1
Rethinking nationhood: nation as institutionalized form, practical category, contingent event
14        Rethinking nationhood and nationalism
community - has largely dissolved as an object at analysis. Il has been challenged both by meortika! statements and by detailed empirical research in social history, labor history, and ihe history of popular discourse and mobilization. "I In- .tnJv of class as a cultural and political idiom, as a mode of conflict, and as an underlying abstract dimension of
understanding of cI^sks as real, enduring entities.
At the same time, Jr undemanding ol njnnii as rea; entities continues to inform the study of nationhood and nationalism This realm, substantial^ understanding of nations is shared by those who hold otherwise widely divereuig views of nationhood and nationalism
Ai one pule, it informs the new of nationalism held by nationalists themselves and by njii.iulli minded ■siiolars On (his view, nanonal.sm presupposes the existence of nations, and cuptesses their strivings for autonomy and independent? Nations are conceived as collective individuals, capable ol coherent, purposeful collective action National ism is a drama in which nations arc the kiry actors. One might think that this sociologically naive view has no place in recent scholarship. But it has in fact flourished in recent years in interpretations of the national uprisings in the former Soviet Union.1
But the realist ontology of nations informs more sober and less celebratory scholarship as well Consider iust one indicaror of this. Coundess discussions of nationhood and nationalism begin with the question: what is a nation"' This qiu-siion is not as theoretically innocent as it seems: the very terms in which it is framed presuppose the existence of the entity that is to be defined. The question itself reflects the realist, substantia list belief that '"a nation" is a real entity of some kind, though perhaps one that is elusive and difficult to define.
The treatment of nations as real entities and substantial collectivities is not confined to so-called primordiali-is, meaning those who emphasize the deep roots, ancient origins, and connive power of national attach-
19
merits.4 This view is also held hy many "modernists'' and "construc-tivists," who see nations as shaped by such forces as industrialization, uneven development, the growth lit communication and transportation networks, and the powerfully integrative and homogenizing forces of the modem state. Nor is the substantial is: approach confined to those who define nations "objectively," that is in term. ;>! shared objective characteristics such as language, religion, etc.; it is equally characteristic of those who emphasize subjective factor- suds as shared myths, memories,
Paradoxically, the rcaltM and -ubM.iuliahst approach informs even accounts that seek in debunk and ilemvsiilv nationalism by denying the real existence of nations. On this view, it' the nation is an illusory or
be a ease of false consciousness, of mistaken identity. This approach reduces the question of the realirv oi real cfiie.iev of nationhood or nationncss to the question of dte reality of nations as concrete communities or collectivities, thereby i'oredosmg alternative and more theoretically promising ways o:\oii.eivmii nai ion hood and nationness.
The problem with this substantial™ treatment of nations as real entities is that it adopt-cutey'rio -.'/proi/tcc as, jic^onci of analysis. It takes a conception inherent in the practice ot nanonalism and in the workings of the modem state and state-system - namely the realist, reifying
central to the theory ot' nationalism. Rcilieatmn is a social process, not only an intellectual practice. As such, it is central to the phenomenon of
16 Rethinking nalinnhHod anil nationalism
analysts of nationalism, we should certainly iry u> jmipiw for this social proms* nf rciiicatmn :his process through which :hi- poll 1 ii.:ul Maion of die nation becomes momentarily yei powerfully realized in practice. This may be one of the most important tasks of the theory of nationalism. But we should avoid unintentionally reprciudnx or1 n-mibrcing [his reification of nations in practice- will; ;i reification of nations in theory.
To argue against the realist and substanttalist way of thinking about nations is not to dispute [he lealtlv of nationhood." [[ is rather to recon-ceptualize that reality. It is to decouple [he study of nationhood and nauonness From the snide ol naiiou-. as substantial entities, collectivities, or communities. It is to lotos on nauonness as a conceptual variable, to adopt J. P. Nenl's phrase,' not on nations as real collectivities. It is
collectivity but as practical category; not as entity but as contingent event. Only in this way can we capture the rcili.y of nationhood and the real power of nationalism wiihom invoking in our theories the very "political fiction" of "the nation" whose potency in practice we wish to
We should not ask "what is a nation" but rather: how is nationhood as a political and cultural form institutionaliy.ed within and among states? How does nation work as practnal category, as elassificatory scheme, as cognitive frame? What makes [lie use of that category by or against states
Cppynghled Maloiial
18        Rethinking nationhood and nationalism
successor states - were defined as qua si-nation slates, complete with their own territories, names, coiistliution-., legislatures, administrative staffs, cultural and soon tine tn-i inn ions, and so on.
On die other hand, the regime divided the cili/cnry into a set of exhaustive and mutually exclusive ethnic nattonaliiics, over a hundred in all. Thus codified, ethnic nationality served not only as a siaiiuitat category, a fundamental unii of social accounting, but also, and more distinctively, as an ntfetrun ,iy.ni.v.r >!uu<> It was assigned by the state at birth on the basis of descent. It was registered in personal identity documents. It was recorded in almost all bureaucratic encounters and official transactions. And it was used to control access to higher education and to ceitair. de-niiolc mbs. ix:.;rii."Lti.L] the opportunities of some nationalities, especially Jews, and promo ting others through preferential treatment policies for so-called "titular" nationalities in "their own" republics.
Ij>ng before Ciurbachev, then, territorial nationhood and ethnic nationality were pervasively institutionalized social and cultural farms ThMl furms MM hy M means empty ITlev were scorned by Sovietologies - no doubt becau>e the regime consistently and effectively repressed all sign*, of oven poliii.al luiboiuli-in. and sometimes even cultural nationalism Vet the repression of nationalism went hand in hand with the establishment and consolidation of nationhood and nationality as fundamental mpuiive and social forms Under glasnosi, these already pervasively institutionalized form- neve readily politicized. They constituted elementary forms ol political understanding, political rhetonc, political interest, and political identity In the terms of Max Weber's "switchman" metaphor, they determined the tracks, the cognitive frame, along which action was pushed by the dynamic of materia! and ideal interests. In so doing, they contributed powerfully to die breakup of die Soviet Union and to the sirocturing of nationalist politics in its aftermath.
1 have argued that we should think about naiion not as substance but as instinationalized form, not as collectivny bin as practical category, not as entity but as contingent event. Having talked about nationhood as institutionalized form, and as cognitive and sociopolitical category, I
my remarks will be even more sketchv and progiainmatic. I want simply to poinr to a gap in the literature, and to snggesi one potentially fruitful line of work.
In speaking of nalionne.s as event, 1 signal a doable contrast. The firsi is between nation as entity and nationness as a variable property of groups, of relationships, and of whar Margaret Somers has recently
I I'd "relational sellings."1: "Hie second comrasi is between thinking or'
something that htippem. Here I want to focus on this second contrast, between develop mum itlisi and evemte.; perspectu es. I borrow the latter term from a receni paper by William Scwcll, Jr."
We have a large and mature development a list literature on nationhood
and cultural changes iliac led, over cemuries. to i he gradual emergence of nations or, as I would prefer to pin it, of naTionncss. The major work* of the last decade on nationhood and n animalism    notably by Ernest
By conirasr, we lack [heoreiieally sophisticated eventful analyses of nationness and naTionalism. There are of course many studies of particular nationalisms geared to much shorter time spans than the decades or centuries charm:! eristic ot the devctnpmentalist literature. But chose conducted hv sciioloni^ and poimcal -demists have tended to abstract from events in tjicii search :'■ i cerctao/ed structural or cultural explanation;., while historians, taking foi grained the significance lit' contingent events, hate mil been inclined to Theorize them.'"'
I know of no sustained analyiical discus.iuiis uf nationness as an event, as something thai suddenly crystalline, rather ih.io gradually develops, as a contingent, conjunctiir.iily r,iiclnal:ni>, and precarious frame of vision and basis for individual and collective aeuoo, rather than as a relatively stable prodnct of deep developmental trends in economy, polity, or culture. Yet a strong theoretical case can be made for an eventful
20        Rethinking nationhood and nationalism
approach to nationness As Craig Calhoun lias recently argued, in a paper on the Chinese student protest movement of l"8n, identity should be understood as a '■changeable product of collective action." not as its stable underlying cause.16 Much the same thing could be said about
a theoretically sophisticated eventful perspective on nationness 3rd nationalism is today ut|ien!l> needed To mak.1 icnse of úle Soviet and Yugoslav collapse and their aftermaths, we need among other things - to think theontitallv about relatively sudden fluctuations in the nitionni of gt■ . | and ■ . . m . .1 settings We need 10 think theoretically about the process of hernu "overcome by nationhood," to use the poignant phrase of the Croatian -Titer s".„.t.. Ilrakuhc Drakulic was characterizing her own sit nation, f .ike many of her postwar generation, she was largely indifferent 10 naiinutility. Yet she came -against her will - 10 l-e defined by her nationality alone, imprisoned by an all-coo-successfully reified category '■' As predicaments go, in the former Yugoslavia, this one is not especially grave. But it illustrates in personal terms a more general and fateful occurrence - the relatively sudden and pervasive "natinnalizjiion" of public and even private life. This has involved the nationalization of narrative and interpretative frames, of perception and evaluation, of thinking and feeling. It has involved the silencing nr marginali/anon of alternative, non-nationalist political languages. It has involved the nunification of complex identities by the terrible categorical simplicity of ascribed nationality. It has involved essentialist, dcmoui/.nig characterizations of the national
Cppynghlo.d Mfltel.al
"other," characterizations that transform Serbs into Chetniks, Croats linn L'stashas, Muslims into fundamentalists. We know well from a variety of appalling testimony that this has
we need an eventful perspective. hollowing tin- lead of such thinkers as Marshall Sahlins, Andrew Abbott, and William Sewell, Jr., we must give serious theoretical attention In contingent m-nls and to their trans-formative consequences.-* Onlv in this way can we hope to midcr-iand the proccssual dynamics of nationalism. And it is ihc close study of sueh proccssual dynamics, 1 think, that will yield the most original and significant work on nationalism in die coming years, work thai promises theoretical advances as well as a richer understanding of particular
[ began with the question: how should we dunk abom nationhood and natiouncs-, and how jtt they implicated in nationalism? Reduced to a lomillla. my argument is thai we should Incus ml mil ion as a category ol practice, naiionhood as an instituiionali/cd cultural and political form, and nationness as a contingent evetii or happening, and refrain from using the analytically dubious notion of "nations" as substantial, enduring collectivities. A recent hook hv (idia Kristcva bears the English title Nations vallmui WwJw/jym: hut the analvncal task at hand, I submit, is to think about nationalism without nations.
Ours is not, as is often asserted, even by as sophisticated a thinker as Anthony Smith, "a world of nations." " It is a world in which nationhood is pervasively institutionalised in the practice of states and the workings of the stare system. It is a world in which nation is widely, if unevenly, available and resonant as a category of social vision and division. It is a world in which naiinnnc. may suddenly, and powerfully, "happen." But none of this implies a world of nations - of substantial, enduring
To understand the power of rationalism, we do not need to invoke
altogether. We need, rather, to decouple categories of analysis from categories of practiu:. rctammj; uimlyiitiilly indispensable the notions of nation as practice l;lil'i>civ. nationhood as ir.siiiuttunalized form, and naiionnuss as event, but leaving 'the nation" ab enduring community to