Imagined Communities, Rational Choosers, Invented Ethnies

Comparative Politics

Volumn 34, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 233-250

  Motyl, Alexander J ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0036333049     PISSN: 00104159     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/4146939     Document Type: Review

References (88)

1. This usage of modernism is derived from Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism: A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism (London: Routledge, 1998). It is important to appreciate that, in the sense used in this article, modernism is not antithetical to or does not precede postmodernism, which is simply a special kind of constructivist claim.
2. Alexander J. Motyl, Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), p. 84. Both primordialism and constructivism differ on the cause of nations, the time during which they arise, and their properties: for extreme primordialism, immanent, transcendent, and immutable; for strong primordialism, conjunctural, historical, and permanent; for soft primordialism, indeterminate, recurrent, and conceptual; for extreme constructivism, discursive, ahistorical, and discursive; for strong constructivism, elites, contemporary, and malleable; and for weak constructivism, human activity, modern, and constructable.
3. Two recent examples of primordialism are Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Vintage, 1996). Two recent examples of constructivism are Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), and Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds., Becoming National: A Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
4. Two recent examples of primordialism are Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Vintage, 1996). Two recent examples of constructivism are Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), and Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds., Becoming National: A Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
5. Two recent examples of primordialism are Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Vintage, 1996). Two recent examples of constructivism are Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), and Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds., Becoming National: A Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
6. Two recent examples of primordialism are Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Vintage, 1996). Two recent examples of constructivism are Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), and Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds., Becoming National: A Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
7. Imre Lakatos, "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, " in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970).
8. David D. Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), p. 20.
9. See John D. Barrow, Theories of Everything: The Quest for Ultimate Explanation (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1991).
10. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983).
11. Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986).
12. David D. Laitin, Hegemony and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986);
13. David D. Laitin, Language Repertoires and State Construction in Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
14. Giovanni Sartori defines a theory as a "body of systematically related generalizations of explanatory value. " See Giovanni Sartori, "Guidelines for Concept Analysis, " in Giovanni Sartori, ed., Social Science Concepts (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1984), p. 84.
15. Yael Tamir, "The Enigma of Nationalism, " World Politics, 47 (April 1995), 418-40.
16. Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 15.
17. Ibid., p. 16.
18. Benedict Anderson, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World (London: Verso, 1998), pp. 77-104.
19. Ibid., pp. 105-30.
20. See, in particular, chapter 1, "Nationalism, Identity, and the Logic of Seriality, " of Anderson, Spectre of Comparisons, pp. 29-45.
21. Ibid., pp. 131-226.
22. Ibid., p. 67.
23. Ibid., p. 74.
24. Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 41.
25. Laitin, Identity in Formation, pp. 22-24. Much of Laitin's thinking on these issues seems to be derived from the work of Thomas Schelling. See, in particular, Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960).
26. Laitin, Identity in Formation, pp. 22-24. Much of Laitin's thinking on these issues seems to be derived from the work of Thomas Schelling. See, in particular, Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960).
27. Ibid., pp. 32-33, 93-104.
28. For a comparison of the Sudeten Germans and Russians, see Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 160-78.
29. Laitin, Identity in Formation, p. 27. Similarly, Timur Kuran builds a seemingly powerful theory of revolution on the notion of "preference falsification. " But if private preferences can be falsified and thus be at variance with publicly expressed preferences, then there is no basis whatsoever for thinking that scholars can see into the souls of preference-falsifiers and determine what they really think. See Timur Kuran, "Now Out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989, " World Politics, 44 (October 1991), 7-48.
30. Laitin, Identity in Formation, p. 27. Similarly, Timur Kuran builds a seemingly powerful theory of revolution on the notion of "preference falsification. " But if private preferences can be falsified and thus be at variance with publicly expressed preferences, then there is no basis whatsoever for thinking that scholars can see into the souls of preference-falsifiers and determine what they really think. See Timur Kuran, "Now Out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989, " World Politics, 44 (October 1991), 7-48.
31. Ibid., pp. 3-10, 26-28.
32. Ibid., p. 22n.
33. Ibid., p. 23.
34. I thank two anonymous reviewers for bringing these issues to my attention.
35. See Gabriel Almond, A Discipline Divided: Schools and Sects in Political Science (Newbury Park: Sage, 1990), pp. 48-51, 117-35.
36. Alexander J. Motyl, Sovietology, Rationality, Nationality: Coming to Grips with Nationalism in the USSR (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), makes the same mistake.
37. Laitin, Identity in Formation, p. 56.
38. Identical primordialist assumptions are evident in James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, "Explaining Interethnic Cooperation, " American Political Science Review, 90 (December 1996), 715-35.
39. Laitin, Identity in Formation, p. 114.
40. Ibid., pp. 202-5.
41. Ibid., pp. 252-53. These sets consist of the following variables: demographic background variables (percentage who speak titular language; religious distance of titulars from Orthodoxy; linguistic difference of titular language from Russian; percent of Russians in capital city; percent of Russians in republic); economic returns for assimilation (job status based on knowing titular language; economic usefulness of learning titular language; mean quality of job for Russian in Russian guise less quality of job for Russian in titular guise; percentage of Russians in unskilled labor and ratio of percent of Russians in unskilled labor to percent of all respondents in survey); status variables (loss of in-group status in friendship for speaking titular language; loss of in-group status in respect for speaking titular language; gain in out-group status in friendship for speaking titular language; gain in out-group status in respect for speaking titular language); titular accommodation to Russians (percent of titular respondents who fully accept international marriage of son/daughter; citizen/job rights for Russian monolinguals).
42. Ibid., p. 250.
43. In an excellent post-Sovietological study, for instance, Yitzhak M. Brudny shows how in the post-Stalin era intellectuals, policymakers, and propagandists promoted Soviet Russian nationalism on the basis of cultural traditions, ideological refinements, and their own interests. "In the postcommunist period Russian nationalist ideas were consistently embraced by those members of the Russian political elite who opposed the policies of Yeltsin's government. The reason for their embrace of the imperial, anti-Western, antimarket, and authoritarian vision of Russia is rooted in the fact that this vision constituted the only well-articulated ideological alternative to the process of political and economic reform currently underway in Russia. " Yitzhak Brudny, Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Soviet State, 1953-1991 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), pp. 22-23.
44. Laitin., Identity in Formation, p. 253.
45. Ibid., p. 254.
46. Ibid., pp. 236, 255.
47. Ibid., p. 252.
48. Ibid., p. 256 (emphasis in the original).
49. Ibid., p. 102.
50. For a nuanced treatment of these issues, see Paul D'Anieri, Robert Kravchuk, and Taras Kuzio, Politics and Society in Ukraine (Boulder: Westview, 1999), pp. 45-89.
51. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism, p. 226.
52. John Armstrong, Nations before Nationalism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982).
53. See Steven Grosby, "Religion and Nationality in Antiquity, " European Journal of Sociology, 32 (1991), 229-65.
54. See Robert Paul Magocsi, Our People: Carpatho-Rusyns and Their Descendants in North America, 3rd ed. (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1994). See also the unabashedly nationalist A New Slavic Language Is Born: The Rusyn Literary Language of Slovakia (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1996).
55. See Robert Paul Magocsi, Our People: Carpatho-Rusyns and Their Descendants in North America, 3rd ed. (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1994). See also the unabashedly nationalist A New Slavic Language Is Born: The Rusyn Literary Language of Slovakia (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1996).
56. See the essays in Eley and Suny, eds., Becoming National.
57. See Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990); Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); Ronald Beiner, ed., Theorizing Nationalism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999); John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999); and John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). The works of Otto Bauer, Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, and Joseph Stalin are the classic statements of the various Marxist positions on the national question.
58. See Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990); Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); Ronald Beiner, ed., Theorizing Nationalism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999); John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999); and John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). The works of Otto Bauer, Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, and Joseph Stalin are the classic statements of the various Marxist positions on the national question.
59. See Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990); Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); Ronald Beiner, ed., Theorizing Nationalism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999); John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999); and John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). The works of Otto Bauer, Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, and Joseph Stalin are the classic statements of the various Marxist positions on the national question.
60. See Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990); Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); Ronald Beiner, ed., Theorizing Nationalism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999); John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999); and John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). The works of Otto Bauer, Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, and Joseph Stalin are the classic statements of the various Marxist positions on the national question.
61. See Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990); Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); Ronald Beiner, ed., Theorizing Nationalism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999); John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999); and John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). The works of Otto Bauer, Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, and Joseph Stalin are the classic statements of the various Marxist positions on the national question.
62. Francis Fukuyama, "The End of History? " in Fareed Zakaria, ed., The New Shape of World Politics (New York: Foreign Affairs, 1997), pp. 1-25. For Karl Marx's most Utopian vision of communism, see "The German Ideology, " in Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 1978), pp. 193-200.
63. Francis Fukuyama, "The End of History? " in Fareed Zakaria, ed., The New Shape of World Politics (New York: Foreign Affairs, 1997), pp. 1-25. For Karl Marx's most Utopian vision of communism, see "The German Ideology, " in Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 1978), pp. 193-200.
64. Stephen Gaukroger, Explanatory Structures (Hassocks: Harvester, 1978), pp. 91-196.
65. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism, p. 45.
66. Craig Calhoun, Nationalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), pp. 29-50, expends an entire chapter on the supposed differences and fails to resolve the muddle.
67. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism, p. 196.
68. Ibid., p. 45.
69. Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1997), pp. 34-37.
70. See Motyl, Revolutions, Nations, Empires, pp. 6-8.
71. Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation: The Rise to Self-Assertion of Asian and African Peoples (Boston: Beacon, 1960), p. 95.
72. See Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, "Introduction: From the Moment of Social History to the Work of Cultural Representation, " in Eley and Suny, eds., Becoming National, pp. 3-37.
73. Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 15.
74. Walker Connor, "When Is a Nation? " Ethnic and Racial Studies, 13 (1990), 92-103.
75. On defining characteristics, see Giovanni Sartori, "Guidelines for Concept Analysis, " in Giovanni Sartori, ed., Social Science Concepts (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1984), pp. 22-35.
76. Karl Marx, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, " in Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 608.
77. James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985); James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).
78. James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985); James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).
79. See the discussion of the Indonesian poem, "Serat Centhini, " in Anderson, Spectre of Comparisons, pp. 105-30. See also Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973).
80. See the discussion of the Indonesian poem, "Serat Centhini, " in Anderson, Spectre of Comparisons, pp. 105-30. See also Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973).
81. Barrow, Theories of Everything.
82. See Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Said Amir Arjomand, "Iran's Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective, " World Politics, 38 (April 1986), 383-414; Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Relations (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1979); Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Cambridge: Polity, 1984).
83. See Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Said Amir Arjomand, "Iran's Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective, " World Politics, 38 (April 1986), 383-414; Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Relations (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1979); Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Cambridge: Polity, 1984).
84. See Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Said Amir Arjomand, "Iran's Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective, " World Politics, 38 (April 1986), 383-414; Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Relations (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1979); Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Cambridge: Polity, 1984).
85. See Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Said Amir Arjomand, "Iran's Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective, " World Politics, 38 (April 1986), 383-414; Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Relations (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1979); Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Cambridge: Polity, 1984).
86. See Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Said Amir Arjomand, "Iran's Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective, " World Politics, 38 (April 1986), 383-414; Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Relations (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1979); Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Cambridge: Polity, 1984).
87. See Motyl, Revolutions, Nations, Empires, pp. 15-18.
88. See Jonathan Cohn, "Irrational Exuberance: When Did Political Science Forget about Politics?, " The New Republic, Oct. 25, 1999, pp. 25-31.