Nationalism and Globalisation
MARY KALDOR
Department of Government, London School of Economics, Houghton Street,
London WC2A 2AE
ABSTRACT. This article argues that the current wave of nationalism has to be
understood as a response to globalisation and not as evidence for the enduring nature of
the national idea, as Smith suggests. It defends the modernist paradigm as a way of
explaining nationalism and emphasises the role of war in the construction of
nationalism. It puts forward an explanation for the current wave of nationalism in
terms of changes in the division of labour, in communications and in war and it
describes the key characteristics of what the author calls the `new nationalism'. The final
section defends the idea of a cosmopolitan or European identity.
Eric Hobsbawm argues that the current wave of nationalism will be short-
lived. Nationalism, he suggests, is an anachronism best suited to an earlier
historical period dominated by industrialisation and print technology. In a
much quoted passage, he wrote: `The owl of Minerva, which brings wisdom,
says Hegel, flies out at dusk. It is a good sign that it is now circling round
nations and nationalism (Hobsbawm 1990: 181).
Anthony Smith takes the opposite view. He does not think that nations have
been transcended in the global era. On the contrary, the current wave of
nationalism to be observed in various parts of the world testifies to the
enduring nature of the national idea, the way in which it responds to some
deep-felt human need.
`It would be folly to predict an early supersession of nationalism and an
imminent transcendence of the nation. Both remain indispensable elements of
an interdependent world and a mass-communications culture. For a global
culture seems unable to offer the qualities of collective faith, dignity, and hope
that only a ``religious surrogate'' with its promise of a territorial culture-
community across the generations, can provide. Over and beyond any political
and economic benefits that ethnic nationalism can confer, it is the promise of
collective and territorial immortality, outfacing death and oblivion, that has
helped to sustain so many nations and nation-states in an era of unprecedented
social change and to renew so many ethnic minorities that seemed to be
doomed in an era of technological uniformity and corporate efficiency' (Smith,
1995: 160).
In addressing this debate, I want to emphasise the political character of
nationalism. I do not agree that nationalism necessarily possesses the kind
of transcendent character attributed to it by Anthony Smith. Like Renan,
Nations and Nationalism 10 (1/2), 2004, 161­177. r ASEN 2004
I consider nationalism to be a political process, a `daily plebiscite', a subjective
affirmation and re-affirmation; nationalism will only persist to the extent that
individuals, movements, and groups choose to be nationalists. On the other
hand, I do not think that nationalism will necessarily go away in an era of
globalisation. We are in the midst of a period of political experimentation, as
earlier political ideas and institutions have been eroded by dramatic socio-
economic and cultural change. Various political ideologies are currently in
competition, including market fundamentalism, global Islam, cosmopolitan-
ism, Europeanism, and, of course, nationalism. Some of these ideologies are
forward-looking or reformist, that is to say, they offer a policy prescription for
coming to terms with underlying structural change, ways in which individuals
are expected to be able to benefit from globalisation. Others are backward-
looking or regressive, appealing to an imagined past, and proposing to reverse
at least some aspects of the current changes. Future developments will be
determined by the outcome of this competition; unfortunately, there is no a
priori reason to suggest that the more forward-looking ideologies will triumph
over the backward-looking ideologies.
One of these ideologies is nationalism. What I call the `new nationalism' is
both shaped by, and shapes, the various phenomena we bunch together under
the rubric of globalisation. I would argue that the `new nationalism' is
regressive, and, in so far as it persists, will contribute to a wild, anarchic form of
globalisation, characterised by violence and inequality. I do not exclude the
possibility of forward-looking small nationalisms, as suggested by Guibernau
(1996), but I would argue that they have to be situated within a broader
cosmopolitan perspective.
In developing this argument, I will start with some preliminary remarks
about the theoretical debate on nationalism and how the changing global
context alters the parameters of this debate. I will then describe some of the key
features of the `new nationalism', with particular attention to global Islam,
which is a new phenomenon, sharing some but not all of the characteristics of
the new nationalism. Finally, I will discuss the potential for cosmopolitan and/
or European ideologies. In the conclusion, I will sketch out the possible
scenarios that might follow from different ideological combinations.
In defence of the modernist paradigm
What Smith has dubbed the modernist paradigm, argues that nationalism is a
modern phenomenon, inextricably linked to the rise of the modern state and to
industrialisation. Perennialists, primordialists, and ethno-symbolists criticise
the modernist paradigm on several grounds (see, for example, Smith 2001;
OĻ zkirimli 2000).
First, they argue that the modernists, and in particular the work of Ernest
Gellner, are too functionalist. Gellner suggests that the modern state and
modern industry requires what he calls `modular man'. The term `modular' is
162 Mary Kaldor
taken from the idea of modular furniture in which components can be fitted
together in different ways, while maintaining a harmonious whole. Modular
man has certain basic skills including a shared language and can adapt himself
to a variety of positions in modern society. Modular man is `capable of
performing highly diverse tasks in the same general cultural idiom, if necessary
reading up manuals of specific jobs in the general standard style of the culture
in question.' (Gellner 1994: 102) Nationalism, the principle that the cultural
and political unit is congruent, is a collective ideology, ideally suited to the
construction of modular man, making possible every day encounters with the
state and modern industry.
Gellner contrasts the vertical territorially based national cultures typical of
modernity with the more differentiated cultures of traditional societies. Before
the invention of printing and the spread of writing in vernacular languages, it
was possible to distinguish between horizontal, i.e. non-territorial, `high
cultures' generally based on religion and a scholarly written language, e.g.
Latin, Persian or Sanskrit, and a variety of local vertical low cultures (Gellner
1983). The emergence of national cultures is associated with the rise of the
modern state and the spread of primary education. One of the many local
cultures is elevated through printing and education and spread within a
territorial area bounded by the state.
The functionalist critique, in my view, fails to take into account the complex
relationship between agency and structure. Structural arguments, which are
typical of the modernist paradigm are not necessarily determinist arguments.
Rather they point to the importance of structural change and the ways in which
different political initiatives or ideologies are helped or hindered by structural
conditions. Politics is always about experiment; some policies succeed in the
sense of increasing the legitimacy of political institutions and others fail.
Success, at least to some extent, depends on underlying structural conditions.
The validity of the modernist argument does not derive from a linear
relationship between nationalism and industrialisation or the rise of the
modern state. The modernist argument, for example, does not need to hold
that nationalism arose in order to create the conditions for industrialisation
nor that nationalism is an inevitable outcome of industrialisation, although I
do think that one aspect of industrialisation, namely print technology is a
critical component in the rise of nationalism. The rise of the national idea may
come about autonomously as a consequence of a variety of factors; the point is
rather that as an ideology it fits the modern state and industrialisation.
Nationalism, industrialisation and the modern state reinforce each other,
although not always harmoniously.
A second related criticism is that the modernist paradigm is too
instrumentalist. Modernists, like Gellner or Hobsbawm, suggest that
nationalism is inculcated from above through the state's control of culture,
particularly language policies and education. Hobsbawm talks about `social
engineering' and `invention'. Even the variant of modernism put forward by
Anderson that the nation is `imagined' through the spread of secular literature
Nations and Globalisation 163
in the vernacular like the newspaper or the novel, is criticised on the grounds of
artificiality (Anderson 1983). Even though there are important elements of
mobilisation from above, the critics would argue that nationalism only
succeeds where it has some popular resonance, appealing to `authentic'
sentiments among ordinary people that derive from folk memories, traditions
and customs. I share the view that the populist appeal of nationalism has to
reflect populist sentiment. But that sentiment is not necessarily cultural or
ethnic; indeed the view that ordinary people need ethnic or cultural symbols
seems to me to be over paternalistic. Popular sentiment can also be based on
political demands ­ for democracy, for example, or anti-colonialism. This
difference between the political and cultural bases of nationalism mirrors the
distinction between civic or ethnic nationalism or between Western and
Eastern nationalism. According to Hans Kohn, the Western `nations emerged
as voluntary unions of citizens. Individuals expressed their will in contracts,
covenants and plebiscites. Integration was achieved around a political idea and
special emphasis was laid on the universal similarities of nations. In the non-
Western world, the nation was regarded as a political unit centering around the
irrational pre-civilized folk concept. Nationalism found its rallying point in the
folk community, elevating it to the dignity of an ideal or a mystery. Here
emphasis was placed on the diversity or self-sufficiency of nations' (Quoted in
OĻ zkirimli 2000: 42).
Anthony Smith argues that this distinction is overdrawn and that in both
variants of nationalism, both political and cultural elements are to be found.
This is probably true but I would argue the more open and democratic a
society, the more likely it is that nationalism is a forward-looking political
project, and the more authoritarian and closed the society, the more likely it is
that popular mobilisation will build on cultural and religious traditions.
Related to the instrumentalist criticism is the charge of `blocking
presentism', that modernists focus exclusively on the present generation.
Those who argue that nationalism has to have some ethnic popular resonance
insist that the nation has to have some pre-history. Nationalism, they say, is not
invented or engineered; rather it is reconstructed and reinvented out of the
past. Smith strongly disagrees with Gellner that any old `cultural shred or
patch' will serve the nationalists purpose (quoted in Smith 2001: 65). He says:
We need to understand nationalism as a type of collective conduct, based on the
collective will of a moral community and the shared emotions of a putatively ancestral
community and this means that we need to grasp the nation as a political form of the
sacred community of citizens. (Smith 2001: 82)
But I am concerned about `blocking pastism'. The focus on the history or pre-
history of the nation often obscures the everyday experiences and concerns of
present generations, why, for example, people who have lived together for
centuries as is the case in many less modernised and therefore culturally rich
societies, should come into conflict with each other. It also carries with it a sort
164 Mary Kaldor
of determinism, that can be very oppressive, the notion that people cannot
escape from their ethnic pasts.
A third and related argument is about passion. The modernists, says Smith,
cannot account for the passion of nationalism. They cannot answer the
question: why die for the nation? For Smith, the answer lies in the `sacred
community' of shared memories and ancestry. I would suggest another answer
and that is war. Passion and, indeed, religious feelings, are closely connected
with death, as Smith himself argues. Indeed, I would invert the argument and
suggest that war constructs nationalism rather than the other way round. That
is why military heroes and battles are such an important part of the nationalist
narrative. Nationalism has to be understood, I would argue, as a nodal point in
the intimate relation between the modern state and war. This is a point made by
both Charles Tilly and Michael Mann. In the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, the state's monopoly of violence was established through war, which
led to increases in taxation, conscription, war loans and the increased reach
and efficiency of public administration, as well as the consolidation of the idea
of the `nation'. This idea was reproduced through conscription and military
drill in an imagined war. Both the idea of the `nation' and the idea of the `other'
were given substance in war. Earlier wars were about religion or about a variety
of overlapping and competing sovereignties (fiefdoms, city states, princely
states, etc.) and created similarly differentiated loyalties. In the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, national wars between states became, in Europe, the
predominant form of warfare. Clausewitz well expounded the extremist logic
that followed from popular mobilisation for war.
The sharp distinction between the internal and external functions of the
state dates from this period. The internal functions had to do with the
preservation of the rule of law, public services, cultural and socio-economic
policies, and, at least in the west, respect for individual rights and citizenship.
The external function of the state was defence of the nation as a whole.
The link between nationalism and war was well understood by contempor-
ary thinkers. One of the earliest theorists of nationalism, Heinrich von
Trietschke, argued that: `It is only in the common performance of heroic deeds
for the sake of the fatherland that a nation becomes truly and spiritually
united.' Echoing Hegel, he insisted on the role of war and bravery in upholding
the collective idea:
`The individual must forget his own ego and feel himself a member of the
whole; he must recognise what a nothing his life is in comparison with the
general welfare. The individual must sacrifice himself for a higher community
of which he is a member; but the state is itself the highest in the external
community of men' (quoted in Guibernau, 1996: 8).
Of course, there were liberal nationalist thinkers like Mill, Hugo or Mazzini,
who conceived of nationalism as a democratic project and who thought that
the spread of nationalism would end wars. But these were modernist thinkers.
For them, nationalism was about reason not passion and they entertained the
possibility of the nation as a temporary historical phenomenon.
Nations and Globalisation 165
The argument of Hobsbawm and others that nationalism is a passing
phenomenon no longer suited to current structural conditions is sometimes
used by critics of the modernist paradigm as evidence for the weakness of the
paradigm. Guibernau, for example, suggests that Gellner's argument about the
way in which industrialism's demands for homogeneity leads to `culturally
unalloyed nations' is much too simple `when applied to a world in which
globalisation processes favour constant cultural interconnectedness. If Gellner
is right, we should be witnessing a tendency towards a single uniform world
nationalism. But in fact, the effect is exactly the opposite' (Guibernau 1996:
78). But this is an overly simple description of globalisation. The modernist
paradigm is about the construction of ideology in the context of structural
change. Globalisation processes do not only favour cultural interconnected-
ness, they favour cultural disconnectedness as well. Globalisation breaks down
the homogeneity of the nation-state. Globalisation involves diversity as well as
uniformity, the local as well as the global. I would like to point to three
changes, in particular, that have implications for the future of nationalism.
First of all, the rise of the information-based economy reduces the
importance of territorially based industrial production. The global economy
is both more transnational and more local. Growing sectors of the economy
like finance and research and development are increasingly global. At the same
time, markets are increasingly specialised and local as profits are increasingly
derived from catering to a differentiated market (economies of scope) rather
than from low cost mass production (economies of scale). What we are
witnessing is a profound change in the division of labour. On the one hand,
there is a growing class of what Robert Reich calls `symbolic analysts', people
who work with abstract symbols in finance, technology, education, or welfare.
These are the graduates of the explosion in tertiary education, who
communicate across borders and generally speak a global language, usually
English. On the other hand, there is a growing underclass of people who service
the new symbolic analysts, who work in the informal sector and who trade in
cultural diversity through a variety of menial tasks. The classic industrial
worker who formed the backbone of the nationalist ideology is increasingly
marginalised.
Secondly, the shift from print technology to electronic communications has
momentous implications, which it is probably much too soon to describe. On
the one hand, as many analysts of globalisation point out, Internet, satellite
television, faxes and air travel make possible new global virtual communities
(Kaldor-Robinson 2002). On the other hand, radio and television reach out to
local communities that do not have the reading habit and make possible much
more rapid and dramatic political mobilisation.
Thirdly, a crucial change is in the nature of war. War between states as in the
eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century is becoming increasingly
rare. I agree with Smith when he says that globalisation does not mean a decline
in the nation state but rather a change in its functions. `What we have been
witnessing is a shift in state functions and powers from the economic and the
166 Mary Kaldor
military to the social and cultural spheres, and from external sovereignty to
internal domestic control' (Smith 2001: 125). But I believe he underestimates
the extent to which the loss of external sovereignty and the decline of the
military function weakens the potential for reproducing the national idea.
Instead of war, we are experiencing new kinds of political violence that are both
local and transnational ­ terrorism, `new wars', and American high tech wars.
And these new forms of violence are constructing new ideologies as I shall
discuss below.
One of the developments often neglected by theorists of nationalism is
blocism, which, for 50 years, supplanted nationalism, at least in Europe.
Writing in 1945, E. H. Carr wrote that nationalism is under attack.
`On the plane of morality, it is under attack from those who denounce its
inherently totalitarian nature and proclaim that any international authority
worth the name must interest itself in the rights and well-being not of nations
but of men and women. On the plane of power, it is being sapped by modern
technological developments, which have made the nation obsolescent as the
unit of military and economic organisation and are rapidly concentrating
effective decision and control in the hands of great multi-national units'
(quoted in OĻ zkirimli 2000: 47). These `great multi-national units' were held
together through new non-nationalist ideologies constructed out of a great
imaginary war far surpassing anything nations had ever achieved. The west was
bound together in an imagined struggle of democracy against totalitarianism,
while the Eastern bloc cast the struggle as one between socialism and capita-
lism (Kaldor 1990). Blocism, I would argue, was a transitional phenomenon,
combining both the new `post-modern' elements of horizontal transnational
association with a traditional emphasis on territory. Blocism was ideally suited
to the Fordist large-scale model of mass production. Blocism failed, I would
argue, both because new communications made it impossible to sustain
ideologies within closed territorial units and because it was not possible to
sustain the imminent idea of war. The collapse of blocism created an
ideological vacuum into which rushed a range of new ideologies, including the
revival of nationalism.
Contemporary nationalisms
A friend from Nagorno Karabakh was visiting England at the time of the
Jubilee celebrations. He had been one of the founders of the Karabakh
Committee, established in the last years of Soviet rule, to demand that
Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan, should
become part of Armenia. A bloody war followed after the break-up of the
Soviet Union ­ some 150,000 people were killed and over a million people were
forced to flee their homes from Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as Nagorno
Karabakh. My friend joined the crowds in the Mall, waving flags as the Queen
and the royal family passed by. `So what do you think of British nationalism?'
Nations and Globalisation 167
I asked him afterwards. `That's not nationalism' he replied, `that was a Soviet
crowd. Nationalism is about passion.'
The jubilee celebrations, like the May Day parades in the Soviet Union or
the images of Bush on an aircraft carrier at the moment of supposed victory in
Iraq, are one form of contemporary nationalism, what I would call `spectacle
nationalism'. Spectacle nationalism is an evolution from the more militant
nationalism of the first half of the twentieth century. It is official ideology, that
is to say, the ideology that serves to legitimise existing states. It requires passive
participation, watching television or joining a crowd but its capacity to
mobilise active participation such as paying taxes or risking one's life in wars is
greatly weakened. It has something in common with `banal nationalism'
although it involves consciously mediated construction, spectacular events like
the Jubilee celebrations.
What I call the new nationalism is to be found in places like Nagorno
Karabakh or Bosnia-Herzegovina and is bred in conditions of insecurity and
violence. The new nationalism is exclusive, that is to say, it excludes others of a
different nationality, and has much in common with religious fundamentalism,
the insistence that religious doctrines be followed rigidly and imposed on
others. Indeed, there is a considerable overlap between militant nationalist and
religious movements (see Kaldor and Muro, 2003). This is not only because of
the religious character of nationalism but also because many nations are
defined in religious terms ­ Bosnian Muslims, for example, or Hindu
nationalists ­ and many religions are described in national terms ­ Judaism,
for example, or Islam.
In the last two decades, we have seen an increased political presence of these
groups both in electoral terms and through their involvement in violent
episodes, both terrorism and war. These movements have to be understood,
not as throwbacks to the past, but as phenomena closely connected to
contemporary structural conditions. Just as earlier nationalisms have to be
explained in terms of the first phase of modernity, so the new nationalism is
both shaped by and shapes what is variously described as globalisation, post-
modernity, or late modernity. It is often claimed that the new nationalism was
repressed or frozen during the Cold War years only to burst forth when the
Cold War` was over. I would argue that, on the contrary, the new nationalism
has been constructed or invented in the post- Cold war period. Both the
electronic media and new forms of violence have been important tools of
construction.
Like earlier nationalisms, the new militancy was constructed both `from
above' and `from below'. Political leaders have tended to use nationalist and
religious appeals when other tools of political mobilisation have failed. Often it
was secular leaders who opened the space for these ideologies. Thus the
Congress Party in India began to use Hindu rhetoric long before the rise of the
BJP. In the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union, nationalism grew within the
administrative confines of the centrally planned system because other forms of
ideological competition were excluded. In Africa, patrimonial leaders used
168 Mary Kaldor
tribal networks as a way of rationing out scarce governmental resources. And
in the Middle East, the failures of Arab nationalism led many leaders to
emphasis a religious identity and the conflict with Israel.
Smith would argue that these efforts at political mobilisation only succeed if
they appeal to some popular sentiments derived from memory and tradition. It
is undoubtedly true that memories of violence, especially not too long ago,
facilitate mobilisation. Todays Hindu-Muslim clashes reproduce the clashes of
previous generations, while in former Yugoslavia, living memories of atrocities
during World War II provide a fertile source for contemporary nationalism.
All the same, it is insecurity and frustration resulting from dramatic structural
change that provides a more convincing explanation for why today's
generation, often brought up in multi-cultural environments, are so vulnerable
to exclusive ideologies. The last two decades have witnessed, in many regions,
substantial decline in state provision and public employment, rapid urbanisa-
tion, the growth of an informal criminalised economy and large-scale migration
from countryside to town and from poor countries to the industrialised West.
Typical recruits to these movements are the restless young men, often educated
for roles that no longer exist because of the decline of the state or of the industrial
sector, often unable to marry because they lack income, and sometimes needing
to legitimate semi-criminal activities in which they can find their only source of
income. Membership in nationalist or religious groups offers meaning, a sense of
historical relevance, and also adventure.
Related to the sense of insecurity is the encounter with globalisation and the
sense of impotence that arises when crucial decisions that affect every day life
are taken further and further away. The young men that committed suicide on
September 11 were all educated in the West. This is typical of many nationalist
and religious militants. Seselj, the leader of the extreme nationalist Serb party,
had written his PhD at the University of Michigan. Many of those who are
mobilised are migrants, either from countryside to town or from South to
West, who have experienced the loss of ties to their places of origin and yet do
not feel integrated in their new homes.
The ideologies of these movements can be described as both modern and
anti-modern. Most new nationalists believe in territorially based sovereignty
and their goal is to control existing states or to create new states, in the name of
the nation or the religion. But their ideology is anti-modern in its rejection of
the doubt and questioning that characterises modern society; in its vision of a
pure and unpolluted past, on nostalgia for a golden age when the aspirations of
the nation or religion were fulfilled; and, above all, in the idea of a cosmic
struggle between good and evil that is the most common shared characteristic
of these movements. These ideologies are backward-looking in that they want
to revert to a modern, e.g. pre-globalisation, conception of the nation-state.
The organisation and strategies of these movements, on the hand, are
typical of `late modernity' and make use of the various phenomena that are
known as globalisation. In organisational terms, the new nationalism tends to
be transnational. Although the goals are often local, the organisation depends
Nations and Globalisation 169
on the construction of a horizontal network of supporters, involving migrant
communities in other countries ­ Diasporas often play a critical role. In many
cases, these movements create parallel structures ­ religious schools for
example or humanitarian NGOs ­ that fill the vacuum left by the decline in
state provision. Funding comes from wealthy supporters in the Diaspora or
else through a range of criminal and informal activities.
All of these groups make use of the `new media' ­ television, Internet,
videocassettes ­ both for linking the network and for political mobilisation.
Many groups have their own TV or Radio Channels. Hindu nationalists
benefit from the new Satellite Channel, Star TV. Serbian television paid a
critical role in the years leading up to the Yugoslav wars in promoting
nationalist propaganda, interchanging contemporary events with the Second
World War and the 1389 Battle of Kosovo. Bin Laden's speeches are circulated
through video cassettes world-wide. In Africa, the radio is literally magic, and
it was Milles Collines Hate Radio that incited the genocide in Rwanda.
For many of these movements, violence is a central strategy for political
mobilisation. In earlier wars or guerrilla struggles, violence was directed
against strategic targets such as the capture of territory or attacks on radio
stations or important officials as part of a clear strategy; political mobilisation
was needed to implement the strategy. Nowadays, violence is directed against
symbolic targets and against civilians. Symbolic violence, is a form of message,
a way of making a statement. Terrorist attacks against civilians are typical of
`symbolic violence'. Violence is `deliberately exaggerated' and often macabre.
The Lord's resistance Army in Uganda cuts off ears and lips. Hamas suicide
bombers put nails in their bombs so as to kill as many people as possible.
Juergensmayer likens `symbolic violence' to theatre ­ these are what he calls
`performance acts' ­ 'stunning, abnormal and outrageous murders carried out
in a way that graphically displays the power of violence ­ set within grand
scenarios of conflict and proclamation' (Juergensmayer, 2000: 222). The
targets of such attacks are often important symbols ­ the World Trade Towers,
the Federal Building in Oklahoma that symbolised welfare and gun control,
the Mosque in Ayodha. These `rituals of violence' carry with them an other
worldly significance and produce the sense of struggle, of Armageddon or
Jihad, or of cosmic war.
The theatrical character of much violence is illustrated by the way many of
the perpetrators dress up for killing as though it is not they themselves who
perform the acts. The notorious Frenki's Boys, who were responsible for
atrocities in Bosnia and Kosovo, wore cowboy hats over ski masks and painted
Indian stripes on their faces. Their trademark was the sign of the Serbian
Chetniks and a silhouette of a destroyed city with the words `City Breakers' in
English. Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, wears aviator
sunglasses and dresses his hair in beaded braids hanging to his neck; sometimes
he wears women's clothes.
But violence is not merely symbolic, not just `letters to Israel' as one Hamas
activist described the suicide bombers. In many of the recent armed conflicts,
170 Mary Kaldor
the aim has been deliberate elimination or indeed extermination of the `other'.
The Hutus in Rwanda wanted to get rid of the Tutsis, just as Hitler wanted to
get rid of the Jews. The goal of the wars in the former Yugoslavia or the South
Caucasus was to create ethnically pure territories. In these cases, exaggerated
violence was aimed at making people hate their homes. Systematic rape, for
example, was widespread in the former Yugoslavia. This was rape, not as a side
effect of war, but as a deliberate weapon of war with the aim of making women,
particularly Muslim women, feel ashamed and defiled so that they would not
want to return to their homes. Likewise violence against symbolic targets was
aimed at removing any trace of the culture of the `other'. In Banja Luka, during
the Bosnian war, two unique sixteenth century Ottoman mosques were razed to
the ground. They were blown up on a Friday and a Monday, the bulldozers
came and grassed over the site so that you would never know they ever existed.
These new forms of violence can be understood the way that the extremist
groups succeed in mobilising extremist sentiment. It is in situations of pervasive
insecurity that fear and hatred, passion and prejudice, are more likely to come
to dominate political choices. For example, it is difficult to explain the suicide
bombers in Palestine as a way of achieving a Palestinian state, just as it is
difficult to explain the brutal Israeli responses as a way of improving security.
But if the goal is to strengthen extremist sentiment ­ support for Hamas or the
extreme Zionist groups, what is happening is much easier to explain.
In the former Yugoslavia, the killings and displacement in the various
conflicts generated the very ideologies that were supposed to have been the
cause of the conflict. They left a legacy of fear and hatred, of memories of lost
relatives, which provide the fuel for a grass roots nationalist passion that is
much more pervasive than before the wars. Indeed this may be the point of the
violence. People in Bosnia will tell you that `the war had to be so bloody
because we did not hate each other'. Something similar happened in Nagorno
Karabakh. The idea that political control depends on the expulsion of those
with a different nationality, says one commentator, `spread as the scale and
intensity of the conflict increased' and was `converted into a deadly ideology by
fears of pre-emption and memories of past blood shed' (Melander 2001: 65).
In the late 1990s, a new variant of the new nationalism emerged with wholly
novel features. This was the ideology of global Islam promulgated by Osama
Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Of course, this is a religious movement but the
ideologists of the movement talk about the `Islamic nation' and the basic idea
of uniting around a common culture, Islam and a religious language, Arabic, is
a nationalist idea. It is a network, typical of the global era. It is built up through
new forms of communication (Internet, the circulation of video cassettes, the
use of satellite television, i.e. Al Jazeera, as well as air travel) and new forms of
violent struggle.
The ideology seems to have emerged some time in the mid-1990s when Bin
Laden spent time in Sudan and made contacts with a range of Islamic groups,
including those who had fought in Southeast` Asia and in Bosnia and
Chechnya. The elements that mark this ideology our as a new phenomenon are:
Nations and Globalisation 171
 First, the global character of the discourse. There are huge differences
among Islamic groups both in doctrine and in goals; most political groups
are oriented towards local institutions. Bin Laden's hero was Saladin, the
Kurdish commander who united Islamic groups against the Crusaders in
the twelfth century. Bin Laden's aim was to copy Saladin and to unite these
disparate Islamic groups in a global struggle. In August 1996, he issued his
`World Declaration against the Americans occupying the lands of the two
holy places', which was the first time the focus of political Islam had been
directed towards the USA. `It should not be hidden from you' says the
Declaration that `the people of Islam have suffered from aggression,
iniquity, and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders Alliance and
their collaboratorsy[Muslim] blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The
horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana in Lebanon are still fresh in our
memory. Massacres in Tadjikistan, Burma, Kashmir, Azzam, the Philippi-
nesyOgaden, Somalia, Eritrea, Chechnya, and Bosnia-Herzegovinaysend
shivers in the body and shake the conscience' (quoted in Burke 2003: 147).1
 A second novel element is the focus on spectacular violence, using `martyrs'
(suicide bombers) in `raids'.2
The targets are no longer local but global and
the `raid' is designed for maximum media impact ­ hence both the symbolic
character of the targets and the high level of civilian casualties. The raids
are viewed as `jihad as testament', demonstrating to spectators an
incredible self-sacrifice for the faith or the nation.
 Thirdly, global Islam is much more `anti-political' than earlier variants of
political Islam, which were directed at winning power in local contexts. In
part, the rise of Al Qaeda reflects the marginalisation of political Islam ­
many commentators have argued that political Islam had passed its peak by
the late 1980s. The current version of global Islam is much more
preoccupied with political mobilisation than with specific goals. Of course,
Bin Laden and others do express specific demands ­ for the withdrawal of
Americans from Saudi Arabia, or for a Muslim caliphate in the Middle
East. But as Bin Laden put it in 1999: `We seek to instigate the [Islamic]
nation to get up and liberate its land' (Burke 2003: 35). The attack on the
World Trade Towers succeeded probably beyond the wildest dreams of the
perpetrators, in publicising the global Islamic idea. In December 2001, in a
videotaped message to Al Jazeera, he said : `Regardless if Osama is killed or
survives, the awakening has started, praise be to God' (Burke 2003: 238). A
parallel can be drawn with revolutionary terror. The discourse legitimises
nihilistic acts of anger and frustration. And where the idea is millenarian,
i.e. conceived around some future utopia of liberation, what matters is
mobilisation not the achievement of specific goals.
Al Qaeda as an organisation had its heyday in the period 1996­2001, when
its infrastructure in Afghanistan was able to provide a focal point for training,
funding and expert advice on what appear to have been relatively autonomous
operations by different local groups (see Glasius and Kaldor 2002). This
172 Mary Kaldor
infrastructure was destroyed in 2001. Nevertheless, the ideology appears to be
more powerful than ever. The American `war on terror' has fed the idea of
cosmic struggle and elevated the movement to a worthy enemy of America. The
apparent swarming of Islamic militants into Iraq bears testimony to its
continuing appeal. As Burke puts it:
The legitimising discourse, the critical element that converts an angry young man into a
human bomb, is now everywhere. You will hear it in a mosque, on the Internet, from
friends, in a newspaper. You do not have to travel to Afghanistan to complete the
radicalising process; you can do it in your front room, in an Islamic centre, in a park
(Burke 2003: 248).
Cosmopolitan or European politics
There is, of course, another type of contemporary nationalism and this is the
small nationalism of ethnic minorities who survive in states where national
homogenisation was incomplete but which, unlike the new nationalism
described above, are non-violent, open and inclusive. I am thinking of
Scotland, Catalonia, or Transylvania. Some would say that the distinction
between these nationalisms and the new nationalism is artificial just as Kohn's
distinction between Eastern and Western nationalism is overdrawn. But the
distinction is important because it is about cultural diversity as opposed to
cultural homogeneity. The new nationalism favours cultural homogeneity both
large (i.e. Hindu nationalism or global Islam or anti-immigrationism in
Europe) and small (i.e. Croats, Abkhazians, Chechens) and is therefore closed
and exclusive. But small nationalism can also be about enhancing democracy
at local levels, and the defence of cultural diversity. There are, of course, both
camps in places like Scotland or Transylvania, though in these two cases, the
democratic process has tended to override ethnic division (see Gruber 1999). It
is important to stress the distinction between the two types because it illustrates
what is meant by cosmopolitanism.
Critics of the modernist paradigm also tend to be critics of the cosmopolitan
idea. This is because modernists argue that the nation is a temporary
phenomenon. `The nations are not something eternal. They had their
beginnings and they will end.' (Renan, 1990: 20). Modernists, therefore, tend
to favour what they see as more forward-looking ideologies better suited to the
structural conditions associated with globalisation.
Two kinds of criticism are levelled by the critics of the modernist paradigm
against the cosmopolitan, and by implication European, idea. One is that there
is no such thing as a global culture or if there were, it would be a grey,
technological uniform culture, incapable of generating passionate loyalties.
This is a misunderstanding of the meaning of the term `cosmopolitanism'.
Culturally, cosmopolitanism means openness to different cultures. According
to Urry, cosmopolitanism is `a cultural disposition involving an intellectual
and aesthetic stance of `openness' towards peoples, places and experiences
Nations and Globalisation 173
from different cultures, especially those from different `nations'. Cosmopoli-
tanism should involve the search for, and delight in, the contrasts between
societies rather than a longing for superiority or for uniformity' (Urry 2000).
Politically, cosmopolitanism must be distinguished from humanism. Human-
ism is about universal human values, what we now call human rights.
Cosmopolitanism combines humanism with a celebration of human diversity.
In Perpetual Peace from which the political meaning is derived, Kant describes
a world of nation-states in which cosmopolitan right overrides sovereignty.
Kant says that, the condition for perpetual peace, is that cosmopolitan right be
confined to the right of hospitality. What he means by this is treating strangers
with dignity. Kant, writing at the end of the eighteenth century, was opposed to
colonialism but he also criticised those natives who maltreated their European
visitors. The right of hospitality means both respect for human rights and
respect for difference (Kant, 1991).
A similar point is made by Anthony Appiah (1996) in his article on
`Cosmopolitan patriots'. Appiah talks about the importance of the notion of a
`rooted cosmopolitan', someone who loves his or her homeland and culture
and feels a responsibility towards making that homeland a better place. But a
cosmopolitan is also free to choose the place where he or she lives and the
practises in which they take part; you can migrate out of choice not through
pressure and choose to respect some traditions and not others. Patriotism can
mean freedom not exclusion. A cosmopolitan politics would be one which
insisted both on global guarantees for human rights and on a global strategy
for promoting the survival of cultures. What makes Sarajevo, for example,
such a vibrant place, is precisely the fact that different cultures have survived
side by side for so long ­ the mosque, the orthodox church, the catholic church
and the synagogue are all within a few hundred yards of each other. A
cosmopolitan is proud of such diversity. A cosmopolitan respects these
different practises and rejoices at the fact that they can co-exist.
The second criticism is that a cosmopolitan or European culture has no
memory. According to Smith:
[A] timeless global culture answers no living needs and conjures no memories. If
memory is central to identity, we can discern no global identity in the making, nor
aspirations for one, nor any collective amnesia to replace existing ``deep'' cultures with a
cosmopolitan ``flat'' culture. The latter remains a dream confined to some intellectuals.
It strikes no chord among the vast masses of people divided into their habitual
communities of class, gender, region, religion and culture (Smith 1995: 24).
Indeed, Smith goes even further and suggests that a European culture would
need to forget all the bad things that have happened ­ wars, imperialism, and
the holocaust. This astonishing claim illustrates the way in which the critics of
modernism tend to neglect the political character of ideology. Just as national
ideologies in Western Europe arose out of demands for democracy, so a
European ideology is being built out of demands for human rights and an end
to wars. The two main waves of Europeanism were after 1945, when the
European movement was founded in the Hague in reaction to the horror of
174 Mary Kaldor
war, and, after 1989 and the end of the Cold War with the coming together of
peace and human rights movements.
Far from forgetting the horrible experiences of European history, these
form the basis of a new cosmopolitan memory. Both Robertson and Shaw
argue that the Holocaust and Hiroshima have become global memories that
underpin our conception of ourselves as part of a global community. Levy and
Sznaider show how memories of the holocaust are being reproduced through
museums, education and scholarly conferences and the ways in which this
memory construction influenced the humanitarian thinking that led to
interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo (Levy and Sznaider 2002).
People in the West are no longer willing to die for the spectacle brand of
nationalism. Despite's Smith's assertions, I see no reason why people should
not be willing to risk their life for human rights as human rights activists and
humanitarian agencies already do. Policemen and fire fighters, after all, risk
their lives to save other people, whatever their nationality. Defending human
rights is, of course, different from national wars in which people are willing not
only to risk their lives but to kill for their nations and to destroy their enemies.
Surely, we are better off without that kind of passion.
Conclusion
I have defended the modernist argument that nationalism is a constructed or
imagined idea and that its success is derived from the fact that the idea suited
the structural conditions associated with modernity. It provided the glue that
made possible the modern state and modern industry. I have also argued that
the strength of the idea depends on politics as well as culture and that politics is
more important than culture in open democratic societies. I explain the passion
associated with nationalism not in terms of the strength of culture but as a
consequence of war and the role of war in constructing nationalism.
The structural conditions that gave rise to modern nationalism have
changed. The information economy is supplanting industrialism and requires a
much more differentiated workforce. Electronic communications are now
much more important than print technology making possible new horizontal
or transborder cultural communities. Wars between states are becoming an
anachronism and new forms of violence are constructing new militant
nationalist and religious ideologies.
The vertical homogeneous cultures of the nation-state survive as a sort of
spectacle. This form of nationalism is supplemented by new horizontal
ideologies. On the one hand, we are witnessing new exclusive and
fundamentalist political networks including nationalism (that is nowadays
both local and global because of Diasporas) and global Islam. On the other
hand, cosmopolitan and European ideologies, are being mobilised, that
include small open nationalisms, are being mobilised not only from above but
also from below by human rights and peace movements.
Nations and Globalisation 175
So will nationalism be transcended? This is a political question. A world in
which spectacle nationalism, as in the USA, depends on the idea of a struggle
against new nationalism or global Islam, is at odds with underlying socio-
economic developments. This is why they are backward-looking. It is
extremely difficult to sustain closed national societies in a global era and this
can only be done through violence and terror. But if spectacle and small
nationalisms could be harnessed to a cosmopolitan politics that reflected the
complexity of contemporary conditions, then this would allow for global
standards combined with cultural and democratic devolution. A cosmopolitan
world would prioritise reason and deliberation as opposed to passion. Violence
unfortunately squeezes the space for reason and deliberation. The fact that a
good case can be made as to why cosmopolitanism is more likely to contribute
to progress does not mean that such a world will come about.
The choice between these two ideal type worlds depends on the actions of
individuals, groups and movements. It depends on debates like this one. I do
not agree with the critics of the modernist paradigm, which I believe does
explain earlier nationalisms, but as a late or reflexive modernist, I am much
more doubtful about the future than some of the earlier proponents of the
modernist paradigm.
Notes
1 Nationalist parties captured power in the Balkans, for example, or in India. Islamic parties are
ruling in Iran and Turkey and have done well in elections in Pakistan and Algeria, where electoral
victory led to a military coup. In Western Europe, right-wing anti-immigrant parties have increased
their share of the vote and in the USA Christian fundamentalist and Zionist groups are increasingly
influential in the Republican Party.
2 In the last ten years before his death, the Prophet redefined the notion of a `raid', which had
been characteristic of pre-Islamic nomad groups, as part of Jihad, to mean a raid aimed at the
benefit of the whole community and not individual gain. Al Qaeda have resurrected the term and it
is used to describe their form of action, for example the attacks on the World Trade Centre and
other operations (Mneimneh and Makiya 2002).
References
Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of
Nationalism. Verso, London.
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. 1996. `Cosmopolitan patriots' in Joshua Cohen (ed.), For Love of
Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism: Martha C. Nussbaum and Respondents. Cambridge,
MA: Beacon.
Burke, Jason. 2003. Al Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror. London: Taurus.
Gellner, Ernest. 1994. Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and its Rivals. London: Hamish
Hamilton.
Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Glasius, Marlies and Mary Kaldor. 2002. `Global civil society before and after September 11' in
M. Glasius, M. Kaldor and H. Anheier (eds.), Global Civil Society 2002. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
176 Mary Kaldor
Gruber, Karoly. 1999. From the Beginning of Reason to the End of History: the Politics of
Postmodernism and Ethno-nationalist Renaissances of Pre-post modern Natures. D Phil Thesis,
University of Sussex.
Guibernau, Montserrat. 1996. Nationalisms: the Nation-State and Nationalism in the Twentieth
Century. Cambridge: Polity.
Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1990. Nations and Nationalism since 1870: Programme, Myth, Reality.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Juergensmayer, Mark. 2000. Terror in the Mind of God. Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press.
Kaldor, Mary. 1990. The Imaginary War: Understanding the East-West Conflict. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Kaldor, Mary and Diego Muro. 2003. `Religious and nationalist militant networks' in M. Kaldor,
H. Anheier and M. Glasius (eds.), Global Civil Society 2003. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kaldor-Robinson, Joshua. 2002. `The virtual and the imaginary: the role of diasphoric new media
in the construction of a national identity during the break-up of Yugoslavia', Oxford
Development Studies 30(2): 177­87.
Kant, Immanuel. 1991 [1795]. `Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch' in Kant: Political
Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Levy, Daniel and Natan Sznaider. 2002. `Memory unbound: the holocaust and the formation of
cosmopolitan memory', European Journal of Social Theory 5(1): 87­106.
Melander, Erik. 2001. `The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict revisited: was the war inevitable?', Journal
of Cold War Studies 3(2), spring.
OĻ zkirimli, Umut. 2000. Theories of Nationalism: a Critical Introduction. London: Macmillan.
Mneimneh, Hassan and Kanan Makiya. 2002. `Manual for a ``raid'' ', New York Review of Books
17 January.
Renan, Ernest. 1990 [1882]. `What is a nation?' in Homi K. Bhabha (ed.), Nation and Narration.
London and New York: Routledge.
Robertson, Roland. 1992. Globalisation: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage.
Shaw, Martin. 2000. The Global State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, Anthony D. 1995. Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era. Cambridge: Polity.
Smith, Anthony D. 2001. Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History. Cambridge: Polity.
Urry, John. 2000. `The global media and cosmopolitanism', Department of Sociology, Lancaster ,
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/soc056ju.html
Nations and Globalisation 177