Nations and Nationalism 5 (2), 1999, 281-302. 0ASEN 1999
Are there good and bad
nationalisms?
DAVID BROWN
Department of Politics and International Studies, Murdoch University, Perth,
Western Australia 6150
ABSTRACT. Writers on nationalism have continued to use the distinction between
civicand cultural nationalisms; and to suggest that the former has liberal connotations
while the latter is intrinsically illiberal and authoritarian. This rests in part on the
argument that the civic bond is rational and voluntaristic while the cultural bond is
irrational and ascriptive; in part on the argument that the presence of the middle
classes is conducive to liberal politics; and in part on the argument that cultural
nationalism is illiberal because of its reactive origins. These arguments are critically
examined, and then are reformulated to suggest that the liberalism or illiberalism of
nationalism might not be related to its cultural or civic basis, but might depend both
upon whether the class articulating the nationalism is marginalised or upwardly
mobile; and upon whether the wider society becomes focused upon ressentiment in
relation to threatening others, or on developing a self-generated identity.
There is widespread agreement that nationalism is a dominant force in
contemporary politics. But there is equally widespread disagreement as to
whether to applaud or condemn it. This confusion arises because nationalism
seems sometimes to manifest itself as an absolutist creed which
generates intolerance and violence, and sometimes takes a liberal form,
offering individual liberation within a community of equal citizens. But
should we understand these as the variable expressions of one core concept;
or is there a more fundamental dichotomy? Is nationalism a Janus who
‘wears almost everywhere two faces; and you have scarce begun to admire
the one, ere you despise the other’ (Dryden)?
Most writers on nationalism concur in recognising two ideal-type forms
of nationalism which are analytically distinct and antithetical in nature. But
it is important to note that they differ as to the terminology which should
be employed, with these differences in terminology reflecting, in part,
disagreements as to which attributes lie at the core of the distinction. The
terms ‘cultural nationalism’ and ‘civic nationalism’ will be used in this
I am grateful to the three anonymous referees for their helpful comments. The article was
stimulatedby comments made by Liah Greenfeld at the conferenceon Nationalism, University
of Sydney,July 1996.
282 David Brown
article which seeks to explain their conceptual cores, and also to examine
the suggestion that the former is intrinsically illiberal, while the latter is
intrinsically (or for some, predominantly) liberal.
The suggestion of a link between cultural nationalism and authoritarianism
is sometimes asserted rather than argued, by the use of terms such as
integral, organic, ascriptive, exclusive or radical.’ Similarly, the suggestion
that civic nationalism is necessarily more liberal is sometimes asserted in its
denotation, by some authors, as ‘liberal’ nationalism, but also by the use of
terms like political, social or voluntarist.2 Although the two variously
denoted forms of nationalism are analytically distinct, in practice they
intertwine in particular nation-states and nationalist movements so that one
form is usually dominant, and this has engendered the use of the two
analytical models as explanatory categories for distinguishing between those
nationalisms which promote individual liberty, and those which suppress it.
The purpose of the article is first to explain how the distinction between
civic and cultural nationalisms has been employed in the literature. Second,
to unpack this distinction so as to indicate problems with the way in which
it has been linked to the liberal-illiberal dichotomy. Third, to derive from
these discussions an approach which recognises that both cultural and civic
nationalisms have the capacity to emerge in liberal or illiberal forms. It
might be true that some nationalisms which are predominantly cultural are
less liberal than other predominantly civic nationalisms. But it is not always
or intrinsically so, and we need to look carefully at the nature of the
argument, in order to assess why.
The distinction between cultural and civic nationalisms
‘Cultural nationalism’ refers, at core, to a sense of community which focuses
on belief in myths of common ancestry; and on the perception that these
myths are validated by contemporary similarities of physiognomy, language
or religion. The myth of common ancestry, the related myths of homeland
origin and migration, and pride in the contemporary linguistic, cultural or
physical evidence of common kinship, provide the basis for claims to
authenticity, and thence to claims to the right of collective national selfdetermination.
Cultural nationalism thus employs the same type of myths of
common kinship and ancestry which are frequently denoted by the term
‘ethni~ity’.~The term ‘cultural nationalism’ is however preferred here to the
term ‘ethnic nationalism’, simply because the term ‘ethnicity’ is hotly
contested between those who use it to refer to such myths, and those who
use it to refer to the biological fact of genetically fixed primordial racial
attributes. The use of the term ‘ethnic’to refer to cultural nationalism might
thus be interpreted by some to indicate precisely the definitional assumption
which this article seeks to critically examine; that cultural nationalism is
necessarily ascriptively closed, and thence illiberal. The term ‘cultural
Are there good and bad nationalisms? 283
nationalism’ denotes no such assumption, and therefore facilitates the
examination of whether those nationalisms which are illiberal are or are not
so because of their belief in common kinship.
The term ‘civic nationalism’ refers also to a sense of community, but in
this case one focused upon the belief that residence in a common territorial
homeland, and involvement in the state and civil society institutions of that
homeland, generate a distinctive national character and civic culture, such
that all citizens, irrespective of their diverse ancestry, comprise a community
in progress, with a common destiny. This commitment to a common
destiny, tied into the idea of common loyalty to the territorial homeland
and its institutions, means that civic nationalism implies the acquisition of
ethical obligations, and should not be regarded simply as a voluntary
association lacking emotive power. Indeed, the common public culture of
civic nationalism serves to raise the people from a rabble to a nation, so
that ‘every member of the “people” ... partakes of its elite quality’
(Greenfeld 1992: 7). It offers, no less than cultural nationalism, ‘an escape
from triviality, gives a sense of immortality, and ‘digniflies] a man’s
suffering and gives him a hopeful direction in which to work’ (Minogue
1967: 32).
Civic nationalism is thus sometimes depicted as ‘forward-looking’in the
sense that the vision is of a community in the process of formation, while
cultural nationalism is seen as backward-looking, in that the vision of the
community is located in myths of the past. But this should not be
interpreted to imply that the former is in some moral sense ‘progressive’and
the latter ‘regressive’,since morality is clearly not dependent on chronology.
Moreover, such a definition does not completely resolve the difficulty in
distinguishing the two forms of nationalism, since it is evident that cultural
nationalismsbuilt upon myths of common ancestry will seek to establish the
authentic continuity of their community by proclaiming visions of common
destiny located in the future; and, by the same token, civic nationalisms
which see the national community as one always in process of becoming
might seek to promote a sense of evolutionary development by appealing to
a common institutional past.
Thus part of the reason why the distinction between the two is so difficult
to apply to actual cases of nationalism, is not simply that the two idealtypes
combine in all particular cases, but more fundamentally because both
forms of nationalism employ, in their mythology and symbolism, the
language of the family. The family of civic nationalism is primarily the
marriage family, whereby entry into the family and its territorialhnstitutional
home from diverse sources indicates commitment to a common
loyalty and destiny; whereas the family of cultural nationalism is primarily
that of parenthood, with the commitment of (genetic or adopted) children
to the family derivingfrom the belief in common ancestry. Civic nationalism
is just as likely as cultural nationalism to use the language of motherland
and homeland, but uses it to refer to the home of arrival, rather than to the
284 David Brown
home of origin (the analogy again, is that of the marriage home, rather than
the birth home).
The ideas of civic and cultural nationalisms are clarified, and interwoven,
in the work of classical theorists such as Johann Herder, Johann Fichte and
Max Weber.4 But the suggestion that this distinction might explain the
difference between the ‘good-liberal’ and ‘bad-authoritarian’ forms of
nationalism, probably originates with Karl Marx. Marx distinguished
different conceptualisations of the nation in terms of the type of class
interests they promoted. A liberal and democratic conception of the nation
was therefore one which promoted the interests of the oppressed classes. By
contrast, the ethnic and enthnocentric conception of the nation (symbolised
in the German case in the language of Volk and Vaterland) was seen by him
as a romantic myth of uniqueness and superiority which comprised an
alienative reaction by insecure middle classes, and which could be ‘readily
... harnessed to the conservative purposes of absolutist and authoritarian
states’ (Benner: 91). The connections between alienation, and the promotion
by the state of a nationalist myth of common ethnic attributes and common
ancestry, is indicated in the following passage:
Out of [the] very contraction between the interest of the individual and that of the
community, the latter takes an independent form as the state, divorced from the real
interests of individual and community, and at the same time as an illusory communal
life, always based, however, on the real ties existing in every family and tribal
conglomeration (such as flesh and blood, language, division of labour on a larger
scale, and other interests) (Marx, The German Ideology, in Feuer 1969:295)
Marx’s negative evaluation of cultural nationalism was subsequently echoed
by the early twentieth-century German historian Friedrich Meinecke,
although they differed in their understanding of the role of the state.
Meinecke distinguished between the staatsnation which ‘centres on the idea
of individual and collective self-determination and derives from the
individual’s free will and subjective commitment to the nation’, and the
kulturnation which:
is founded upon seemingly objective criteria such as common heritage and language,
a distinct area of settlement, religion, custom and history, and does not need to be
mediated by a national state or other political form. Consciousness of unity, the
sense of belonging together, develop independent of the state ... It leaves individuals
little scope to choose to which nation they belong. (Alter 1989: 14)
In this formulation, as Peter Alter notes, ‘The voluntarist, liberal-democratic
concept of nation is contrasted by a deterministic one that is frequently
deemed undemocratic and irrational’ (1989: 15).
Meinecke’s distinction was subsequently reformulated by Hans Kohn
(1944, 1962), who distinguished between a Western (particularly North
Atlantic) nationalism and an East-Central European nationalism. Western
nationalism was ‘a predominantly political occurrence’ (1944: 329) following
from the formation Of the state. It ‘was connected with the concepts of
Are there good and bad nationalisms? 285
individual liberty and rational cosmopolitanism’ (1944: 330) which flourished
in ‘a new society’ arising from the Reformation and characterised by
the growth of ‘middle classes and secular learning’ (1944: 331). By contrast,
‘Eastern’ nationalism (which included German, Russian and Indian nationalisms)
originated in ‘ethnographic demands’, and developed in societies
which were ‘at a more backward stage of political and social and
development’ (1944: 329). This Eastern nationalism was ‘excessive and
militant’ (1962: 24), took a cultural rather than a political form, and relied
on ‘myths of the past and dreams of the future, an ideal fatherland, closely
linked with the past, devoid of any immediate connection with the present’.
The model for this was German nationalism:
held together, not by the will of its members nor by any obligations of contract, but
by traditional ties of kinship and status ... [and by] the infinitely vaguer concept of
‘folk’ which ... lent itself more easily to the embroideries of imagination and the
excitations of emotion. Its roots seemed to reach into the dark soil of primitive times
and to have grown through thousands of hidden channels of unconscious development,
not in the bright light of rational political ends, but in the mysterious womb of
the people, deemed to be so much nearer to the forces of nature. (Kohn 1944: 331)
This argument as to the irrational and ascriptive basis of cultural
nationalism, contrasted with the rational and voluntaristic basis of civic
nationalism, has been employed, with varying degrees of modification, by
several modem theorists of nationalism; and it constitutes one of the most
resilient themes in the literature. Thus, for example, Anthony Smith, after
noting some criticisms of Kohn’s distinction, concludes that it nevertheless
‘remains valid and useful’ (Smith 1991: 81). He then refers to the ‘Western
or civic model of the nation’ as involving claims to ‘historic territory, legalpolitical
community, legal-political equality of members, and common civic
culture and ideology’. In this model, ‘an individual had to belong to some
nation, but could choose to which he or she belonged’ (Smith 1991: 11). He
contrasts this with a ‘non-western or ethnic’ concept whereby ‘whether you
stayed in your community or emigrated to another, you remained
ineluctably, organically, a member of the community of your birth and were
for ever stamped by it’. This latter nationalism is characterised by
‘genealogy and presumed descent ties, popular mobilisation, vernacular
languages, customs and traditions’ (1991: 1L I ~ ) . ~Smith employs this
distinction to discuss differences between the contemporary nationalisms in
the West and those in the ex-Soviet sphere, and explains these partly in
terms of differences in social structure; in particular the presence or absence
of a bourgeoisie which could mediate the mobilising activities of intellectuals
(Smith 1995:76-83).6
Liah Greenfeld offers a related distinction between ‘individualisticlibertarian’
and ‘collectivist-authoritarian’ models of nationalism. For her,
the character of nationalism is related to the character of the particular
class and status groups who were its architects, though she sees the
286 David Brown
responses of these architects, rather than the structure of the society, as the
determining factor in the character of nationalism. But her schema makes
the general tendencies clear. Individualistic-libertarian nationalism, which
interprets popular sovereignty as intrinsically linked with democratic ideas
of equal individual status and liberty, ‘is predicated on a transformation in
the character of the relevant population’ (Greenfeld 1992: lo), in that it can
emerge only in ‘civic’ communities where membership is open and
voluntaristic. By contrast, the collectivist and authoritarian form of
nationalism ‘result[s] from the application of the original idea to conditions
which did not necessarily undergo such transformation’ (&id.), and is most
likely to emerge where membership is on an ethnic basis, since such
membership is ‘inherent ... [I]t has nothing to do with individual will, but
constitutes a genetic characteristic’. In the cultural nation, therefore, the
idea of popular sovereignty is interpreted in unitary and inegalitarian
terms: ‘it tends to assume the character of a collective individual possessed
of a single will, and someone is bound to be its interpreter’ (1992: 11).
Michael Keating similarly distinguishes between ethnic and civic nationalisms;
‘One presents membership of the national community as given, or
ascriptive; the other sees individuals voluntarily constituting themselves as a
collectivity’ (Keating 1996: 3); though he does note that ‘civic nationalism
can be violent and ... civic values may be narrow and intolerantly applied’
(1996: 7). James Kellas builds more directly on Kohn’s typology in
distinguishing between ‘western’ nationalism which was social and inclusive
in form, was ‘more liberal democratic, and did not engage in genocide,
transfers of population etc.’; and eastern European nationalism which was
ethnically exclusive, ‘intolerant and often led to authoritarianism’ (Kellas
1991: 73-4).
David Miller has recently been critical of attempts to distinguish ‘a
desirable ‘Western’form of nationalism from an undesirable ‘Eastern’ form’
(Miller 1995). Nevertheless, he achieves something similar to this by
contrasting what he calls ‘nationality’ which is liberal and tolerant, with
‘nationalism’ which refers to ‘organic wholes’ and is an ‘illiberal and
belligerent doctrine’ (1995: 8). For Miller, this distinction is closely
connected to the differences between ethnicity and nationality, with the
former referring to ‘a community formed by common descent and sharing
cultural features’ (1995: 19), and the latter referring to a community
constituted by belief rather than by common attributes, and by ‘a shared
wish to continue their life in common’ (1995: 23). Montserrat Guibernau
repeats the argument that the civic nationalism of popular consent,
associated with the rise of the bourgeoisie and the spread of Enlightenment
ideas, has taken a liberal direction; while the cultural nationalism of
‘common language, blood and soil’, reacting against the Enlightenment, has
tended to an ‘exclusivist, xenophobic, expansionist and oppressive character’
(Guibernau 1996: 51-7). Tom Nairn sees civic nationalism as developing
out of the institutions of an inherently liberal civil society; while ethnic
Are there good and bad nationalisms? 287
nationalism is ‘perceived as inherently ... divisive, inward- and backwardlooking,
atavistic, aggressive and probably not too good for business either’
(Nairn 1997: 86).
The contributions of such theorists have done much to revive and refine
the study of contemporary nationalism, and their variously formulated
arguments undoubtedly have an intuitive appeal and a contemporary
resonance, especially when one employs the imagery of the civic nationalisms
of the USA or Britain on the one hand, and of Tamil, Kurdish or Serb
cultural nationalisms on the other. But correlation does not always indicate
cause. Moreover, it would not need too much thought to generate apparent
exceptions. Certainly, civic nationalism frequently takes an authoritarian
form, as articulated by Suharto in Indonesia, or earlier by Jacobin
nationalism in France (Hayes 1949: ch. 3). Cultural nationalism not only
sometimes seems to take rather benign forms, as with the Welsh or Slovene
cases, but is also often regarded as the carrier of minority rights and social
justice, most noticeably in its manifestation as contemporary claims by
indigenous or minority ethnic communities for enhanced political autonomy
and special rights. In this latter version, the moral evaluation of cultural
nationalism is often reversed, so that instead of being seen as intrinsically
irrational and illiberal, it appears as intrinsic to individual development and
true liberty. This is also suggested by Tzvetan Todorov in his discussion of
French theorists such as Antonin Artaud and Montesquieu:
Cultural nationalism (that is, attachment to one’s own culture) is a path towards
universalism- by deepening the specificityof the particular within which one dwells.
Civic nationalism ... is a preferential choice in favor of one’s own country over the
others - thus, it is an antiuniversalistchoice. (Todorov 1993: 172)
Perhaps the main contemporary significance of the distinction between
cultural and civic nationalisms, and of this ambiguity regarding their moral
evaluation, is in the debate as to the meaning and implications of
‘multiculturalism’. Does this term refer simply to a civic nationalism whose
public civic culture can accommodate the diversity of private ethnic cultures;
or to a cultural nationalist challenge to civic nationalism which threatens to
divide the state into competing sovereignties? Is it to be applauded for
challenging an existing cultural nationalism which favours ethnic majorities,
with new formulas which favour hitherto marginalised minorities; or
condemned for prioritising ascriptive and illiberal group rights over liberal
individual right^?^
The distinction needs examining for other reasons also. As has already
been noted, most nationalisms contain ingredients of both the civic and
cultural forms, so that there is disagreement, for example amongst observers
of Catalan nationalism in Spain, or East Timorese nationalism in Indonesia,
or Scottish nationalism in the UK, as to how to characterise them - should
they be seen as minority cultural nationalist movements, or as regionalist
civic nationalisms? There is clearly the danger that we characterise a
288 David Brown
nationalism as cultural or civic in form, depending upon whether we wish to
support or oppose it. Moreover, if we seek to explain the form which
nationalism takes by reference to the fundamental character of the society,
as is sometimes indicated by the civic-cultural distinction, then how can this
help to explain cases such as French, Quebec or Irish nationalisms, which
seem to shift between authoritarian and liberal manifestations and to have
both liberal and illiberal proponents?8 Clarification as to the theoretical
basis of the arguments is needed.
It has been suggested that discussions of nationalism frequently exhibit a
‘stultifying aura of conceptual ambiguity’ (Geertz 1963: 107). Such ambiguity
is likely when concepts offered as ‘ideal-type’ analytical models, turn
out to contain clusters of arguments which might only be contingently
connected. Thus, while the above distinctions between civic and cultural
nationalisms have facilitated some subtle discussions of particular cases,
they have not really clarified the causes of their differences, because three
distinct arguments have been interwoven, and need disentangling. First,
there is the argument that the two nationalisms differ in that one is based
on irrational primordial attachments, and the other on rational civil
sentiments. Second, there is the argument that the differences depend upon
whether or not there has been a social transformation which has resulted in
a strong middle class able to exert liberalising influences. Thirdly, there is a
suggestion that the character of nationalism might be related to the issue of
whether or not it develops as a reactive protest movement. Each of these
arguments need examining. It will be argued that none of them are
satisfactory, but that there are aspects of the middle-class argument, and of
the reactivity argument, which can be reformulated so as to provide a useful
starting point for explaining the liberalism or illiberalism of nationalism,
once they have been disconnected from the civic-cultural distinction.
The primordial-civil distinction
The dominant explanation for the authoritarian nature of cultural nationalism,
offered in the above works, refers to the ‘primordial’ character of the
community. In Clifford Geertz’s formulation, primordial bonds are ‘the
“givens” - or, more precisely, as culture is inevitably involved in such
matters, the assumed “givens” of social existence ... These congruities of
blood, speech, custom, and so on are seen to have an ineffable, and at times
overpowering, coerciveness in and of themselves’ (Geertz 1963: 109). The
resultant cultural community is seen as illiberal in three respects, first, in the
claim that membership of such a community is ascribed by birth and cannot
be changed by individual free will; second, in the claim that such cultural
nationalism is inherently collectivist, so as to inhibit expressions of
individual liberty; and third, in the claim that this cultural nationalism
constitutes an irrational and dominant attachment, from which individuals
Are there good and bad nationalisms? 289
must free themselves before they can attain the status of rational beings.
Further, such cultural nationalism is frequently depicted as ‘excessive’so as
to signify claims to the superiority of one’s own particular nation, rather
than the acceptance of equal nationalisms.
These characterisations of cultural nationalism as illiberal, derive from
the idea that the belief in common ancestry (whether or not factually true),
generates a particular type of emotional bond between the individual and
the community of common kinship. The mechanism of this bond has been
variously formulated - as a Jungian ‘archetype of the collective unconscious’,as
an evolutionarily functional biological or psychological device, or
as the unchangeable outcome of primary socialisation. But, in all formulations,
this ethnic bond is depicted as emotionally powerful and immutable,
and in most though not all cases, as involving an ethnocentric belief in the
superiority of one’s own community. From this perspective, it seems clear
that a cultural nationalism based upon a belief that certain linguistic, racial
or religious attributes derived from common ancestry, will necessarily be
illiberal; both in being closed to those lacking the attributes which display
common ancestry, and in subjugating individual will to that of the
collectivity.
Such a depiction of ethnicity, and thence of cultural nationalism, has
however come under increasing attack in recent years (Eller and Coughlan
1993). Even proponents of primordialism agree that in all actual ethnic
communities, the claims to common kinship are not based solely on the
objective cultural traits and the real facts of common ancestry, but rather
on the power of the myths and symbols of kinship articulated by the
modern poets, historians and politicians who seek to mobilise the people
around the nationalist ideology. Some cultural nationalisms claiming ethnic
roots are more invented than others, but all refer to the belief, rather than
the fact, of common kinship.
This means that membership of an ethnically defined cultural community
is never completely ascriptive and immutable. Thus Yael Tamir, arguing
that cultural nationalism can be liberal, has recently suggested (using Sonia
Ghandi as one of her examples) that, ‘in reality individuals do assimilate,
break cultural ties, and move from one national community to another’
(Tamir 1993: 25-32). The extent to which such assimilation into a cultural
nation is available to individuals, and the cost which it entails, clearly varies
enormously from case to case, but religious conversion, migration, language
change, in-marriage and cultural adoption are all possible entry routes, and
may be accompanied by acquisition of the appropriate myths of common
origin, ancestry, history and de~tiny.~It is frequently suggested, however,
that cultural nations which define themselves in terms of race, will be more
closed to entry than will those which see language as the primary marker of
common ancestry. This may be so in some cases, but it is instructive to
remember that claims to distinct biological genealogy, and to clear
population boundaries based on such genealogy, are always necessarily
290 David Brown
‘dubious’, so that ‘it is an irony of our modern interpretation that such
[‘biosocial’]groups ... readily appear more autochthonous, more embedded,
and so more biologically integral, less mixed up with politics, movement,
and modernity. The appearance is largely illusory, vanishing as it is grasped’
(Chapman 1993: 24, 29). Instead of postulating that it is racially based
nationalisms which might be exclusivist and illiberal, it seems more likely to
be those nationalisms which are confronted by threatening others whom
they seek to exclude, which might redefine their own nationality (and that of
their enemies) in racial terms, on the initiative of their political or
intellectual elites. Thus, for example, Chinese cultural nationalism shifted
from being one which was open to cultural assimilation, towards being
defined in more closed terms based on racial Han identity, in response to
contact with distrusted Westerners (Dikotter 1990). Similarly, German
cultural nationalism, whose Volk-centred identity had been open to cultural
assimilation, became closed and illiberal in response to perceived external
threats, and accordingly had its identity redefined by political elites as a
closed (but politically malleable) identity, based on myths of Aryan race,
depicting its greatest enemies also in racial terms.lo
The suggestion that cultural nationalism is illiberal because of the
particularly strong emotional power of cultural identities based on common
ancestry, is also open to doubt. There seems to be no a priori reason why
the myth of common ethnic descent, which lies at the heart of cultural
nationalism, should constitute a bond which is any more emotionally
powerful or hegemonic, than might be the bonds either to the family at one
end of the scale, or to the state and its civic nation at the other. This is
because the emotional power of the cultural or ethnic bond has a situational
or rational choice basis, and may vary between weak and strong, between
being taken for granted or being conscious, depending in part on its utility
for the pursuit of situational goals or for defence against situational threats
(Ronen 1979). But also, any claim that the bond of cultural nationalism is
stronger than that to the civic nation because the former can employ for
itself the power of the ‘family resemblance’ (Horowitz 1985), must recognise
that the civic nation similarly clothes itself in the myths and symbols of
family.
Perhaps the strongest argument, that cultural nationalism is inherently
illiberal, derives from the claim that the ethnic bond is necessarily
collectivist. Liah Greenfeld explains this by saying that whereas civic
nationalism may refer simply to the idea of a sovereign people (those
occupying a denoted territory) without any connotations of collective
uniqueness, cultural nationalism necessarily refers to the uniqueness of each
community, since it defines them in terms of their particular cultural
attributes, and of descent. She argues then that it is this shift of nationalism,
from the idea of sovereignty to the idea of uniqueness, which prioritises the
collectivity over the individual, and thus facilitates authoritarian assertions
of a collective will (Greenfeld 1992).
Are there good and bad nationalisms? 291
This contention has been rebutted by recent communitarian and liberal
arguments which see individual self-fulfillment as necessarily dependent
upon membership of the cultural community; arguments popularised in the
language of minority rights and multiculturalism. Such arguments can be
traced back to Herder and Fichte who both saw the political autonomy of
the cultural nation as the necessary engine for individual freedom. Thus, ‘in
Fichte’s hands ... full self-determinationfor the individual came to require
national self-determination’ (Kedourie 1993: 137).” In contemporary
theories, the argument that individual well-being and dignity depend upon
the respect given to the cultural nation, has generated both communitarian
claims to group rights of cultural self-preservation, and liberal claims to
individual rights of access to cultural resources. But the link between the
well-being of the individual and that of the cultural community needs to be
treated carefully, since it cannot simply be assumed that individual selfdetermination
and national self-determination are equivalent, parallel or
analogous concepts. The work of Will Kymlicka is important here (1989,
1995a). Kymlicka argues that individual liberty can only be attained by
individuals who have access to full membership of a vibrant cultural
community; and thence that cultural communities which find themselves
under threat have the right to national self-determination so as to protect
their cultural resources. Kymlicka does however seek to recognise the
problem that some cultures are more oppressive of individual liberty than
others, and that some group rights might suppress some individual rights.
But it is clear from the communitarian-liberal debate on multiculturalism,
that cultural nationalism should not be seen as inherently inimical to
individual liberty, and might in some cases and in some respects be
conducive and indeed essential for it.12
Ethnicity derives its power from the belief on the part of individuals that
they can fulfil themselves through identification with the mythical kinship
community, so that cultural nationalism always portrays itself as the engine
of individual liberation and self-determination, and may at least in some
cases actually function in this way. Thus cultural nationalism does not in
any sense support the idea of an ethnic majority suppressing an ethnic
minority. Indeed, the cultural nationalist vision is specifically one which
envisions each cultural community as having its own political autonomy.
Where suppression of ethnic minorities within a cultural nation does occur,
then, we might wish to blame it on the failure to implement the tenets of
cultural nationalism, rather than on those tenets themselves. This is not to
say that some cultural nationalisms may not portray other cultural nations
or ethnic communities as their enemies, and act illiberally towards them.
But in this respect they are perhaps no different from some civic
nationalisms.
The aspect of civic nationalism which is stressed in the formulations of
the civic-cultural dichotomy, is that of a ‘rational’ and voluntaristic
community of equal sovereign citizens. In Alter’s words, ‘the existence or
292 David Brown
otherwise of the nation depend[s] on the will of the individual ... [and
comprises] a community of politically aware citizens equal before the law
irrespective of their social and economic status, ethnic origin and political
beliefs’ (1989: 14-15). Such a civic community is, then, depicted as
intrinsically liberal in that it derives from, and exists to promote, the will of
its individual citizens.
Nevertheless, it is evident to all the proponents of this view that not all
civic nations are in fact either liberal or democratic. As noted above, Liah
Greenfeld explains that liberal nationalism gives way to illiberal nationalism
when the idea of popular sovereignty is distorted by political elites, so that
instead of referring to the actual sovereignty of individuals, it becomes
reinterpreted to refer only to the theoretical sovereignty of a collective will,
so that ‘the select few dictate to the masses who must obey’. Both civic and
cultural nationalisms may thus be collectivist in this way (Greenfeld 1992:
1 l).13 Moreover, the fragility of this particular civic-cultural distinction is
reinforced once it is recognised that for the large majority of citizens of the
civic nation, there is no choice as to national identity. They are born into
their nation, rather than choosing it; and the extent to which they can
choose entry into another civic nation may be just as limited by legal
citizenship restrictions (even for entry into liberal UK, USA, Australia etc.),
as it might be by variable barriers to (and costs of) cultural assimilation in
the case of cultural nations.
Civic nationalisms are indeed voluntaristic in that they comprise ‘the
conscious creations of bodies of people who have elaborated and revised
them in order to make sense of their social and political surroundings’
(Miller 1995: 6). But civic nations are communities of obligation which
demand allegiance, and which must therefore resist voluntaristic renunciations
by present members. The present generation can only be tied into the
‘voluntaristic’ nation if the nation depicts itself as ‘a community that .. .
stretches back and forward across the generations’ (1995: 24). Thus
voluntaristic civic nationalisms embed their citizens within myths of
historical continuity, and thereby become less voluntaristic.
It is indeed intrinsic to civic nationalism that it projects itself forward,
since it is, in Greenfeld’s words, an ‘emergent phenomenon’ (1992: 7)
defined in terms of the possibilities of its development, which relate to pride
in the public culture denoted by territorial statehood and citizenship, and to
visions of common destiny. Backward projection is not intrinsic, and the
emergent nationalism may reject tradition and make a break with the past
(as with the classic US model, and with some versions of contemporary
multicultural Australian nationalism, which seek to make a break with a
past of shameful racism). But, more usually, ‘various stories are concocted
[such that] personal characteristics presently seen as constitutive of national
identity are projected back on to ... distant forbears’, and ‘the nation is
conceived as a community extended in history and with a distinct character
that is natural to its members’ (Miller 1995: 34-5).
Are there good and bad nationalisms? 293
But it is at this point, when civic nations begin to employ the language of
common ancestry and nature (‘distant forebears’ and ‘natural’ character) to
refer to their pasts, and not just to their futures, that the ideal-type civic
nationalism begins to intertwine with the ideal-type cultural nationalism. It is
intrinsic to civic nationalism that ‘there is no myth of common ancestry’
(Keating 1996:6). So long as the historical myths of the nation celebrate the
diversity of the ‘concocted stories’ and the distinctiveness of their multiple
‘forebears’ who came together in the nationalist enterprise, then civic
nationalism is maintained; but once the stories begin to employ the language
of common descent - to refer to the national community, albeit colloquially,
as a national ‘race’ descended from founding ‘fathers, ‘inheriting’ common
attributes - then the civil culture of civic nationalism is being intertwined
with the ethnic culture of cultural nationalism. Miller’s attempt to see a clear
analytical distinction between a civic nationalism which refers to a historical
community comprising ‘our forebears [who] have toiled and spilled their
blood ... IW]e who are born into it inherit an obligation [to] a community
that stretches back and forth across the generations’ (Miller 1995:23), and a
cultural nationalism which claims that our fellow nationals must be our ‘kith
and kin’, a view that leads directly to racism’ (25), seems, as Andrew Vincent
notes, ‘highly dubious’ (Vincent 1995: 23). All such claims to common
ancestry denote cultural nationalism, not civic nationalism; and when
predominantly or avowedly civic nationalisms make such claims, we need to
recognise that civic nationalism is once again eliding with cultural nationalism.
Max Weber suggested that this merging is likely, since ‘the concept of
“nationality” shares with that of “the people” (VoZk) - in the ethnic sense the
vague connotation that whatever is felt to be distinctively common must
derive from common descent’ (Weber in Guibernau 1996: 32). This is the
significance of much of Anthony Smith’s work. He accepts the distinction
between civic and cultural nationalisms, but then shows how the two
intertwine in modem nationalisms which seek legitimacy through ‘ethnic
historicism’: the process whereby intellectuals seek to reconcile the need for
both legal-rational and religious legitimation, by promoting cultural regeneration
movements. Smith shows that the outcome - the character of modern
nationalism including its liberalism or illiberalism - may vary enormously,
depending upon whether the intellectuals are secular or traditional; whether
they are allied with or opposed to the state; whether the assimilationists,
reformers or neo-traditionalists are dominant; and how the myths and
symbols of community are employed. But these variations do not accord
with the civic-cultural distinction, and indeed cut across it.
It has been suggested, thus far, that the distinction between civic and
cultural nationalism cannot adequately be explained in terms of any
difference between two types of society, the primordial organic community
and the voluntaristic civil association. Actual modem nationalisms intertwine
the two. But predominantly civic nationalisms which stress common
destiny rather than common past (Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore, Nkrumah’s
294 David Brown
Ghana, Lenin’s Russia) can be in various respects illiberal or morally
regressive, just as predominantly cultural nationalisms stressing common
kinship roots might be progressive ‘moral innovators’, as John Hutchinson
has stressed (Hutchinson 1994).
The middle-class argument
Kohn related the distinction between civic and cultural nationalisms to the
issue of whether social transformation had engendered a strong middle-class
and civil society which could articulate nationalism: or whether these were
absent or weak, in which case nationalism could be articulated only by
‘scholars and poets, unsupported by public opinion - which did not exist’
(Kohn 1944: 330-1). The presence of a such a strong middle class has
frequently been seen as the key factor in the development of liberalism and
democracy (as by Lipset, Almond and Verba, and Barrington Moore). But
the anti-liberal potentialities of the middle classes have also been recognised
(by, amongst others, J. S. Mill and Alexis De Tocqueville), and this
potentiality is manifested, for example, in the rise of ‘illiberal democracy’ in
contemporary Asia (Bell et al. 1995: ch. 4). If, as Anthony Smith recognises,
‘the commitment of the bourgeoisie to rational versions of nationalism is a
dubious assumption’ and if, as both he and John Hutchinson point out,
cultural nationalism seems to occur in countries with significant bourgeoisies
as well as those without (Smith 1991: 81; Hutchinson 1987: 7, note l), then
the argument begins to look distinctly fragile.
The ambiguities are particularly evident in the case of German nationalism,
which plays a pivotal role in the development of the models under
consideration, both as the home of the major theorist^,'^ and as their classic
case of central European cultural nationalism. The problem is that this key
case does not conform to the argument that cultural nationalism is most
likely to arise in communities with a weak civil society and a weak middle
class. Meinecke recognised that German nationalism had begun as a liberal
movement of the educated middle class, but had then taken a new
authoritarian direction because of a ‘sinister development in the German
bourgeoisie’ (Meinecke 1963: 2), which ‘closed its mind more and more
against the democratic idea’ (p. 31), and thus became vulnerable to statist
manipulation of romantic ideas of a German folk-community (73-4). Erica
Benner, in her recent elucidation of Karl Marx’s analysis of German
nationalism, shows that Marx also rejected the view that it was the weakness
of the German middle classes which explained the rise of illiberal
nationalism:
It is important to stress that Marx and Engels regarded the bourgeoisie’s prudential
interests vis-u-vis the lower classes - and not bourgeois weakness in the face of intraclass
divisions, international conflicts, and traditional ruling authorities - as the
Are there good and bad nationalisms? 295
decisive factor explaining the collapse of the liberal-nationalistmovement’. (Benner
1995: 112)
Max Weber blamed a German national decline on the ‘immaturity’ of the
bourgeoisie, but by this he meant not their size or economic power, but
rather their ‘political philistinism’ (Weber, in Dahbour and Ishay 1995:
121). Liah Greenfeld’s work similarly challenges the theory that it is the
middle classes who are the architects of a liberal civic nationalism. Indeed,
as she notes, it is only the German case, amongst her European cases, which
‘lends support to the view that nationalism is a middle-class phen~menon’.’~
But it is also the German case which is most illiberal. Greenfeld seeks to
explain this as an exception in that the architects of German nationalism
were middle-class intellectuals who were ‘a group apart’ (Greenfeld 1992:
293), suspended between the wider middle class and the nobility, so that
their commitment to enlightenment rationality was transformed into a
Romantic longing for collectivism by their ‘dissatisfaction with their
personal situation’ (351) of ‘isolation and exclusion’ (p. 346), as ‘unsuccessful
intellectuals’ (345) imbued with an ‘oppressive sense of statusinconsistency’
(277). But her analysis does not support any claim that it is
the weakness of the middle classes or of civil society which were the primary
influences on the character of nationalism. The hypothesis which emerges,
rather, is perhaps that nationalism will tend to take a liberal form where its
major interpeters and articulators are from upwardly mobile class or status
groups which no longer feel under threat, but which seek to ‘preserv[e] and
guarantee ... their newly acquired status, human dignity and unhindered
ability to be and do what they believed they were entitled to’ (56). By the
same token, where nationalism is articulated by class or status groups which
feel marginalised and insecure, it might take a more collectivist and illiberal
form. But such a hypothesis does not quite work, since it leaves unexplained
why the nationalist ideologies of one particular class, whether imbued with
self-confidence or an inferiority-complex, should resonate with the wider
populace, so as to influence the complexion of the national identity. This
seems to need further examination.
The reactivity argument
Kohn noted that his ‘Central and Eastern European’ cultural nationalism
‘grew in protest against and in conflict with the existing state pattern’, with
the aim ‘to redraw the political boundaries’. This contrasted with Western
civic nationalisms which were ‘preceded by the formation of the future
national state, or as in the case of the United States, coincided with it’ (Kohn
1944: 329). He was not suggesting that nationalism would change its
character, from cultural to civic, the moment that autonomous territorial
statehood was achieved; but rather that the difference between English and
296 David Brown
French nationalisms on the one hand, which he regarded as having had a
liberal history, and German nationalism on the other, which he saw as having
generated authoritarianism, arose from the latter’s ‘dependence on the West
[which] often wounded the pride of the native educated class, as soon as it
began to develop its own nationalism, and ended in an opposition to the
“alien” example, and its liberal and rational outlook’ (Kohn 1944: 330).
The suggestion seems to be, then, that cultural nationalisms might be
illiberal because they develop as reactions against threatening others, and
seek to change the existing structure of states. In Kohn’s words, cultural
nationalism
looked for its justification and its differentiation to the heritage of its own past, and
extolled the primitive and ancient depth and peculiarities of its traditions in contrast
to Western rationalism and to universal standards ... [It was] dependent upon, and
opposed to, influences from without ... [It] lacked self-assurance; its inferiority
complex was often compensated by overemphasis and overconfidence’ (1994: 330)
Civic nationalisms, on the other hand, are depicted as liberal in that they
are not reactive, but emerge rather out of an internally generated process,
and function so as to legitimate, rather than to change, existing state
structures. In the case of the English model (‘God’s firstborn’), ‘national
consciousness was first and foremost the consciousness of one’s dignity as
an individual ... Thus English nationalism had time to gestate .. . and
became a powerful force which no longer needed buttresses to exist. It
acquired its own momentum. It existed in its own right’ (Greenfeld 1992:
87). In the American model, nationalism grew out of, rather than reacted
against, its European ‘other’, ‘not a movement of romantic protest against
the Western equalitarian and rational attitude ... but the consummation of
this western attitude’ (Kohn 1944: 291-2). ‘Americans could unite men of
different pasts, because on the basis of rationalism and individualism they
rejected the foundations of the past ... [relying instead on] the suggestions
of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the
lessons of their own experience (324).
But this argument immediately faces the problem that there is a sense in
which all nationalisms, whether civic or cultural, are necessarily reactive in
that their origin is in assertions of an identity demarcating ‘us’ from ‘them’;
the ‘them’ being either the authoritarian ruler suppressing civil society, or
the external enemy threatening societal unity. This applies just as much to
nationalisms which are both predominantly civic and predominantly liberal,
such as American nationalism which grew out of reactive rebellion against
British rule, as it does to predominantly cultural and predominantly illiberal
nationalisms, as with the German case.
Perhaps there is a useful insight here, nevertheless, in that the greater the
perception of a threatening other, the more likely it is that the society will
need to mobilise itself as a collective entity against that threat, and thence to
suppress individual liberties so as to promote that mobilisation. Greenfeld
Are there good and bad nationalisms? 297
makes the point. She uses the term ressentiment primarily to refer to feelings
of inferiority, and thence of envy and hatred, in reaction to other
nationalisms, and explains that ‘Ressentimentnot only makes a nation more
aggressive, but represents an unusually powerful stimulant of national
sentiment and collective action’ (Greenfeld 1992:488).
But granting this for the moment, it remains unclear as to whether
cultural nationalism is necessarily any more reactive in origin than is civic
nationalism. It is also not clear that the reactive origin of nationalism
necessarily determines its subsequent development, which may become
either internally generated or may remain focused on ressentiment. In the
case of cultural nationalism, there does not seem to be anything intrinsically
reactive about the process of building a modern nation on the basis of
strong ethnic myths of common origin. Illiberalism might indeed be implied
when the reaction to other nationalisms takes the form of ethnocentric
assertions of superiority, in that a collectivist closure may be needed so as to
maintain the demarcation. But cultural nationalisms with reactive origins
might well, as in Herder’s vision, recognise the equal right of all cultural
communities to similar political autonomy in a brotherhood of nations.
Such polycentric nationalisms are likely to develop, as Yael Tamir argues,
in liberal directions (Tamir 1993:ch. 4).
The suggestion that civic nationalism will be non-reactive and therefore
liberal similarly seems problematical. Indeed, since civic nationalism is
portrayed as following from the achievement of statehood, rather than
preceding it, it seems vulnerable to illiberalism, in that the period between
the acquisition of territorial statehood, and the subsequent mature development
of national consciousness might well be conducive to the type of
‘authoritarian-collectivist’ shortcut to nationalism noted by Greenfeld, in
which the sense of ‘us’ is generated by political elites, precisely against
‘them’. In this way, many of the anti-colonial nationalisms directed against
European colonialism have been predominantly civic in character, reactive
in origin and illiberal in politics.
A reformulation
It might be possible to explain more effectively the difference between the
liberal and illiberal versions of nationalism if we make a connection between
Kohn’s distinction between nationalisms which arise out of an ‘inferiority
complex’ in relation to an ‘alien’ other (Kohn 1944: 330) and those which
arise out of optimistic ‘faith ... in the virtues of life and liberty in the new
and unfettered world’ (p. 293)’ and Greenfeld’s distinction between those
nationalisms which are articulated by classes or status groups feeling
marginalised, and those articulated by an upwardly mobile class or status
group imbued with self confidence and pride. Such a connection is
sometimes implied by Greenfeld,I6 but is more clearly indicated by Peter
298 David Brown
Alter in his distinction between what he termed ‘Risorgimento’ nationalism,
and ‘Integral’ nationalism. Alter explains the rise of Fascist (integral)
nationalism in Germany as being based both on the insecurities of the ‘old
and the new middle classes [who] felt their material existence and social
status to be under threat. (Alter 1989: 46); and also on the ‘crisis of national
self-confidence, the putative looming of extraordinary perils from outside,
real or perceived threats to the continued existence of the nation’ (46).
Liberal (Risorgimento) nationalism similarly began as a ‘protest movement’
(p. 29) but developed in a liberal direction first because it ‘accompanie[d] the
liberation . . . of new social strata’ (p. 28), and second, because it articulated
an intrinsically self-confident mood of awakening and resurrection which
saw a process of emancipation from oppression as already underway or
imminent.
Thus instead of arguing as hitherto that cultural nationalisms are
intrinsically illiberal, it may be useful to reformulate the argument. Perhaps
it is those nationalisms, whether civic or cultural, which are articulated by
insecure elites and which constitute ressentiment-based reactions against
others who are perceived as threatening, which consequently become
illiberal. By the same token, perhaps civic and cultural nationalisms which
begin as protest movements but do not develop their identity primarily in
relation to threatening others, and which are articulated by self-confident
elites, are most likely to take a liberal form. Feelings of insecurity on the
part both of the articulators of nationalist ideologies, and of their mass
audiences, have the potentiality to transform all nationalisms in collectivist
and illiberal directions, irrespective of their civic and cultural mix,
depending upon how ‘the other’ and thence ‘the self’ are depicted.
This reformulation of the argument builds upon the insights of Kohn and
Meinecke, but involves a shift of focus. Instead of looking to the character of
the community or the incidence of middle classes for the explanation of
whether nationalism is liberal or authoritarian, we are led to look both at the
ways in which political elites depict the nationalist goals, and the insecurities,
threats or enemies which inhibit their attainment; and also at the receptivity
of the wider populace to these nationalist visions and threats.
Illiberal nationalism is thus most likely when it is articulated by an
insecure class or stratum, and where the wider populace is also experiencing
insecurities which make it receptive to the collectivist solutions offered by
propagators of nationalism. Political leaders may, in differing circumstances,
portray contemporary threats as coming from oppositionist activists or
from class unrest, and may thereby be led, as in the case of Singapore, in
the direction of depicting ideas of individual rights and liberties as the
primary threat to the nationalist vision. They can then assert that the
survival and development of the predominantly civic nation depends upon
ensuring that the national ‘general will’ is not weakened or subverted by the
partial vested interests of dissident individuals. In those cases where
opposition is clustered in particular regions of the country, or amongst
Are there good and bad nationalisms? 299
particular cultural groups, then political elites may choose to demonise such
opposition, as in contemporary Kenya, by depicting it as ethnic in origin,
and denigrating it as sectarianism, communalism or racism. Elsewhere, it
may be that political leaders can convince the populace that the threat
comes from outside - from other nation-states whose territorial, economic
or political claims can be shown to impinge on the national destiny - so
that such nationalisms will be ‘illiberal’ in the sense that they assert the
superiority of the national ‘us’ over the alien ‘other’, either in xenophobic
attacks on specific nation-states, or in more generalised denigrations of
foreign influencesas communist, western values, Asian menace, etc. Political
elites who wish to close off their society against external influences or
employ scapegoat strategies against minorities might, as previously noted,
find it useful to depict the threats in racial terms, and to popularise their
own myths of common history in racial terms. The influence of such
depictions upon national consciousness partly depends, no doubt, both on
the culture of the society, and on the actual situational challenges, and
thence the types of insecurities facing the society; but political elites do have
flexibility in the portrayal of enemies, and this gives a fluidity to the
character of nationalism, and in particular to the liberalism or illiberalism
of nationalist politics.
Thus civic nationalism may develop in either liberal or illiberal directions
depending upon how effectivelyits visions of civic community are employed
by the mobilising elites to resolve societal aspirations or fears. And cultural
nationalism should be seen as neither intrinsically the ‘progressive’engine of
minority and indigenous ethnic rights, nor intrinsically ‘regressive’ and
oppressive of the individual, as its recent manifestations in the Balkans
might seem to indicate. As John Hutchinson showed in his study of cultural
nationalism, the character of Irish nationalism changed remarkably in three
different ‘revivals’, from Anglo-Irish and liberal to Gaelic and populist,
depending upon which intellectuals were mobilising it; which threats and
dangers they stressed; and which symbols - religious or secular - they
employed (Hutchinson 1987).
Conclusions
The distinction between the two ideal-type models of nationalism, civic and
cultural, is indeed a significant one, distinguishing visions of community
which are rooted in perceptions of common ancestry, from those which
focus on perceptions of the continuous integration of individuals of diverse
backgrounds into one new family home, with its distinctive institutions and
common destiny. This distinction is central to an understanding of the
political tensions and dynamics of modem nationalisms, and, in particular,
to the debate as to how states should be managing their ethnic minorities.
But the focus here has been upon unpacking the sets of assumptions which
300 David Brown
have been associated with the two terms in relation to their allegedly
intrinsic liberalism or illiberalism. The view that civic nationalism is liberal
because it refers to a voluntaristic society, while cultural nationalism is
illiberal because it refers to an ascriptive community, has been criticised,
since both forms of nationalism seek to tie the component individuals into
communities of obligation which are depicted as persisting through time,
and both have the capacity to prioritise either the collectivity or the
individual. The view that civic nationalism is liberal because of the presence
of a strong middle class was also criticised, on the ground that illiberal
middle classes are not unusual. Finally, the view that cultural nationalism
tends to be illiberal because its origins are reactive, was criticised on the
grounds that the link between cultural nationalism and reactive nationalism
seems more likely to be a contingent one. It was then argued, however, that
nationalisms which are both articulated by a marginalised or insecure class
or status group, and which appeal to a widespread ressentiment-based
reaction to a threatening other, are indeed more likely to be illiberal than
are nationalisms which are internally generated and articulated by secure
elites. But the nature and extent of this illiberalism should be seen as a
political variable. The conclusion is that the difference between liberal and
illiberal manifestations of nationalism cannot be explained by reference to
the distinction between its civic and cultural forms. Nationalism does have
two ideological faces, civic and cultural; but its political character is surely
protean rather than Janus-faced.
Notes
1 See, for example, Alter (1989: 37): ‘integral nationalism ... is encountered under various
titles. Radical; extreme; militant; aggressive-expansionist; derivative; right-wing; reactionary;
excessive.’ Guibernau refers to cultural nationalism as ‘Romantic nationalism’ (Guibernau
1996: 55-7).
2 The term ‘political’ is used for example by John Hutchinson, and ‘social’, by James Kellas.
‘State’ is the term used by Meinecke.
3 The term ‘ethnicity’ is used here to refer to a sense of identity based on myths of common
ancestry. The term ‘cultural nationalism’ refers to the belief that a community claiming
common ancestry should constitute a sovereign people. or at least a people with significant
political autonomy. It is possible for a cultural nation to include within itself several ethnic
communities, with the latter being portrayed as ‘sub-families’ within the former, as with the
sub-groups of the Han Chinese.
4 On Herder (1744-1803), see Meinecke (1972: ch. 9). On Fichte (1762-1814), see Kedourie
(1993) and Greenfeld (1992). On Weber, see Guibernau (1996).
5 Smith first suggested this distinction in 1971: ‘All nationalist movements, then, can be
placed along a continuum. At one end, we have the “Ethnic” movements with a high degree of
cultural distinctiveness; at the other, the “Territoriuf’ movements bound only by aspirations
and a common territorial-cum-political base’ (Smith 1971: 218).
6 Though it is in fact this aspect of Kohn’s argument which he had criticised (Smith 1991: 81).
7 The development of these issues is outside the focus of this article, but they are more fully
discussed in a forthcoming book on Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Nation-State.
Are there good and bad nationalisms? 301
8 This is not to suggest that the theorists previously referred to do not examine these issues,
merely that these are not elucidated by this particular aspect of their conceptualisations of
nationalism. Thus Greenfeld, for example, does seek to explain the complexities of French
nationalism by showing how the two models of nationalism have interwoven, but it is indicative
that her study actually shows the interweaving of three stages of French nationalism, none of
which correspond with the models.
9 During research amongst the Ewe community in Ghana, conducted in the 1970s, it was
interesting to hear elders who accepted that they were factually of Akan origin recite the Ewe
myths of ancestry and migration as their own. They had assimilated into the language and
culture of their new home, and it was only polite (and politic) to also take on their myths of
origin.
10 This suggested argument is pursued in the discussion of the reactivity argument below, and
thereafter.
11 It must be said however, that Fichte’s conception of individual freedom involved a
Rousseauean vision in which the will of the individual is fused with the will of the nation.
Fichte’s notions of German superiority (‘only the German ... is capable of real and rational
love for his nation’) has similarly illiberal connotations (Kedourie 1993: 61, 77-8).
12 The major issues of this debate are examined in Kymlicka (1995b).
13 Greenfeld relates the character of nationalism to variations in the type of tensions which
emerged in hierarchical societies, and the type of ‘images of social order’ imagined by emergent
elites (1992: 490). She thus recognises the element of elite choice, but sees their interpretations
of nationalism, whether liberal or collectivist, primarily as the articulations of particular
cultural traditions.
14 Including Herder, Fichte, Meinecke, Kohn (German Czech) and Alter.
15 She argues that the architects of the classic case of a liberal civic nationalism, that of
England, were the new aristocracy. The growing middle classes played a role subsequently, as
its main propagators (Greenfeld 1992: ch. 1).
16 She uses the term consistently to refer to reaction to other nationalisms, but locates that
reaction primarily in the groups who articulate the national consciousness. She never uses the
term to refer to the frustrated status expectations of elite groups in the absence of any externally
directed resentments (Greenfeld 1992).
References
Almond, G. and S. Verba. 1963. The Civic Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Alter, P. 1989. Nationalism. London: Edward Arnold.
Bell, D., D. Brown, K. Jayasurya and M. D. Jones. 1995. Towards Illiberal Democracy in
Benner, E. 1995.Really Existing Nationalisms. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Chapman, M. 1993. ‘Social and biological aspects of ethnicity’, in M. Chapman (ed.), Social
and Biological Aspects of Ethnicity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dahbour, 0. and M. R. Ishay (eds.) 1995. The Nationalism Reader. New Jersey: Humanities
Press.
De Tocqueville, A. 1840. Democracy in America, vols. I and 111. New York: Vintage.
Dikotter, F. 1990.‘The idea of race in modern China’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 13, 3: 421-31.
Eller, J. D. and R. M. Coughlan. 1993. ‘The poverty of primordialism: the demystification of
ethnic attachments’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 16, 2: 183-201.
Feuer, L. S. (ed.) 1969. Marx and Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy. London:
Fontana.
Geertz, C. 1963. ‘The integrative revolution: primordial sentiments and civil politics in the new
states’, in C. Geertz (ed.), Old Societies and New States: The Questfor Modernity in Asia and
Africa. New York: Free Press of Glencoe.
Pacific Asia. London: Macmillan.
302 David Brown
Greenfeld, L. 1992. Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Guibernau, M. 1996. Nationalisms: The Nation-State and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century.
Hayes, C. J. H. 1949. The.Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism. New York: Macmillan.
Horowitz, D. L. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Los Angeles and London: University of
Hutchinson, J. 1987. The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism: The Gaelic Revival and the Creation
Hutchinson, J. 1994. Modern Nationalism. London: Fontana.
Keating, M. 1996. Nations Against the State. London: Macmillan.
Kedourie, E. 1993. Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kellas, J. G. 1991. The Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity. London: Macmillan.
Kohn, H. 1944. The Idea of Nationalism. New York: Macmillan.
Kohn, H. 1962. The Age of Nationalism. New York: Harper and Row.
Kymlicka, W. 1989.Liberalism, Community and Culture. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kymlicka, W. 1995a. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford:
Kymlicka, W. (ed.) 1995b. The Rights of Minority Cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lipset, S. M. 1960. Political Man: The Social Basis of Politics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
Meinecke, F. 1963. The German Catastrophe: Reflections and Recollections. 1st edn 1950.
Meinecke, F. 1972. Historicism: The Rise of a New Historical Outlook. 1st edn 1959. London:
Mill, J. S. 1970. Utilitarianism. On Liberty, and Essay on Bentham, ed. M. Warnock, London:
Miller, D. 1995. On Nationality. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Minogue, K. R. 1961.Nationalism. London: Batsford.
Moore, Barrington. 1966. The Social Origin of Dictatorship and Democracy. Boston, MA:
Nairn, T. 1997.Faces of Nationalism: Janus Revisited. London: Verso.
Ronen, D. 1979. The Quest for Self-Determination. New Haven, CT/London: Yale University
Smith, A. D. 1971. Theories of Nationalism. London: Duckworth.
Smith, A. D. 1991. National Identity. London: Penguin.
Smith, A. D. 1995.Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Tamir, Y. 1993. Liberal Nationalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Todorov, T. 1993. On Human Diversity: Nationalism, Racism, and Exoticism in French Thought.
Vincent, A. 1997. ‘Liberal nationalism: an irresponsible compound?, Political Studies 45, 2:
Press.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
California Press.
of the Irish Nation Stare. London: Allen and Unwin.
Clarendon Press.
University Press.
Boston: Beacon Press.
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Fontana.
Beacon Press.
Press.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
275-95.