with “No. This is my cousin Chin-Kee” then quickly adds that “He’s just visiting” (118). The No from Danny’s response is the only word bolded which symbolizes the emphasized force behind the word. Danny’s has his back turned to Chin-Kee and his side-eyed glance makes it clear how much he hates being around Chin-Kee. Furthermore, in the next frame, Steve asks Chin-Kee how long he is planning to stay in town, but Danny quickly interrupts and completely changes the subject before Chin-Kee can answer. He asks Steve, “Hey, you…you happen to have an extra copy of the game schedule?” (119). The pause after Danny says “you” the first time goes to show that he thought of the question on the spot in an attempt for Steve to not talk to Chin-Kee. Danny considers Steve apart of his imagined community and fears that Chin-Kee will ruin the imagined community he is working so hard to recreate at his new school.

Danny begins to sense the destruction of his imagined community when Melanie rejects him for a date. Danny gets heated and claims, “I’m nothing like him! I don’t even know how we’re related” (126). This statement is also bolded to once again capture the strong emotions behind Danny’s words. Danny in this moment assumes that Chin-Kee is the reason why Melanie rejects him because Chin-Kee has a history of ruining his life. After missing basketball practice because of detention, Danny engages in a conversation that leads to him opening up to Steve. He talks about how he has to transfer schools every year and rebuild himself and his community, and then gets serious as he says, “then he comes along for one of his visits” (219). He does not refer to Chin-Kee by his name with fear that he might appear and ruin his moment with Steve. The frames zoom into his eyes shows his arched eyebrows suggesting his anger when talking about how his cousin always ruins the imagined community he constructs for himself. When Danny slips to reveal that Chin-Kee peed in Steve’s coke, Danny is seen with clutched fists walking away from a barfing Steve (132). His facial expression takes that of someone who already knows what is bound to happen. The clutched fists indicate that Danny is angry to be losing his imagined community and senses that may be too late to salvage it. The “HA HA HA …” at the bottom of the frame seems to be Chin-Kee’s laughing inside Danny’s head to show that Chin-Kee is constantly on his mind even when he is not physically there. The frame immediately following an angry Danny is a zoomed-out picture of Oliphant High School which one can assume will mean that Danny will transfer schools in order to rebuild a new imagined community. The picture of the school in the frame prior to Chin-Kee and Danny arriving at school (112) is the same picture used after Danny is angrily leaving the building (133). The difference between the two images is the time of day which serves the purpose of showing how Danny’s imagined community is destroyed within the span of a day. This provides context for Danny’s claims that whenever Chin-Kee comes to visit he has no choice but to transfer because of the damage that has been done to his perceived imagined community.

Danny and Chin-Kee’s story serves the purpose of bringing attention to two of Anderson’s claims regarding a nation. ABC uses the story of Danny to show how imagined communities are built to include people who share similar interests. It also shows that imagined communities influence how people are treated. Even though Chin-Kee is his cousin, Danny never considers him part of his imagined community and hence treats him like an outsider just like everyone else. Despite the mistreatment from Danny and others, Chin-Kee always returns to America knowing full well what is going to happen. Chin-Kee’s story reveals the hole in Anderson’s claim that deep horizontal comradeship outweighs the inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each nation (7). Chin-Kee associates himself with more than one nation, something Anderson also fails to address, but chooses to still come to the one where he faces exploitation. Anderson’s claim does not provide an explanation as to why someone like Chin-Kee would choose to fight for one of his nations as opposed to the other one. It is unclear how Chin-Kee conceives America as a deep horizontal comradeship, when he receives nothing but hate and disgust from those around him in ABC. Anderson’s definition of a nation needs to be altered to address these flaws exposed by ABC. Until then, the definition of a nation is once again up for interpretation as it awaits a concrete and workable definition.

Works Cited

Anderson, Benedict R. O’G. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. and extended ed, Verso, 1991.

Yang, Gene Luen, and Lark Pien. American Born Chinese. First Second, 2006.

About This Paper

Original assignment, the basics of the lens assignment.

Now that you have a solid grounding in the analytical technique of close reading, we can begin to apply that knowledge to other texts. For this assignment, you will use a lens text by Benedict Anderson through which to examine a primary text (the graphic novel “American Born Chinese”), thereby creating an interesting dialogue between two (seemingly) different texts.

For the primary text of the lens essay, we will read the (YA) graphic novel “American Born Chinese” (2006) by Gene Luen Yang. In the narrative, a young Chinese immigrant, Jin Wang, comes to terms with the multiple cultures he encounters every day — from the Chinese traditions he practices with his family at home to the pressures at school to Americanize. For the lens text, we will read an excerpt from Benedict Anderson’s classic theorization of nationalism, “Imagined Communities” (1983), in which he posits a number of reasons as to why people are so tied to nationality as part of their identities.

For this essay, your task is to: 1) demonstrate an understanding of these various theoretical concepts and 2) apply it to an analysis of immigration in “American Born Chinese.” You will make an argument about how “American Born Chinese” adds to, challenges or complicates Anderson’s idea of nation as imagined, as limited, as sovereign and as a community by drawing on the story of Jin, his friends and the Monkey King. Your aim is to synthesize your understanding of Anderson’s theory with your interpretation of “American Born Chinese” in order to construct an argument that you could not have made through close reading alone. You should seek to inform your readers, to open up this graphic novel in new ways for them by exploring how (i.e., in what ways) the visual/written narrative text complicates Anderson’s ideas and in what ways Anderson’s ideas complicate (or help you understand) the graphic novel.

Some things to consider:

• How does “American Born Chinese” depict (textually and visually) and/or comment on the nation as imagined? As limited? As sovereign? As a community?
• In what ways does “American Born Chinese” complicate Anderson’s notion of nation-ness and nationalism?
• What are the different ways in which Yang makes nation known in the graphic novel? How many nations are present?
• Does Anderson’s theory account for an examination of immigration? — If so, what is it about the graphic novel’s portrayal of immigration that Anderson makes it easier for you to understand? — If not, what are some of the ways Anderson fails to account for the graphic novel’s representation of immigration/immigrants.
• Does the graphic novel offer a type of nationalism that Anderson does not discuss?
• Does Anderson’s theory account for contemporary nations and the fullness of globalization as we now know it?
• Does the graphic novel change, adjust or subvert the concept of nation?
• What role does the graphic play in this conversation? How is nation and/or immigration represented in a way it wouldn’t otherwise be able to be represented?
• What is the relationship between immigration and nation when considering these two texts?

Remember:   While this essay should examine the overall benefits and limitations of applying Anderson’s theories to “American Born Chinese,” its primary focus should be an analysis of “American Born Chinese.” You should have an argument about the graphic novel that the lens helps you make.

This assignment presents you with a number of new challenges:

• You will be transferring your close reading skills from one text to another.
• You will also be analyzing a text that is at once written, narrative, and fictional — like the novel we read previously — and also visual. Reading a graphic novel requires particular skills, terminology and interpretative strategies, all of which we will discuss in class.
• Anderson’s writing is at once accessible and complex. You will encounter many difficult texts during your career at Brandeis, and it is essential that you learn how to make sense of them effectively. Part of your task for this paper is to let your readers know what Anderson is trying to say and do, why he wants to say this and how it is tied to the politics of its (and our) moment.
• You will be offering an interpretation of “American Born Chinese” informed by an influential theorization of nationalism that will help you investigate what the text has to say, how it constructs its meanings and what the implications of those meanings are. As a result, you will be able to reflect back on philosophical ideas with a refined and even critical perspective.

The Writer's Process

Write Now! : Tell us a little bit about how you formulated your argument for your paper. Did your thesis change at all? Did you ever find it hard to work with the prompt? Was your thesis clear from the beginning?

Markia Neufville: I struggled writing this paper because it took me a while to really understand the lens text by Benedict Anderson and make any connections to “American Born Chinese.” Because “American Born Chinese” is a graphic novel, I really had to pay close attention to the symbols and small details in each frame. Once I made a connection between Danny and Chin-Kee’s story, and the depiction of Asian stereotypes, everything fell into place for me. At first, I was able to write about Danny wanting to build his imagined community and Chin-Kee being the reason why he is never successful in maintaining a community. In Chin-Kee’s case, I was able to write about how he experiences inequality in America, but always visits the nation knowing what is going to happen. The more I delved into Chin-Kee and Danny’s story, I was able to pick up on a flaw in Anderson’s claim regarding nations as a community. Chin-Kee has many nationalities and it is not clear from Anderson’s claims why he would choose to defend one over the other.

Did you know much — if anything — about this topic before you started?

I did not know much about Anderson’s text, but I was familiar with the historical context and concept of nationalism, fascism, communism and Marxism. That little prior knowledge helped to understand Anderson’s claims regarding the formation of nations. As an immigrant, I was able to understand and relate to much of the themes displayed throughout “American Born Chinese.”

What was the most difficult problem that you encountered during the writing process? Did you find a solution, or are you still wrestling with any logistics?

In writing this paper, my biggest problem was putting words on the paper. I knew what I wanted to say, but could not figure out how to write it in words. I realized that my problem was wanting to discuss all the characters and their individual stories. I chose to focus on Danny and Chin-Kee’s story because that gave me a focal point and allowed me to go into more details as opposed to trying to write about everything. I was also concerned that my essay did not feature enough of Anderson’s lens text. I wrestled with the logistics going into the final draft, but having a focal point gave me a clearer sense of the direction I wanted my essay to go.

What part of the writing process, or even the final paper, are you most proud of? Do you have a favorite line?

I am most proud of the connections I was able to make while reading “American Born Chinese.” It was very easy for me to understand Danny and Chin-Kee’s story. From Chin-Kee’s point of view, I understood the pressure to assimilate and being treated as an outcast. From Danny’s point of view, I understood his desire to be seen as a worthy member of the popular group. My favorite part of my paper was actually writing about the destruction of Danny’s imagined community. I never picked up on the use of a picture of Oliphant High School to begin and end Danny and Chin-Kee’s section. I was afraid that I might have misinterpreted the use of the picture, but given the events that occurred throughout the school day depicted, it made sense to think that the picture represented a destruction of Danny’s imagined community.

How did your instructor help you with your paper? Did she offer any helpful suggestions or guidance?

My instructor was very helpful throughout the writing process, especially during one-on-one conferences. The feedback I received on my Latte posts during the lens sequence helped me to organize my thoughts. On my predrafts, Diana (Filar) told me that the connections I made between Anderson and “American Born Chinese” were really good, but they can and should be explained and developed in more detail. She also told me that I can go into much more detail if I choose to focus on one story in “American Born Chinese,” rather than all three. This pushed me to go back and re-read each frame carefully to gather interpretations that I might have missed on my previous readings.

Was anyone else instrumental in producing your final paper? If you engaged in any research, how did you find your sources and/or how did you narrow down which sources you used in your final draft?

The comments by my peer review partner, Jacqueline, helped me to fix any grammatical errors and confusing sections in my paper. My friend Zoe was also vital to my production because she read my draft when I was struggling and provided me with feedback from the standpoint of someone who had no context for my paper. In terms of research, I watched interviews with the author to understand his thought process and purpose behind “American Born Chinese.” To understand the stereotypes surrounding Chin-Kee in the novel, I read various articles online that gave me further insight to the various Asian stereotypes that exist in America. From my peers’ feedback and my research, I was able to produce a final paper that I think did a great job of conveying my overall thought process.

If you could write a longer version of this piece, in which direction would you take it and upon which points would you elaborate? Do you feel yourself returning to any of the subjects that you addressed in this paper in the future?

If I could write a longer version, I would elaborate on the shortcomings of Anderson’s claims. I concluded my essay by saying that Anderson’s definition of a nation does not work, but I could have taken it a step further and included a definition that does a better job of capturing what a nation is. Immigration is something that I will definitely revisit in the future because it is a very relevant topic in contemporary society and it is a big part of who I am.

Q&A With the Instructor: Diana Filar

Write Now! : Had you taught this prompt before? If so, what made you teach it again? If not, how did you arrive at this prompt/subject in particular?

Diana Filar: Yes, I taught this prompt twice before, each time I taught University Writing Seminars. Before teaching it this time, I actually considered changing the lens text because I had seen students struggle with it in the past. However, every other lens I considered using seemed ever harder or less like a good fit. I also realized I had more confidence in how I would approach it now that I had done it a few times. I included a lot more examples of how to use a lens this time around. On the other hand, I didn’t want to change the primary text at all since students really enjoyed reading “American Born Chinese,” and I found teaching a graphic novel really rewarding.

What did you anticipate as the main challenges of answering such a prompt? Were there any points in which you regretted recommending any texts?

The most difficult portion of this prompt is making sure the students are still writing an essay about the primary text — the graphic novel — and not a seven-page paper on the state of nationalism or a takedown of Benedict Anderson, who has, of course, been criticized, but who remains essential to our discussions even decades later. The other hard part for the students is that the prompt doesn’t explicitly tell them how to organize the paper. Do they explain Anderson’s introduction in a second paragraph? Do they weave it in? How do they make the opening gesture of the paper exciting while connecting the various strands? Once they get it, it’s kind of brilliant to see the gears turning.

How was teaching this assignment different from teaching any other assignments in the class? How would you say that your student rose to the challenge of meeting this assignment?

Teaching this assignment is different because I have to incorporate a few mini-lessons on how to transition from close reading a novel — something they are more familiar with — to how to read a graphic novel while also putting on our “Anderson hats,” as I call it. It’s also different from the research paper because once students are examining something of their own choosing and interest, I think incorporating sources and lenses becomes easier. Markia, in particular, really rose to the challenge of this paper. If I remember correctly, she almost entirely rewrote the paper from draft to final. She also boldly but carefully took on some of Anderson’s claims in a way very specific to the text at hand, which accounts more for migration, the key theme of our course. I was very proud of the work she produced.

• First-Year Writing
• Writing-Intensive Requirement
• J.V. Cunningham Awards

Nationalism Essay: Topics, Examples, & Tips

A nationalism essay is focused on the idea of devotion and loyalty to one’s country and its sovereignty. In your paper, you can elaborate on its various aspects. For example, you might want to describe the phenomenon’s meaning or compare the types of nationalism. You might also be interested in exploring nationalism examples: in various countries (South Africa, for instance), in international relations, in government, in world history, or even in everyday life.

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This article by our custom-writing experts will help you succeed with your assignment. Here, you will find:

• Definitions and comparisons of different types of nationalism;
• A step-by-step nationalism essay writing guide;
• A number of nationalism examples;
• A list of 44 nationalism essay topics.
• 🔝 Top 10 Topics
• ❓ Definition
• ✔️ Pros & Cons
• 📜 Nationalism Essay Structure
• 🌐 44 Nationalism Topics
• 📝 Essay Prompts & Example
• ✏️ Frequent Questions

🔝 Top 10 Nationalism Essay Topics

• Irish nationalism in literature
• Cultural nationalism in India
• Can nationalism promote peace?
• The politics of contested nationalism
• How does religion influence nationalism?
• Does globalization diminish nationalism?
• Does nationalism promote imperialism?
• Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
• How liberalism leads to economic nationalism
• Link between national identity and civic nationalism

❓ Nationalism Essay: What Is It About?

Nationalism is an idea that a nation’s interests are above those of other countries or individuals. It implies identifying with a nation and promoting its independence. In particular, nationalism ascribes value to a nation’s culture, traditions, religion, language, and territory.

In fact, “nationalism” is a very complicated term. It has many types and gradations that are exciting to explore. Besides, it has a long and varied history. In countries such as India and France nationalism helped to achieve democracy and independence. At the same time, in it extreme forms it led to wars and terrorism. Any of these aspects can be the focus of your nationalism essay.

Types of Nationalism

As we’ve mentioned before, nationalism is a complicated notion. It varies a lot from country to country as well as historically. That’s why scholars proposed a classification of nationalism types. It helps to reflect these differences. Check out some of the most popular forms of nationalism in the list below.

• Cultural nationalism. This type is centered on a nation’s culture and language. In the 1800s, it became a popular idea in Europe and postcolonial states. Cultural nationalism is reflected in the celebration of folklore and local dialects. For example, in Ireland it led to an increased interest in the Gaelic language. We can still find ideas related to this ideology today. A prominent example is Americans’ appreciation of their cultural symbols, such as the flag.
• Civic nationalism. Civic nationalism’s definition is an idea of belonging through common rights. According to this ideology, the interests of a state are more important than those of a single nation. Civic nationalism is based on modern ideas of equality and personal freedom. These values help people achieve common goals. Nowadays, civic nationalism is closely associated with liberal Western countries.
• Ethnic nationalism. This type is focused on common ethnicity and ancestry. According to ethno-nationalists, a country’s homogenous culture allows sovereignty. This ideology is considered controversial due to its association with racism and xenophobia. Ethnic nationalism’s pros and cons can be illustrated by its effects on culture in Germany. On the one hand, it influenced the art of the Romantic era. On the other, its extreme form led to the rise of Nazism.
• Economic nationalism. A simple definition of economic nationalism is the idea that a government should protect its economy from outside influences. It leads to the discouragement of cooperation between countries. Such an approach has its benefits. However, it is often counterproductive. Scholars point out many failures throughout the history of economic nationalism. The Great Depression, for example, was prolonged due to this approach.
• Religious nationalism. The fusion of politics and religion characterizes this ideology. Its proponents argue that religion is an integral part of a national identity. For instance, it helps to unite people. The rise of religious nationalism often occurs in countries that fight for independence. Notable examples are India, Pakistan, and Christian countries like Poland.

The Globalism vs Nationalism Debate

One of the fiercest debates concerning nationalism is focused on how it relates to globalism. These two attitudes are often seen as opposed to each other. Some even call globalism and nationalism “the new political divide.” Let’s see whether this point of view is justified.

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Nowadays, communities around the world are becoming more and more homogenous. This unification and interconnectedness is called globalization , while an ideology focused on its promotion is known as globalism.

Naturally, these tendencies have their pros and cons . Want to learn more? Have a look at the table below.

As you can see, both notions have their strong and weak aspects. But can globalism and nationalism coexist? In fact, many scholars say “ yes, they can .” Instead of choosing either option, people can combine their best traits. This way, we will promote effective communication and collaboration.

Nationalism vs. Patriotism

You may be wondering: Is nationalism a synonym for patriotism? The answer is that both words denote pride and love for one’s country. However, there is an important distinction to be made. While patriotism has a generally positive meaning, nationalism has a negative one.

The main difference lies in the attitude towards other nations:

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• Patriotism doesn’t imply that one’s nation is superior to others. Generally, this term refers to how the state approaches its ideals, values, and culture. In this case, a patriot of a particular country can represent any nation, regardless of their origin.
• In contrast, nationalism implies an idea of a nation’s sovereignty. This means that a country’s interests are viewed separately from the rest of the world. It also focuses on the importance of nation’s culture and ethnicity. In extreme situations, these values may result in an idea of supremacy.

In short, nationalism is patriotism taken to the extreme. With this in mind, let’s have a look at positive and negative effects of nationalism. An essay on any of the following points will surely be a success.

✔️ Nationalism Pros and Cons

If you have to write an essay on “why nationalism is good”, here are some of its key benefits for you to consider:

But what about the concept’s drawbacks? After all, nothing can be 100% beneficial. For a credible investigation, it’s necessary to examine both sides of the topic. Here are some disadvantages to consider for a paper on nationalism:

As you can see, nationalism can lead both to prosperity and destruction. Now you know why keeping the balance is crucial to a nation’s well-being. Think about it when you write your argumentative essay on nationalism.

📜 Nationalism Essay Structure

Now, let’s take a closer look at the essay structure. When writing your paper on nationalism, follow this outline:

Get an originally-written paper according to your instructions!

So, was the writing process as hard as you expected? Nationalism essays indeed require a little bit more time and research than other papers. Nonetheless, you can only benefit from this experience.

🌐 Nationalism Essay Topics

Don’t know which nationalism essay topic to choose? Try one of the ideas below:

• How do nationalism and patriotism differ? The former is linked to acquiring territories perceived as the homeland. The latter means taking pride in the nation’s achievements. Scholars sometimes consider patriotism a form of nationalism.
• How does nationalism affect the distribution of the Sars-CoV-2 vaccine? Determine whether the countries with nationalist tendencies are more successful in getting their population vaccinated.
• Nationality politics in the Soviet Union . Under the rule of Stalin, the USSR transformed into a totalitarian state. But before that, Lenin took care to enact extensive ethnicity laws. What happened when Stalin slammed the brakes on the program?
• Perceiving nationalism as bad: why is it common? For many, the word itself evokes negative associations. For a person who considers themselves a liberal , it may seem like a great evil. Where does this perception come from? What benefits does nationalism have for liberals?
• Nationalist ideology and its many categories. In nationalism studies, the main distinction is between its ethnic and civic types. But there are many other categories that you can explore. Use this prompt to give an overview of such concepts.
• Religious nationalism: Crusades vs. Jihad. In the Middle Ages, Christians tried to stop Islam’s expansion via bloody crusades. In modern times, the call to jihad is used to mobilize extremist Muslims. What are the major differences between these types of holy war?
• What role does nationalism play in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Israel and Palestine have been fighting for decades over what they believe to be a holy land. The dispute appears to be unsolvable. What arguments do both parties bring forth? How does Arab nationalism come into play here?
• The development of nationalism over time . The French Revolution was the result of nationalist thinking. However, what we perceive as nationalist today is different from what it was back then. In your essay, trace the origins and evolution of the term “nationalism” and its meaning.
• Prominent dictators then and now: a comparison. Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco are well-known names. But how do they compare to modern authoritarian leaders? When answering this question, evaluate the role of nationalist ideology .
• What are some political disadvantages of nationalism? Populist leaders are often unpopular with other politicians. Some examples are Poland’s PiS party and Donald Trump. Discuss how a nationalist stance can affect domestic policies.
• Arab nationalism and its influence on the world economy .
• Nationalism vs. liberalism.
• German nationalism and the World Wars .
• Economic nationalism : pros and cons.
• European nationalism in the 20th century.
• Globalism vs. nationalism: how do they differ ?
• Jewish nationalism and its influence on the formation of the Israeli state.
• Relationship between nationalism and religion .
• Nationalism in Orwell’s novels.
• The French Revolution: how nationalism influenced the political system change .
• Is nationalism objectively good or bad?
• Nationalism, transnationalism, and globalism: differences and similarities.
• Russian nationalism in the 21st century and its impact on the world political system.
• Nationalism as a catalyst for war .
• Liberal nationalism and radical nationalism: benefits and disadvantages.
• Evaluate the significance of national identity .
• What is the difference between race and ethnicity?
• How can love of a country positively impact a state’s healthcare system ?
• What fueled the rise of nationalism in the post-socialist space?
• Trace the connection between nationalist ideology and morality .
• What countries are considered nationalizing ?
• Compare the conflicts where nationalism hinders solution.
• Choose five aspects of neo-nationalism and analyze them.
• Nationalist expressions in art .
• Nationalism in Ukraine: consequences of the Crimean annexation .
• Revolution and nationalism in South America.
• Examine the significance of street names to spread nationalist views .
• Why do people grow attached to a specific territory?
• The political power of nationalist language and propaganda .
• What does the feminist theory say about chauvinism?
• What makes post-colonial nationalism unique?
• Assess the difference between Western and non‐Western nationalism .
• Sex and gender in nationalism .
• Civic and ethnic forms of nationalism: similarities and differences.

📝 Nationalism Examples & Essay Prompts

Want more ideas? Check out these additional essay prompts on some of the crucial nationalism topics!

Nationalism in South Africa Essay Prompt

South African nationalism is a movement aimed at uniting indigenous African peoples and protecting their values. An essay on this topic can consist of the following parts:

• The factors that led to the rise of African nationalism. These include dissatisfaction with colonial oppression, racial discrimination, and poor living conditions.
• Effects of African nationalism. One significant achievement is indigenous peoples regaining their territories. They also improved their status and revived their culture that was distorted by colonialism.
• Conclusion of African nationalism. With time, the struggle for autonomy evolved into an idea of Pan Africanism. This concept refers to the unification of indigenous South African peoples.

Nationalism in India Essay Prompt

Nationalism in 19 th -century India was a reaction against British rule. One of its defining characteristics is the use of non-violent protests. Your essay on this topic may cover the following aspects:

• Mahatma Gandhi and Indian nationalism. Gandhi was a pioneer of non-violent civil disobedience acts. His adherence to equality inspired many human rights activists.
• Cultural nationalism in India. Pride rooted in national heritage, language, and religion played a crucial role in Indian nationalism. One of the most important figures associated with this movement is Bengal poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Nationalism in the Philippines Essay Prompt

Nationalism in the Philippines has a unique chronological pattern. It’s also closely related to the Philippino identity. You can explore these and other aspects in your essay:

• The rise of Filipino nationalism in the 19 th century. Discuss the role of José Rizal and the Propaganda Movement in these events.
• Nationalism and patriotism in the Philippines. Compare the levels of patriotism at different points in the country’s history.
• Is there a lack of nationalism in the Philippines? Studies show that Filipinos have a relatively weak sense of nationhood and patriotism. What is your perspective on this problem?

How Did Nationalism Lead to WWI?: Essay Prompt

Nationalism is widely considered to be one of the leading causes of WWI. Discuss it with the following prompts:

• Militarism and nationalism before WWI. Militarism is a belief in a country’s military superiority. Assess its role in countries such as the British and Russian Empires before the war.
• How did imperialism contribute to WWI? Imperialism refers to a nation’s fight for new territories. It fuelled the rivalry between the world’s leading countries before the war.
• Nationalism in the Balkans and the outbreak of WWI. Write a persuasive essay on the role of the Balkan crisis in Franz Ferdinand’s assassination. How did this event lead to the outbreak of war?

Want to see what a paper on this topic may look like? Check out this nationalism essay example:

Now you have all you need to write an excellent essay on nationalism. Liked this article? Let us know in the comment section below!

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✏️ Nationalism Essay FAQ

You can define nationalism as the identification with nation and support of its interests. Nationalism is aimed at protecting a nation from foreign influences. This idea is important because it helps a country be strong and independent.

Most specialists highlight religious, political, and ethnic nationalism. Different classifications suggest various types of nationalism. It can be positive and negative, militant, extreme, etc. The phenomenon is complex and multidimensional. You can find it in most societies.

Nationalism is a complex phenomenon. It has positive and negative sides. Because of this, it’s crucial to write about it objectively. In any academic text on nationalism you should provide relevant arguments, quotes, and other evidence.

A nationalism essay focuses on the concept’s principles, advantages, and disadvantages. You can find numerous articles and research papers about it online or in your school’s library. Beware of copying anything directly: use them only as a source of inspiration.

🔗 References

• A New Dawn in Nationalism Studies? European History Quaterly
• The SAGE Handbook of Nations and Nationalism: Google Books
• Nationalism Studies Program: 2-year MA Student Handbook (CEU)
• Nationalism: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Nationalism is back: The Economist
• Working-class Neo-Nationalism in Postsocialist Cluj, Romania: Academia
• Nationalism: Encyclopedia Britannica
• Nationalism: Definition, Examples, and History: The Balance
• The Problem of Nationalism: The Heritage Foundation
• Effects of Nationalism: LearnAlberta
• The Difference Between Patriotism and Nationalism: Merriam-Webster
• Varieties of American Popular Nationalism: Harvard University
• Not So Civic: Is There a Difference between Ethnic and Civic Nationalism?: Annual Review
• Globalism and Nationalism: Which One Is Bad?: Taylor & Francis Online
• African Nationalism and the Struggle for Freedom: Pearson Higher Education
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Hi. Can you please help me out in getting a simple topic to discuss/write for my final essay in my masters programme pertaining to nationalism. I’m new to this field of study and would want to enjoy reading and writing this final essay. Thanks in advance for your help.

Thanks to historians all over the world!

I have to write a 3000-word essay on the following topic: “Is it possible to imagine nationalism without the nation”? I find the readings difficult to understand and would greatly appreciate any help you could give me. Thank you. Noreen Devine

Hi Noreen, We’d be happy to help you with this task. Don’t hesitate to place an order with our writing company. Our best writer will help you understand the readings and create a great paper.

To Whom it May Concern, Thank you so much for your help. This morning I was reading your tips on how to write an essay about nationalism, and I find that it’s so helpful. I will contact you soon for help.

Home — Essay Samples — Government & Politics — Nation Building — Nation-building Process

Nation-building Process

• Categories: Nation Building National Identity Patriotism

About this sample

Words: 2315 |

12 min read

Published: Mar 28, 2019

Words: 2315 | Pages: 5 | 12 min read

Table of contents

The concept of nation-building, implementation strategy, new approach, imact of national development policy, works cited.

• Maintain the basic strategy of NEP is the eradication of poverty and restructuring social and economic imbalances between the races and this contribute to strengthening national unity
• To ensure balance development of main economic sectors (mining, service, agricul true, and farming)
• Building a society that has social value and appreciate the positive feelings of pride and patriotism
• Reduce and eliminate social inequality and to promote the sharing of the national economic in a more fair and equitable benefits
• Reduce the inequalities in economic development between urban and rural areas
• Concentrate on the development of a community of Bumiputera Commercial and Industrial
• Ensure appropriate attention is given to environment of protection and ecology so that in the long term to ensure sustainable development of the country continued
• Making science and technology as an integral part of the planning and socio-economic development

Competition in International Markets

Vision 2020, poverty reduction, restructuring society, achivevement of ndp.

• women participation in the labour force increases to 53.6 per cent
• rural road coverage increases to 51,262 km
• rural electricity coverage increases to 98 per cent
• rural water supply increases to 94 per cent
• 5,737 villages connected through the wireless village programme
• RM175 billion invested in five regional economic corridors, creating 427,100 jobs
• Malaysian life expectancy increases to 74.8 years
• 102,200 affordable houses completed
• unemployment rate decreases to 2.9 per cent
• 1.8 million new job opportunities created
• 90.7 per cent pre-school enrolment
• 36.5 per cent academic staff with PhD qualification in public universities
• 15 per cent household waste recycling rate
• forest cover increases to 61 per cent
• 23,264 hectares of forest gazetted as Permanent Reserve Forest
• 93,100 km of new roads built
• 46 per cent increase in passenger rate at KL International Airport (KLIA)
• KLIA2 opened and third runway operationalised at KLIA
• urban rail commuters increase 32 per cent
• 70 per cent households with broadband penetration
• 14 areas nationwide with access to Digital Terrestrial Television
• 95 per cent of population receives clean and treated water
• services sector contributes RM2,550 billion to GDP
• manufacturing sector contributes RM1,111 billion to GDP
• agriculture sector contributes RM455 billion to GDP
• construction sector contributes RM194 billion to GDP
• small and medium enterprises contribute RM1,606 billion to GDP
• Malaysia ranked 18th out 189 economies in the 2015 World Bank ‘Doing Business’ Report
• Malaysia ranked 33rd on the Global Innovation Index out of 143 countries
• Abdul Rahman, A. (2000). From Malayan Union to Singapore Separation. Singapore: Eastern University Press.
• Faaland, J., Parkinson, J., & Saniman, R. (1991). Growth and Ethnic Inequality: Malaysia’s New Economic Policy. Oxford University Press.
• Hippler, J. (2002). Nation-building: A Key Concept for Peaceful Conflict Transformation? Berghof Handbook for Conflict Transformation.
• Mohamed Noordin, S. (2005). The Malays: Their Problems and Future. Petaling Jaya: Pelanduk Publications.
• Najib Tun Abdul Razak. (2008). 1Malaysia: People First, Performance Now. Pelanduk Publications.
• Purcell, V. (1965). The Malayan Communist Party and the Indonesian Revolution. London: Oxford University Press.
• Ratnam, K. J. (1965). Nation-Building in Malaysia 1946–1964. London: Oxford University Press.
• Savunen, J. (2003). Nation-Building and Identity Conflicts: Facilitating the Mediation Process in Southern Philippines. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Schwartz, L. (1991). The State of Malaysia: Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform. Routledge.
• Tambiah, S. J. (1985). Culture, Ethnicity and Nationalism: The Tamil Renaissance and the Hill Country Tamils in Sri Lanka. Cambridge University Press.

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NPR suspends senior editor Uri Berliner after essay accusing outlet of liberal bias

Npr suspended senior editor uri berliner a week after he authored an online essay accusing the outlet of allowing liberal bias in its coverage..

NPR has suspended a senior editor who authored an essay published last week on an online news site in which he argued that the network had "lost America's trust" because of a liberal bias in its coverage, the outlet reported.

Uri Berliner was suspended Friday for five days without pay, NPR reported Tuesday . The revelation came exactly a week after Berliner publicly claimed in an essay for The Free Press, an online news publication, that NPR had allowed a "liberal bent" to influence its coverage, causing the outlet to steadily lose credibility with audiences.

The essay reignited the criticism that many prominent conservatives have long leveled against NPR and prompted newsroom leadership to implement monthly internal reviews of the network's coverage, NPR reported. Berliner's essay also angered many of his colleagues and exposed NPR's new chief executive Katherine Maher to a string of attacks from conservatives over her past social media posts.

In a statement Monday to NPR, Maher refuted Berliner's claims by underscoring NPR's commitment to objective coverage of national issues.

"In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen," Maher said. "What matters is NPR's work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public. NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests."

Heat exposure law: Florida joins Texas in banning local heat protections for outdoor workers

Berliner rails against NPR's coverage of COVID-19, diversity efforts

Berliner, a senior business editor who has worked at NPR for 25 years, argued in the Free Press essay that “people at every level of NPR have comfortably coalesced around the progressive worldview.”

While he claimed that NPR has always had a "liberal bent" ever since he was hired at the outlet, he wrote that it has since lost its "open-minded spirit," and, hence, "an audience that reflects America."

The Peabody Award-winning journalist highlighted what he viewed as examples of the network's partisan coverage of several major news events, including the origins of COVID-19 and the war in Gaza . Berliner also lambasted NPR's diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies – as reflected both within its newsroom and in its coverage – as making race and identity "paramount in nearly every aspect of the workplace.”

"All this reflected a broader movement in the culture of people clustering together based on ideology or a characteristic of birth," he wrote.

Uri Berliner's essay fuels conservative attacks on NPR

In response to the essay, many prominent conservatives and Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, launched renewed attacks at NPR for what they perceive as partisan coverage.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo in particular targeted Maher for messages she posted to social media years before joining the network – her  first at a news organization . Among the posts singled out were  a 2020 tweet that called Trump racist .

Trump reiterated on his social media platform, Truth Social, his longstanding argument that NPR’s government funding should be rescinded.

NPR issues formal rebuke to Berliner

Berliner provided an NPR reporter with a copy of the formal rebuke for review in which the organization told the editor he had not been approved to write for other news outlets, as is required of NPR journalists.

NPR also said he publicly released confidential proprietary information about audience demographics, the outlet reported.

Leadership said the letter was a "final warning" for Berliner, who would be fired for future violations of NPR's policies, according to NPR's reporting. Berliner, who is a dues-paying member of NPR's newsroom union, told the NPR reporter that he is not appealing the punishment.

A spokeswoman for NPR said the outlet declined to comment on Berliner's essay or the news of his suspension when reached Tuesday by USA TODAY.

"NPR does not comment on individual personnel matters, including discipline," according to the statement. "We expect all of our employees to comply with NPR policies and procedures, which for our editorial staff includes the NPR Ethics Handbook ."

NPR staffer express dismay; leadership puts coverage reviews in place

According to the NPR article, Berliner's essay also invoked the ire of many of his colleagues and the reporters whose stories he would be responsible for editing.

"Newsrooms run on trust," NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben said in a post last week on social media site X, though he didn't mention Berliner by name. "If you violate everyone's trust by going to another outlet and [expletive] on your colleagues (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don't know how you do your job now."

Amid the fallout, NPR reported that NPR's chief news executive Edith Chapin announced to the newsroom late Monday afternoon that Executive Editor Eva Rodriguez would lead monthly meetings to review coverage.

Berliner expressed no regrets about publishing the essay in an interview with NPR, adding that he tried repeatedly to make his concerns over NPR's coverage known to news leaders.

"I love NPR and feel it's a national trust," Berliner says. "We have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they're capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners."

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]

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Earth Day: How a senator’s idea more than 50 years ago got people fighting for their planet

FILE - Climate activists hold a rally to protest the use of fossil fuels on Earth Day at Freedom Plaza, April 22, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

FILE - Activists display prints replicating solar panels during a rally to mark Earth Day at Lafayette Square, Washington, April 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe, File)

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Millions of people around the world will pause on Monday, at least for a moment, to mark Earth Day. It’s an annual event founded by people who hoped to stir activism to clean up and preserve a planet that is now home to some 8 billion humans and assorted trillions of other organisms.

Here are answers to some common questions about Earth Day and how it came to be:

WHY DO WE CELEBRATE EARTH DAY?

Earth Day has its roots in growing concern over pollution in the 1960s, when author Rachel Carson’s 1962 book “Silent Spring,” about the pesticide DDT and its damaging effects on the food chain, hit bestseller lists and raised awareness about nature’s delicate balance.

But it was a senator from Wisconsin, Democrat Gaylord Nelson, who had the idea that would become Earth Day. Nelson had long been concerned about the environment when a massive offshore oil spill sent millions of gallons onto the southern California coast in 1969. Nelson, after touring the spill site, had the idea of doing a national “teach-in” on the environment, similar to teach-ins being held on some college campuses at the time to oppose the war in Vietnam.

Nelson and others, including activist Denis Hayes, worked to expand the idea beyond college campuses, with events all around the country, and came up with the Earth Day name.

WHY WAS APRIL 22 CHOSEN FOR EARTH DAY?

A history of the movement by EarthDay.org, where Hayes remains board chair emeritus, says the date of the first Earth Day — April 22, 1970 — was chosen because it fell on a weekday between spring break and final exams and the aim was to attract as many students as possible.

IS EARTH DAY A REAL HOLIDAY?

It’s not a federal holiday. But many groups use the day to put together volunteer events with the environment in mind, such as cleanups of natural areas. You can see a list of events worldwide , or register your own event, at EarthDay.org.

HAS IT HAD AN IMPACT?

It has. The overwhelming public response to the first Earth Day is credited with adding pressure for the U.S. Congress to do more to address pollution, and it did, passing landmark legislation including the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. More broadly, it’s seen as the birth of the modern environmental movement. In later years, Earth Day expanded to become a truly global event. It now claims to have motivated action in more than 192 countries.

In 2000, Earth Day began taking aim at climate change, a problem that has grown rapidly more urgent in recent years.

WHAT’S THE THEME THIS YEAR?

This year’s Earth Day is focusing on the threat that plastics pose to our environment, with a call to end all single-use plastic and find replacements for their use so they can quickly be phased down.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .

From the editor: NPR's Uri Berliner paid a big price for speaking out; we owe him a listen

A ndy Warhol predicted everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. For former NPR staffer Uri Berliner, the spotlight burned hot for more than a week.

The reverberations in newsrooms across the country, I predict, will last a lot longer.

For those unfamiliar, Berliner was a senior business editor at National Public Radio. In an April 9 essay published in The Free Press , he criticized NPR for losing its way during the Trump presidency, blaming a lack of viewpoint diversity and an increasing lean toward advocacy journalism. As examples, he cited the network’s reporting on Trump’s ties to Russia, which he deemed unbalanced, and said NPR initially treated the discovery of Hunter Biden’s laptop as a distraction.

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"An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America," Berliner wrote.

NPR’s critics and a host of conservative pundits celebrated Berliner as a whistleblower. On his Truth Social platform, Trump called NPR a “liberal disinformation machine” and demanded the government pull its funding. NPR went into full damage-control mode. Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep took to his Substack and wrote what amounted to a line-by-line rebuttal , offering a master’s class in impeaching a witness.

Eight days later, Berliner resigned , ending his 25-year career at NPR.

As a journalist who spent five years working for another Washington-based national news outlet, USA TODAY, and one who often writes in this publication about the need for the press to rebuild trust , I’d like to share some thoughts on Berliner’s essay and the aftermath. But first, some disclaimers. My opinions are my own, based on my experiences; I don’t speak for my employer or my colleagues, past or present. Also, I serve on the board of Cincinnati Public Radio, which airs NPR programming locally. And finally, this is a complicated and nuanced topic for me to cover in a 900-word column. (Berliner’s essay was 3,500 words, for comparison.) I encourage you to read Berliner’s piece in its entirety , along with Inskeep’s response and the letter from NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher to all staff , which was published on NPR’s website. With that out of the way …

From the editor: Candid reflection from an ‘enemy of the people’

Berliner’s essay certainly can be picked apart, but it shouldn’t be dismissed. It’s overarching clarion call rang true for me, reminding me of times when the political polarization of our country uncomfortably seeped into the newsrooms I’ve worked in.

At USA TODAY, I was one of the editors who oversaw a report in 2016 that analyzed Trump’s involvement in more than 3,500 lawsuits over three decades , an unprecedented number for a presidential candidate. One high-ranking editor, who is no longer with the organization, took things a step too far in my opinion when she said in a planning meeting that she hoped the story would derail Trump’s campaign. She, of course, was entitled to her own political viewpoint, but those of us who choose this profession must put personal convictions aside and present the facts without judgement − which ultimately the story did, a testimony to the professionalism of the reporters who did the heavy lifting and worked to present a balanced report. But the "unspoken consensus" that Berliner described at NPR can easily take over a newsroom if left unchallenged.

My concern with Berliner’s essay is that it leads the reader to believe the introspection he calls for isn’t happening at NPR. Based on the response from Maher and NPR staffers I know personally, it has been, and I can vouch that it’s happening in the company that employs me, as well. In 2021, The Enquirer participated in an effort called Re-engaging the Right , during which hundreds of conservative news consumers were interviewed so we could better understand perceptions of bias and how to restore trust. We learned a lot, and I hope it’s evident in our political reporting today. But we’re not perfect, and I always appreciate it when readers take the time to point out where we’ve fallen short.  

One of my takeaways from the Re-engaging the Right feedback was that national news organizations often fail the sniff test when accused of promoting an agenda. Here’s an exercise you can try to illustrate the point.

Go to NPR.org and search “immigrant.” When I did so this week, the first story that came up was about a proposal in Massachusetts to allow migrants to work legally , regardless of their immigration status. The rest of the search results also could be described as sympathetic to migrants. Do the same at FoxNews.com. The top result when I searched was a story about an illegal immigrant charged with a sex crime in Connecticut , and the next five items also were crime stories involving immigrants. Try this exercise with other politicized search terms, and you’ll see a similar pattern. Viewed individually, the stories are factual and stand up to review. But taken as a whole, it’s obvious which way each news source leans politically, and that’s a problem.

It's too soon to arrive at a final thought on the Berliner dust-up, but one thing is clear: NPR and other news organizations should resist the urge to circle the wagons and err on the side of listening. There are lessons to be learned.

Enquirer Executive Editor Beryl Love writes a biweekly column that takes you behind the scenes at The Enquirer. Occasionally, he shares his thoughts on local issues, particularly as they pertain to a free press and open government. Love also serves as regional editor for the USA TODAY Network Ohio. Email him at [email protected]. He can’t respond personally to every email, but he reads them all.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: From the editor: NPR's Uri Berliner paid a big price for speaking out; we owe him a listen