New Nationalisms of the Developed West: Toward Explanation by Edward A. Tiryakian & Ronald Rogowski

Author:Edward A. Tiryakian & Ronald Rogowski [Tiryakian, Edward A. & Rogowski, Ronald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367442361
Google: ajGLzgEACAAJ
Goodreads: 58501748
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1985-05-28T00:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

Comparative Analyses

10

From Primordialism to Nationalism

JUAN J. LINZ

Introduction

Very often in the social sciences, in the absence of hard data, the conceptualization of social phenomena tends toward reification, the use of relatively simple typologies, a preference for dichotomies, and so on. This is certainly the case with much of the literature using the terms “nation” and “ethnicity” in the study of peripheral or emerging nationalisms or of drives for devolution in old states. The ambiguous results of elections and referendums in which the aspirations of peripheral nationalists were at issue should have led to a more careful and empirical analysis, to a consideration of the multiple and different types of identity and of the very imperfect correspondence between them and the political expressions of nationalism. Data collected in the various peripheries of Spain and in the French Basque country will allow us to explore more systematically some of the complexities involved.

The subject of different cultural and/or political aspirations is generally left undefined by the use of generic expressions like the Basques or the Welsh, or of terms like the Basque nation, people, ethnic group, and so on. Little effort is made to define more precisely who is meant by those terms, what distinguishing characteristics are used to include someone in those categories, and how to verify the degree to which such a collective entity is a reality, experienced as such by its assumed members. It is generally left to the reader of both political statements and academic writings to fill those concepts with empirical referents. However, both in the political tracts and the academic analyses, those concepts have very different content, resulting in much misunderstanding.

Much of the theorizing of nationalist ideologists and academics focusses on what has been called primordial ties or identities, initially labeled as such in the work of Edward Shils or Clifford Geertz (1963, p. 109). Primordial ties have been defined as relations based on a common language, culture, distinctive religion, or kinship. The writings of the founding fathers of the nationalist movements certainly refer constantly to these primordial elements. However, such ties constitute a weak and uncertain basis for political action and, ultimately, for the creation of an independent nation-state, at least in the context of the old states of Europe.

Karl Deutsch in his classic work Nationalism and Social Communication (1966) might have been wrong in assuming that with increased modernization, industrialization, and therefore communication, many minor nationalities would be absorbed and assimilated into the larger nation-state. Yet there can be little question that, in the old states of Europe, the primordial elements have been weakened, in some cases perhaps irremediably, by those processes. Particularly in highly industrialized regions, as is the case in the Basque country and Catalonia in Spain, internal migrations since the late nineteenth century have produced a heterogeneous population in which the descendants of immigrants and immigrants of recent decades constitute a large proportion. The natural processes, as well as the deliberate action of the state, have produced a loss of the traditional languages, a cultural assimilation, and an identification with the larger nation-state.

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