What explanations are offered for the development of nationalism? Why is it such a potent force after the Cold War?

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What explanations are offered for the development of nationalism ? Why is it such a potent force after the Cold War

Introduction

The roots of nationalism go back to the middle of the eighteenth century and a movement called romanticism . Affecting art , journalism philosophy , music , and politics , romanticism was a mood or a disposition that defied rigid definition . It did indicate a revolt against rationalism and a consequent emphasis on sentiment , feeling , and imagination . The emotions of the heart , it was argued , though

br irrational , should be valued over and above the intellectualizations of the head . So that whereas Reny Descartes had said "I think , therefore I am " Jean-Jacques Rousseau proclaimed "A thinking man is a depraved animal

In this havoc of power and ideas , one familiar face has re-emerged : that of nationalism . For many it is as undesirable as it is unbidden and unexpected . For others its recurrence is regrettable but comes as no surprise . For still others , it symbolizes the only sure way forward after the sudden shatters created by developmental paths of so numerous societies . For all , nationalism symbolizes a stage in the evolution of humanity to 'higher forms ' of culture , one that should be endured or embraced , but is certainly destined to pass after a few chaotic decades (Smith 1995 Brown Micheal , 1997

of these situations seems to accord with the chronological facts or sociological realisms of ethnicity and nationalism . Instead of treating ethnicity and nationalism as phenomenon in their own right , they persist on evaluating them by the yardstick of a liberal evolutionary scheme overt or tacit , one that is intrinsically problematic and perceptibly irrelevant to the dynamics of nations , nationalism and ethnic conflict For liberals and socialists dedicated to the view that humanity progresses in stages to greater units of comprehensiveness and higher values , the nation and nationalism can simply represent a halfway house to the aim of a cosmopolitan culture and a global polity

On the one hand , the nation can be applauded for superseding all those local , inscriptive ties and communities that have controlled innovation and opportunity and enchained the human spirit . Its wider horizons have brought collectively all kinds of peoples with changeable origins religions , occupations and class backgrounds and turned them into citizens of the defensive , civic nation . Conversely , the nation today has become an obstruction to progress , seeking ineffectively to control the flow of information and the channels of mass communication , and to obstruct and control the great economic institutions--transnational companies , world banks and trade organizations and the global financial and commodities markets . Although the great forces of globalization economic , political and cultural , have already diluted the power of the nation-state and are fast making all national boundaries and responses obsolete (Schopfin , George , 2000 Hobsbawm 1990 : ch . 6

Romanticism rejected the idea of the independence of the individual and stressed identification with an external whole , with something outside of oneself . Quite normally , this outside whole took the form of nature as marked in the...