Bernard Yack Sovereignty Nationalism

7/27/2019 Bernard Yack Sovereignty Nationalism

1/21

Popular Sovereignty and NationalismAuthor(s): Bernard YackSource: Political Theory, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Aug., 2001), pp. 517-536Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3072522 .

Accessed: 20/07/2011 07:51

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sage. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Political Theory.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sagehttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3072522?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sagehttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sagehttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3072522?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sage


2/21

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY AND NATIONALISM

BERNARDYACKUniversityof Wisconsin,Madison

NATIONALISMND THEMODERNDOCTRINEOFPOPULARSOVEREIGNTYEven a briefglanceat moder historysuggeststhatthere is animportantconnectionbetweenpopularsovereigntyandthe riseandspreadof national-ism. Forwhereverpopularsovereignty eads, nationalismseems to follow.Almosteverygreat andmarkn thehistoryof popular overeignty-from theGlorious Revolution in 1688, the North and SouthAmericanwars of inde-

pendence,thegreatFrenchRevolutionof 1789,andthe "springtime f peo-ples" in 1848 to the collapse of the European,colonial empiresandSovietempiresin the twentiethcentury-looms largein thehistoryof nationalismas well.At firstglance then, it seems clear that"withouta historically nformedunderstanding f the theoryof popularsovereignty,no clarificationof thelanguageof nation-statesandnationalism s possible."'At theveryleast,thetimingof these developmentsmakespopularsovereigntyseem much moreplausiblethanmodernizationas a sourceof nationalism.For while commit-ments to popularsovereigntyusuallyprecedetheemergenceof nationalism,the institutionsand processes associated with modernizationmost oftencome on the scene only afternationalismhas alreadybecome popular.2But correlationsdo not establish connections, let alone causation. Weneedto identifysome causalmechanismor some theorythatwouldexplainwhy belief in popularsovereigntyshould lead to the political assertionofnational oyalties, if we aregoing to treatit as one of the majorsources ofnationalism.That s whatItryto do in thisarticle.Fordespiterepeated laimsthat"nationalisms incoherentwithoutpopular overeignty" r thatnational-ism is nothing more than "the applicationto nationalcommunityof theEnlightenmentdoctrineof popular overeignty,"3herehas notbeen much ofa sustainedeffort atwhy explainingwhy this is true.4Those who maketheseclaims seemto assumethatthemeaningof popular overeigntyand ts appli-cationto thenation s self-evidentorat leastfairly easy to grasp.Inthisarti-POLITICALTHEORY,Vol. 29 No. 4, August2001 517-536? 2001 Sage Publications

517


3/21

518 POLITICALTHEORY August2001

cle, I shalltryto show thatthisassumptions mistakenon bothfronts: 1) thespreadof popular overeigntydoctrinehas alteredourunderstandingf polit-ical community n ways that areanythingbut self-evident,and (2) it is bymeansof this alteredunderstanding f politicalcommunity hat t has madeits greatestcontributiono the rise andspreadof nationalism.The most common explanationof the parallels between popularandnationalsovereignty s also the simplest:sharepowerwith the people, andyoufreethemto asserttheirnationality.Democratizinggovernment,accord-ing to this argument,s boundto nationalize t. For,as MichaelWalzerelo-quentlyputsit, whenyou "bring hepeople intopoliticallife ... theyarrivemarching n tribalranksandorders,carryingwith them theirown language,historicalmemories, customs,beliefs, andcommitments."5There is much to be said in favor of this explanationof popularsover-eignty'scontributiono thepoliticizationof national oyalties.Nevertheless,it has seriouslimitations.First,thehistoryof democraticrepublicsdoes notsupport he claim that when you free ordinarypeople to enterpolitics, theywill bringalong and asserttheirnationalloyalties. The citizens of ancientGreekand medievalor renaissanceItaliancity-statesknew whatit meanttothinkof themselves as Greeksand Italians.Theysimplydid notconnectthatsense of nationalcommunity o politicallife.6Thatsuggeststhatsomethingmore thanliberation rom theconstraintsof undemocratic orms of govern-ment must lie behind the politicization of national loyalties in modemdemocracies.Second,it oftenseems to be the case thatthe spreadof popularsovereigntydoctrines seems to promote the discovery or rediscoveryofnational oyalties,rather hanmerelyremoveconstraintsontheirexpression.That too suggests that the connection between popularsovereignty andnationalism nvolvessomethingmore thandemocratization.Finally,a focuson democratization ndulynarrows hescopeof popular overeignty's nflu-ence on nationalism.For even authoritarian nd totalitariannationalistsinvokepopular sovereigntyto justify theirdemandsfor extremeforms ofnationalself-assertion.7 n doing so, they insist thata free andwise peoplewould investtheirauthorityn apartyor a leader hatbest embodiestheirwill,which suggests that illiberaland antidemocraticnterpretations f popularsovereigntymay also contribute o the politicizationof national oyalties.

Itis a mistake, n anycase, to identifythemoder doctrineof popular ov-ereigntywithcommitment o democratic orms of government.Thedoctrineof popular sovereignty popularizedby the English,American,and FrenchRevolutionsdefinitelypromotesa moreegalitarianpictureof politicalorder,since it denies thatanyindividualorgroupcan claimpolitical authorityas aproprietary ight,as something hat heycandisposeof astheychoose. Anditcan easily become the startingpoint forjustificationsfor more democratic


4/21

Yack / POPULARSOVEREIGNTYAND NATIONALISM 519

forms of government,as one extends consent from the establishmentandaccountabilityof state authorityto the election of officeholders and theapprovalof particularpolicies. But this new doctrineof popularsovereigntyinvestsfinalauthorityn animaginedcommunity,all of a territory'snhabit-antsimaginedas a collective body,rather hanin any institutionallydefinedflesh andbloodmajority.As aresult, t introducesa distinctionbetweenwhatwe mightcall "thepeople'stwo bodies."8Alongsideanimageof thepeoplewho actuallyparticipaten politicalinstitutions, t constructsanother mageof the people as a prepoliticalcommunitythat establishes these institutionsand has the final say on theirlegitimacy.It is the lattercommunity,not themajorityof citizens,that s sovereign n thisnew doctrine.For as Article3 ofthe FrenchDeclarationof theRightsof Man andCitizendeclares,"Theprin-ciple of all sovereigntyresidesessentiallyin thenation.Nor cananyindivid-ual,orgroupof individuals,be entitled oany authoritywhich is notexpresslyderivedfrom it."9Thetraditionalunderstanding f popularsovereigntywas muchsimpler:rule by the people, the exercise of political authorityby the many or themajorityrather hanby a monarchor an aristocratic ouncil. The new doc-trine of popular sovereigntydeclares instead that no person or persons-whetherone, few, or many-should ever have the final say over how tomake use of the state'sauthority. ndoing so, it constructsa vision of whatIstvan Hont aptly calls "indirectsovereignty"'0with which to temperthestrugglesamongtheone, thefew, and themanyforcontrolof themachineryof government.The new doctrineof popularsovereigntyreplacesdirectpopularrule,orgovernmental overeignty,with what has come to be calledthe "constituentsovereignty"of thepeople.12The doctrinerests on a distinctionbetweenthepowerto establishordisestablish ormsof governmentand thepowersdele-gated to actual rulers. The former,the constituentpower,is unlimited andalwaysremainswiththepeople,understood s the wholebodyof aterritory'slegalinhabitants.Thelatter, hegovernmental rconstitutedpower, s limitedto thosepowersdelegatedbythepeopleto theirrulers,whoevertheymaybe.Understood n this way, popular sovereignty argumentshave been used tocounterpopularas well as monarchicclaims to absolutepower.And theyhave lent legitimacyto constitutionalmonarchiesand even dictatorshipsnwhich leadersor partiesclaim to embody the people's deep but unspokenwill, as well as to variousforms of democracy.13The centralargument f thisarticle s that t is bymeans of this new visionof indirect sovereignty that the modern doctrine of popular sovereigntymakesits mostimportant ontribution o the riseof nationalism.Thisvisionof indirect overeignty, shallargue, ntroducesa newunderstandingf polit-


5/21


ical community,one that endsbothto nationalizeourunderstandingf poli-tics and to politicize our understanding f nationality.Connectingpopularsovereigntyandnationalism n thisway maybe less familiaranddirectthantalkingabout he democratization f government.But asI shalltryto show, toffers a moreplausibleexplanationof the parallelsbetween them.To make this argument,however, I need first to distinguish clearlybetween two conceptionsof communitythat areoften identified with eachother:the nation and thepeople. Afterdoing so, I shallgo on to presentmyargumentaboutthe connectionsbetweenpopularsovereigntyand national-ism.Andinthefinalsection,Ishall discusssomepractical mplicationsof myargument.

THENATIONAND THEPEOPLEA largepartof thestoryof theemergenceandspreadof nationalism ies inthewayin which these two imagesof community, he nationandthepeople,have become entangled in our minds. Disentangling them, however, isextremelydifficult, since we tend to use the words"nation"and "people"interchangeably,both in ordinaryand scholarlylanguage.Accordingly,Iwantto emphasize hatmy distinctionbetween these two imagesof commu-nity is conceptual, ratherthan linguistic, in nature. When I describe oneimageof communityas "thepeople"and the otheras "thenation," amnotsuggestingthatthis is how the termsareordinarilyusedin Englishor in anyother anguagewith which I am familiar.14I ammerelyusingthesetermsasreferencepointsfortwodistinctwaysof imaginingcommunity.Thestraining

of ordinaryanguageis, I believe, worththe effort,since it helps us capturesomething importantaboutthe way we thinkaboutcommunity n modernpoliticallife.15With thatcaveat,here is how I proposeto distinguishthese two concep-tions of community.'6Both thepeopleand the nationare,inBenedictAnder-son's famous phrase, "imaginedcommunities."That is to say, they derivetheir characteras communities from the way in which distantindividualsimaginetheirconnectionsto eachother,rather hanfromtheirdirector indi-rect nteractionwith each other.7Nevertheless, heyarebasedontwo distinctways of imaginingthe connections thatbind us to each other.Nationalcommunity, suggest,is animageof communityover time.Whatbinds us into nationalcommunities s ourimageof a sharedheritagethatispassed,in modifiedform,fromone generation o another.Nationalcommu-nities,as aresult,areimaginedas starting romsome specific pointof originin the pastandextendforward nto anindefinitefuture.Thepeople, in con-


6/21

Yack POPULARSOVEREIGNTYAND NATIONALISM 521

trast,presentsanimageof communityoverspace. Itportraysall individualswithin the given boundariesof a state as membersof a communityfromwhich the state derives its legitimateauthority. f nationalcommunitypro-vides a bridgeacrossthe chasm thatseparatesone generation romanother,thepeopleoffers abridgeoverthe chasmthatseparatesndividuals romeachother ntheireffortsto shapeandcontroltheauthority f thestate.18 he con-ceptof the nationallows us to imaginetheevolving community hatprecedesour existence and survivesour death.'9The conceptof the people allows usimaginethe communitythat we share at any particularmomentin dealingwith the state'scoerciveauthority.As such,thepeopleexists in akind of eternalpresent.Itneveragesor dies.Nor does it change in character rom one instance to another.The peopleinvoked as the ultimatesource of the Swedish state'slegitimateauthority sno different n character han the people invoked as the source of the legiti-mateauthorityof theChineseor Canadian tate. Ineverycase, thepeople isthe same: the whole bodyof aterritory'snhabitantsmaginedas the finalorsovereign judge of how the state's authorityshould be constructedandemployed.Nationalcommunitymaybe strongorweak,risingorfalling.Thepeople,in contrast, s alwaysin place, alwaysavailable o be invoked n one's strug-gles withpoliticalauthorityor in one's competitionforpolitical power.Forthepeopleexistsby rightrather hanby customorconsciousnessraising.Toassertordenyits existenceis amatterof ideologyrather hana matterof soci-ology.20t exists as longas onebelieves in aparticularheoryof political egit-imacy.Those who deny its existence areguilty of an injusticerather hanamisdescription.Perhaps hat s whywe talkso little about"people-building,"in spiteof all of our talk about"nation-building."21nation needs time andeffort to establisha legacy of memories andsymbols salientenoughto linkone generation o another. ndeed,one cannotreallybe sureabout the exis-tence of a nationuntilone hasgivenit sufficienttime to grow-or collapse.22Thepeople,incontrast,needs nonurturing.t is availableassoon as individu-als accepttheprinciplesof legitimacythat assert its existence.The nation s a relativelyold form of community, houghnew nationsareconstantlybeingbornand old ones aredyingoff as differentconfigurationsof culturalsymbolsand historicalmemoriesgainor lose significance.23 hepeople, in contrast, s relativelynew ormoder; it was invented o solve cer-tainproblemsof political legitimacyin the moder state.It draws on olderimagesof thepeople as theplebs or multitudeof ordinary olks in anycom-munity,as well as images of the people as the demos or the ruling groupwithina community.But thepeopleof popularsovereigntydoctrinesignifi-cantlyaltersboth of these earlier mages.It altersthe imageof thepeopleas


7/21


plebs by makingall inhabitants f a governed erritorymembersof thepeo-ple, an invention hat owers the statusof thenobilityandraises the statusofordinarypeoplein importantways.24Andit alterstheimageof thepeopleasdemosor rulersby makingthe people the constituentsovereignthat estab-lishes government ather han the governingsovereign,as notedabove.Understood in this way, the people is clearly a very abstractconcept.Hegel, for one, complainedabout this abstractness.He arguedthattalkingabout the people as the ultimate source of its institutions and proceduresmerely gives political charlatans and nationalistdemagogues an emptyphrasewith which toconjureupterriblemischief.25 orHegel,it makessenseto talk about hepeopleas thegovernmental overeign,since in doingso, wewouldonlybe suggestingthatthereshouldbe arelativelydemocratic onsti-tution of political power.What seemedso mysteriousanddangerous o himwas the idea of thepeopleastheconstituent overeign,since the lackof insti-tutionaldefinition n such aconceptionof thepeoplemakes t aperfectvehi-cle for irrationalappealsto public passions.26Butit is preciselythe abstract r moremysteriousconceptof thepeopleasconstituentsovereignthat hasplayedanindispensablerole in liberal demo-craticpolitics.27Mysterious tmaybe,perhaps ven moremysterious han heideaof the"king's wobodies," ince thekingat least startswith asingle bodyto dressup in one's imagination.28 evertheless,this idea of the people asconstituentsovereigns"is now accepted n all [liberaldemocratic]constitu-tionalsystems.... Itmayevenappearobvious."29 he older deaof thepeopleas the commoners-the mass of humble,ordinarycitizens, as opposed toupper-and middle-classelites-certainly survivesin modernpolitics. It isalwaysavailableto fuel populist appeals againstthe advantagesof the richandpowerful.Andthe ideaof thepeopleas demoscertainlysurvivesto sus-taindemands orgreaterdemocracy.But the most influential dea of thepeo-ple inmodernpoliticaltheoryandpoliticsis this newerone thatallows all of aterritory'snhabitants o be spokenof as the collective sourceof the state'sauthority.Beforeturning o my argumentaboutpopularsovereignty'scontributionto the riseof nationalism, would like to emphasizeanimportant mbiguityorinconsistency nthisconceptof thepeople.Thepeopleis clearly maginedas a boundedcommunity.Butwhencedoes it derive ts boundaries?On onehand, tseems likethere s asimpleandclearanswer o thequestion.A peoplederives ts boundaries rom its state.30tis sovereigntywithinthe boundariesof its state's erritories, ndnothingmore, hat hepeopleclaim. Ifpeoplesarethe communities to which states are accountable, then the boundariesbetween one people and anotherwill be the boundaries hatdistinguishthereach of one state's coerciveauthority rom another's.Onthe otherhand,if


8/21


thepeopleis imaginedaspriorto thestate,as thecommunity hatauthorizestheestablishmentof the state'sauthorityand survives ts dissolution,thenitsboundaries cannot be defined by the boundariesof particularstates. Anappealto the people is an appeal beyondthe constitutedauthorityof stateactorsand institutions o thecommunity hat ends them theirauthority.Andif theappeal o thepeopleis anappealbeyondthestate,whyshouldwe imag-ine peoples as limited by the contingentbordersthata historyof accident,force, and fraudhave establishedfor states?Thepeople, it seems, is imaginedboth asexisting prior o the state and asdefinedbythe bordersof analreadyconstituted tate,or, f you prefer,as botha prepoliticaland postpoliticalcommunity.In practice,the applicationofpopularsovereigntydoctrineusuallytakes for grantedexistingstatebound-aries andasksquestionsabout heorganization f legitimateauthoritywithinthese boundaries.Butby raisingtheprospectof aprepoliticalcommunityonwhich thelegitimacyof stateauthoritydepends, he newpopular overeigntydoctrineraisesquestionsabouttheprepoliticalsourcesof community,ques-tions thatvisions of nationalcommunityaremuchbetterequipped o answerthan arevisions of the sovereign people.

THENATIONALIZATIONF POLITICALCOMMUNITYThecentralargumentof this articleis thatthedoctrineof popularsover-eigntycontributes o the rise andspreadof nationalismby introducinga newimageof politicalcommunity,animagethat endsto nationalizepolitical oy-alties andpoliticizenational oyalties.Inmaking hisargument, am assum-

ingthat oputit in a nutshell,while the nation s a relativelyold form ofcom-munity,nationalism s relativelynew.31n otherwords,I am assumingthatwhile intergenerational ommunitiesbased on imaginedculturalheritagehave been with us for averylongtime,it is onlyinthepast250 yearsor so thatthe political self-assertionof national communities has become common-place.Therewere nations ongbeforenationalism,32s I amusingtheterms,because there were national communities long before the assertion ofnational sovereignty became anything like an empirical or moral norm.Explaining he riseandspreadof nationalism,according othiswayof think-ing, requiresthatwe ask why this particularorm of communal oyaltyhascome to be so closely associated with politicalself-assertion.My argumentaboutpopularsovereignty s designedto provide partof the answer to thatquestion.Let me begin then with the nationalization of political community.Defenders of the new doctrine of popularsovereignty arguethatmonarchs


9/21


and aristocratsusurpaninalienablerightof the people whentheyclaim therightto makeunlimitedandarbitrary se of the state'sauthority verpersonsandterritory.But as we have seen, they do not counterthese claims to per-sonalsovereigntybyinsistingthat hepeople,rather han he monarchor aris-tocrats,possess this rightto make unlimited andarbitrary se of the state'sauthority.nstead, hey argue hatwhatever ormgovernmentakes, t derivesits authority rom a territory'snhabitants,maginedas a collective body.Understood n thisway,thepeople represents newkindof politicalcom-munity. n earlierconceptions,whatbindsthepolitical community s sharingeithersubjection o a particular ind of politicalauthorityor theopportunityto taketurns n exercisingthatauthority.33ut thepeople,as imaginedbythedefendersof popular overeignty, epresentsneither he absolutist'scommu-nityof subjectsnor therepublican's ommunityof sharers n ruling.Instead,it is the communityfrom which political authorityarises and to which itreverts when thatauthorityno longer serves its properfunction.This newconceptionof politicalcommunity"undercuts raditionalnotions of popularsovereigntyas much as traditionalnotionsof the princelystate," or "it dis-qualifiesthe actualflesh and blood commonalityof the people no less thanprinces or aristocrats as the depository of rightful ultimate decision-making."34ince popularsovereignty, n this new conception,is indirectormediatedsovereignty, omethingotherthanthe structure f politicalinstitu-tions or the exercise of rulingandbeing ruled must define the people whoexercises it. For if the people precede the establishment and survive thedissolution of political authority, henthey must sharesomethingbeyondarelationship o thatauthority.But what it is thatcommon,prepoliticalcharacteristic?As we haveseen,thedefendersof popular overeigntyhave no consistentanswerto thisques-tion. It is their lack of an answer to this questionthatopens the door to theidentificationof political with nationalcommunity,of the people with thenation.Forthe nationprovidespreciselythatwhat s lacking n theconceptofthepeople:a sense of whereto lookfortheprepoliticalbasis of politicalcom-munity.By encouragingus to think of political communityas distinct fromandprior o theestablishment f politicalauthority, opular overeigntydoc-trines thusbringourimage of politicalcommunitymuch closer to nationalcommunity hanit had been in thepast.The nationalizationor culturalizationof political communityis, I amarguinghere, an unintendedconsequenceof the widespreadacceptanceofthe doctrine of popularsovereignty.The doctrine'sdefenderscertainlydidnot intendto transformourimageof politicalcommunity n this way. Theywereattempting,nstead, o solve theproblemof legitimacyand imitedgov-ernment.But the way in which they solved this problemintroducesa new


10/21


one: the identificationof politicalwith culturalcommunity.For in ordertoconjureup an image of the people as standing apart rom and priorto theestablishmentof politicalauthority, ouhaveto thinkof its membersas shar-ing something more than political relationships.And the prepoliticalorextrapoliticalcommunitythat most resemblesthe formof the people is thekind of culturalcommunitycelebratedby nations. The problemis thus notjust that thedoctrineof popularsovereignty gnorestheprepolitical ounda-tions of politicalcommunity. t is rather hatpopular overeigntyencouragesus tolookforthoseprepolitical oundationsnplaceswherenational oyaltieslurk. The new doctrine of popularsovereigntydoes notjust lack means ofresistingthe nationalisticsentimentsof the people it bringsinto politics. Itpositivelyinvites the nationalization rculturalization f politics by thewayin which it transformsourimage of political community.One can see this process taking place in seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuryGreatBritain,the site where,most would agree,both the new doc-trine of popularsovereignty was invented and nationalism first emerged.English or British nationalism has been frequently portrayedas a primeexampleof civic orpoliticalnationalism,asanexpressionof sharedoyaltytopolitical principlesandinstitutions,rather han anexpressionof sharedcul-turalloyalties-most emphaticallyby Liah Greenfeld in her recentbook,Nationalism:Five RoadstoModernity.35heimplausibilityof this character-izationbecomes clear once one payssome attention o thewayinwhich Brit-ish patriots expressed themselves about those "garlic-eating"Catholicsacross the Channel.36 ut what interestsme hereis how the assertionof par-ticularculturaloyaltiesfollows directlyon theheelsof theassertionof popu-lar sovereignty,a development apparent n some of the very passagesthatGreenfeldcites to defend her claim thatAnglo-Americanvisions of nation-hood lack the emphasis on "uniquecharacteristics" elebratedby ethnicnationalists n Germanyand otherpointseastward.37When JohnMilton, for example, bragsthat it is their new and unprece-dented civil liberties that gives the English "thehonour to precede othernations,"he is certainly dentifyingthe English communitywith a formofcivil libertyrather hananykindof culturalheritage.But whenhe goes on totalk aboutwhy Englishmendeservethese liberties,he makes it clear thathehas a very differentunderstanding f community n mind. "ConsiderwhatNation,"he asks Parliament,"it is whereofye are the governours:a Nationnot slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing, spirit,acute toinvent, suttle and sinewy to discourse."These sharedcharacteristics, hissharedheritage,helpMiltonexplain why theEnglishare the "nationchos'nbefore any other" to receive from God his epoch-making revelation ofliberty.38ndeed, heveryclaimthatEnglandhas"thehonour oprecedeother


11/21


Nations"makes it absolutelyclear that Milton does not view nationhoodasnothingmorethanacontainer orpopular overeigntyand civil liberties.Forit is precisely the achievement of these things thatdistinguishesEnglandamongthe differentnations.One might complain that what is happeninghere is that two differentimagesof nationalcommunityarebeing superimposed n each other:one ofthe nation as a body of citizens and the other as a culturalcommunitywithunique historical characteristics.Nationalism, from this point of view,involves"asleightof hand"wherebyoneuses the same wordfor the two dif-ferentimagesof communitywithoutacknowledging heiropposition.39 utsuchacomplaintmisses the fact thatboth of theseimagesof community, hedemos as a bodyof citizens and the nationas a prepoliticalculturalcommu-nity,providewaysof representing third mageof community, hepeopleofthe new doctrineof popularsovereignty.Each capturesone aspect of thatimage of community-the demos, its inclusiveness; the nation, itsprepoliticalcharacter-while missingotheraspects.It is not surprisinghenthatthey shouldbe asserted ogether.Thepeople of the new popularsover-eigntydoctrine s anespeciallyabstractmageof community. tinvitesrepre-sentation in more concrete images, so to speak,to give the body politic abody.It wouldindeedinvolve a "sleightof hand" o representaninstitution-allydefinedbodyof citizens as anationoruniquecultural ommunity.But torepresentthe preinstitutionalpeople of popularsovereignty theory as anation,all one needs is imaginationandsomeculturalheritageof shared ym-bols and memories on which to call.

THEPOLITICIZATIONF NATIONAL OMMUNITYLet meturnnow to thesecondhalf of my argument,hewayinwhichpop-ularsovereigntydoctrinestend to politicize ourimage of nationalcommu-nity.Popular overeignty'svisionof indirectsovereignty endsto nationalizeour image of political community by encouraging us to look for theprepoliticalandculturalroots of that bind the people into a community.Itpoliticizes our image of nationalcommunity, n contrast,by introducinga

strongerand moreexclusivewayof thinkingaboutcommunalpossessionofterritory.Attachment oparticularerritories lmostalways playsanimportant oleinassertionsof nationalcommunity.A nation,I wouldsuggest,is best under-stoodas an intergenerational ommunityboundby animaginedheritageofcultural ymbolsand memoriesassociatedwith aparticularerritory r terri-tories. I deliberatelyuse this ratherweak expression,"associatedwith,"to


12/21


characterize he relationshipbetween nations and territories o contrast itwiththe strongexpressionsof controlormasteryconnectedto the assertionof sovereigntyover territory.Sovereign control or masteryof territory sexclusive. Ifonecommunitypossessesit, another annot.Forthesovereign swhoeverhas the finalsayin theexerciseorestablishment f authorityn a ter-ritory.Jointordividedsovereignty s either a metaphoror a contradiction nterms.But nations need not control or master territories o make them thebasis of theircommunity.Dwelling inor evenrememberingdoingso is quitesufficientto generate he stories andsymbolsthatconstitutea nationalheri-tage.Indeed,a nation'sstrongestsentimentsoften centeron territories hat tneither dwells in nor controls:the homelands that earliergenerationsleftbehind.As a result,the same territorycan figure prominently n the stories thatmore than one nation tells about itself withoutnecessarilyinvitingseriousconflict.Thereally dangerousconflicts emergewhen nationsbeginto mea-suretheirrelationship o territoryntermsof controlormastery.Forthen,allthe overlappinghomelands or overlappingsites of past greatnessturnintopotentialflash pointsin nationalistconflicts.40And thathappensas soon aspopularsovereigntydoctrines ntroduce heir new conceptionof communalmasteryoverterritory.Of course,nationalfoundationmyths regularlyreferto thegrantingof lands to nations and theirprogeny.But the ideaof popularsovereignty ntroducesa muchstrongerand morepoliticalsenseof the com-munalcontrolof territory, nethathelpsexplainthepoliticizationof nationalloyalties.Popular overeigntydoctrines each us to thinkof statesasmastersof ter-ritoryandpeoplesasmastersof states. Orto putit anotherway,theyteach usthatstates arethe means thatpeopleestablish to exercise theirmasteryovergiventerritories.Suchmastery,based as it is on the use of the state'ssingularstructureof authority s, by definition,exclusive. No more than one peoplecan be masterof a given territory, ince the state,with its exclusive claim toauthority,s the meansby which it is exercised.Theassertionof this newkindof communalmasteryof territoryeaves lit-tle roomfor thevaguerand ess exclusiveconnections oterritoryhathave solong characterizednationalcommunities.Forhow can we continue to talkaboutaterritory s our own when another ommunity-moreover a commu-nity that as we have seen, almost inevitably expresses itself in nationalterms--claims exclusive masteryover it? Pride, fear,envy,orjust a strongsense of justice andinjusticemakesanything ess than such masteryseemdangerousordegrading o thosewholackit. In thisway,thedisseminationofideas aboutpopularsovereigntypoliticizes national oyalties,as the leadersof onenationalgroupafteranotherdemand hat heybe,as theQuebecoissay,


13/21


maitrescheznous. Oras DanieleManin, eaderof the ill-fatedVenetian evoltin 1848, proclaimed,"We do not ask Austria be humane and liberal inItaly.... We ask hertogetout. We have noconcernwithherhumanityand ib-eralismwe wish to be masters n our own house."41Of course,popularsovereigntydoctrines insist thatit is the people, thecollectivebodyof aterritory'snhabitants, ather hana nationalcommunity,that should exercise such mastery.Nevertheless,these doctrinesopen thedoorto assertionsof nationalsovereigntybyjustifyingtherightof peoplestodisestablishand reconstruct heauthorityof thestate.Forwhenpopular ov-ereigntydoctrinesarriveon the scene, they findpeople living not only withtheinjustices hat low fromabsolutism, eudalprivilege,andotherabusesofauthoritywithinstates,but with all of the injusticesthat come from the his-toryof conquest,royalmarriages, ales of territory, ndjust plainbad luckthatdefinetheboundariesof statesandempires.Somepeople,whentheyareintroduced o the new doctrineof popular overeignty, indthemselvesruledfrom distantand aliencapitals,from whichtheycanexpectlittleunderstand-ing orsympathy ordistinctive ocal conditions.Others ind themselves sub-ject to theauthority f imperialrulerswhotreat hemasinferiorraces ncapa-ble of civilized forms of self-government.Still others find themselvesconspicuousanddangerously xposedminoritieswithin argercommunitiesthatsharea sense of belongingto a nationalcommunity.Theestablishment flegitimate and humaneforms of governmentmight ease many concernsabout njusticefor thesegroupsof people.Butit would be foolish or naivetosaythat tcoulderaseall of thepotential orinjustice hat s createdbythehis-toryof force,fraud,and chance thathasled to thecurrentboundariesamongstates.

Defenders of popularsovereigntyoften proclaimthat humanbeings arecapable"ofestablishinggood governmentromreflectionandchoice,"ratherthan "destined o depend,for theirpolitical constitutions,on accidentandforce."42But why should exposed minorities, subordinatedpeoples, andthose at the peripheryof largeindifferentstatessimply acceptstate bound-aries as given when they begin to think about how to establish legitimatestructuresof political authoritywith which to governthemselves? It is onethingwhenyoutell themembersof a groupwho form thegreatmajorityof astate'ssubjects-Englishmen, say-to takeforgranted he state'sboundariesin their deliberationsabout what"thepeople"should do. It is quiteanotherwhenyoutell thatto themembersof theothergroupsI havejust mentioned.To tell them thattheymustsimplycast their ot with whatevergroupthathis-toryhasservedupto them seemsmanifestlyunfair.Whyshouldthe danceofhistorythatprovidedsomepeoplewithcommunities n whichtheyfeel com-fortable top ustwhentheygetaturn oexpressthemselveson the floor?One


14/21

Yack / POPULARSOVEREIGNTYAND NATIONALISM 529

does not haveto believe, with HerderandMazzini,that nations are naturaldivisions of the human race in order to express impatience with such ademand. One need only share theirperfectlyreasonable nsistence on thearbitrariness r artificialityof the historicaldivisionsamongstates.43Resignation o thecontingenciesof historydoes not atall fitwith therhet-oric of popularsovereignty.Yet, in effect, that is whatmanyliberaldemo-cratictheoristsseem to demand rompeoplesuncomfortablewith the shapeof their communities: hatthey shouldacceptwhateverpotential njusticeshistoryhasservedupto them with the boundariesof states so that we can allget on with the task of establishing iberaldemocratic orms of government.That his advice almost nvariably omesfrompeoplewho arequitecomfort-able and unexposedwithin the given boundariesof states,people who, ineffect, arehappywith the partnershey weregiven when the music stoppedplayingatthe danceof history,makes t harder o acceptthan t wouldother-wise be.Thus while popularsovereignty s not designedto help us determine helegitimacyof a particular ommunity'scontrol overa particularerritory,tdefinitelyopensthe door to thisquestion.And indoingso, it raises aquestionthat it cannot itself answer. Who belongs to "thepeople"in 1848 Venice,1955Algeria,or 1999Quebec?Inhabitants f Venice,Algeria,orQuebecorall of the Austriansand Italians,FrenchmenandArabs,AnglophonesandFrancophoneswho sharethe boundariesof the largerstates to which theybelongedat the time?Wecannotsimplysay to those who putforwardcom-peting claims to territory n the name of differentpeoples, "let the peopledecide," ince it is preciselywhich"people" houldbe associatedwith whichterritoryhat s at issue. Does lettingthepeopledecidedisputes ike those sur-roundingdemands orQuebecois ndependence equireareferendum mongall the citizens within the boundariesof theprovinceof Quebecoramongallthe citizens within the boundariesruledby the federalgovernmentof Can-ada?You cannotanswersuchquestionswithout, n effect, takingsides in theissue thatyou want to putbefore "thepeople."44You need to assume the existence of boundariesbetweenpeoplesbeforeyou can exercise theprincipleof popular overeignty.Therefore,you cannotuse popular overeignty o determinewhere theboundariesbetweenpeoplesshould ie. Popular overeigntycanhelp guideus indetermining urpoliticalarrangements.tcannothelpus decide how to determine heshapeof ourcol-lective selves.45Butby arguing hat this collective self, thepeople, precedesand survives the state, it opens up the question of how to determine ourcollective selves and their control of states andterritory.Where there islittleconcernor discomfortwith thegivenboundariesof thestate,thisques-tion will probablynot surface. But where there is some controversyor dis-


15/21


comfort, the inconsistencybetween these two ways of talkingaboutself-determinations bound to come out. For while popularsovereigntyrests ontheassumption hatthe state is thecreatureof thepeople,to be dissolved andreconstituted s thepeoplewills, thepeopleonly getsthe limits of its identityfrom the boundariesof the stateaccording o the doctrineof popularsover-eignty. It is little wonder then that those who are uncomfortablewith theboundarieshathistoryhas delivered o them start ookingtoothervisions ofcommunityas the source of statesovereignty.The modem doctrineof popu-larsovereigntydoes notsingleout nationalcommunitiesandencourage hemto take control of theirown affairs.But it doesjustify the delegitimationofstate boundarieswithoutgiving any useful guidance-other thanresigna-tion-to those who are dissatisfied with the way in which they currentlydivideup politicaland culturalcommunities.

NATIONSWITHOUTNATIONALISM?I shall concludeby consideringanimportantpractical mplicationof myargumentn this article.If I amrightabout the connectionbetweenpopularsovereigntyandnationalism, hennationalism s a lot harder ogetrid of thanmost of its liberal democraticcritics realize.Nationalism hreatens iberaldemocraticpoliticalprinciplesandpracticesprimarilybythewayin which itconnectspoliticalrightsandprivileges o rel-ativelyexclusiveunderstandingsf cultural ommunity.As aresult,severingthe connectionbetweenpoliticaland culturalcommunityhas been a majorgoal of those who tryto reconcile liberalismand nationalism.They pursue

thatgoal in two differentways: by tryingto refocus nationalloyalties onpurely political objects or by trying to refocus them on purely culturalobjects.The firststrategy,he onechosenbydefendersof whathas come tobecalled"civicnationalism," ims atpurifyingnational oyaltiesof the culturalparticularismhataccompaniesnational ife in most modempoliticalcom-munities.46The second strategy, in contrast, aims at purifying culturalparticularism f the temptation o seek political powerto which it has suc-cumbed n theageof nationalism. have tried o showelsewherethat he firststrategy, he celebrationof civic nationalism,hasmerely replacedold mythsaboutnationalismwithnew ones.47This articlesuggeststhat he second strat-egy,thecelebrationof apurelyculturalnationalism,acessimilardifficulties.The argumentthat politics corruptsthe intrinsicallyculturalbonds ofnationalcommunity s an oldone, stretchingback at least to Herder'sdefenseof culturalnationalism.It was popularamongAustro-Hungarian luralistslike OttoBauerandhas beengivennewlife in YaelTamir's ecentbook,Lib-


16/21


eral Nationalism. Rebecca West presents a particularly eloquent version ofthis argument in Black Lamb, Grey Falcon, her extraordinary account of hertravels in Yugoslavia during the 1930s. It comes near the end of that long cel-ebration of Yugoslavia's cultural diversity, when West finally reachesKosovo and its shrines to Serbian nationalism. Deeply moved by the way inwhich some boys recite the legend of Serbian self-sacrifice here on Kosovo's"field of blackbirds," she is inspired to defend cultural nationalism against itscritics.The littleboys looked noble and devoutas theyrecited.Herewas the nationalismwhichthe intellectualsof my age agreed o considera vice and theoriginof the world's misfor-tunes.I cannot maginewhy.Everyhumanbeingis of sublimevalue,becausehisexperi-ence, which mustbe in somemeasureunique,gives hima uniqueview of reality,and thesum of such views shouldgo far to giving us thecomplete pictureof reality,which thehuman race must attain f it is ever to comprehend ts destiny.Thereforeeveryhumanbeingmust be encouraged o cultivatehis consciousnessto the fullestdegree.Itfollowsthateverynation,being an association of humanbeingswho have been drawn ogetherby commonexperience,has also its ownuniqueviewof reality,which mustcontributeoourdeliverance.... There s notthesmallestreasonforconfoundingnationalism,whichis the desireof a peopleto be itself,with imperialism,which is the desireof a peopletopreventotherpeoplesfrombeingthemselves.... Herecertainly could look withoutanyreservationon thescene, on the two littleboys darkening heirbrows in imitationof theheroes as they spokethe sternverse.... Thiswas as unlikelyto beget anyill as the wildroses and meadowsweetswe hadgatheredby the road.48After the terrible violence unleashed by the recent attempt to keep Kosovo

Serbian, these words are, of course, weighed down with a terrible irony. Littleboys "darkening their brows" in imitation of Serbian national heroes cannothelp but suggest to us something considerably more sinister than the gather-ing of roadside flowers.49 Nevertheless, West's argument is not at all unrea-sonable. How can we deny that there is great value in the diverse ways inwhich people have come to express themselves and hand those forms ofexpression down to their children? Would not a world in which we lost touchwith these forms of expression be immeasurably poorer? Why not try torecover and protect the life-affirming creativity of cultural nationalism fromthe life-threatening temptations of political nationalism?Such is the goal that Yael Tamir, among others, pursues in her attempt topurge nationalism of its illiberal tendencies. Nations, she declares, should beunderstood as communities that allow for shared and voluntary forms of cul-tural expression. Nationalism, she suggests, is the form that such expressiontakes, although it has unfortunately been confused with the pursuit and exer-cise of political power. She concludes that if we can return to the original cul-tural understanding of nations and nationalism, then we can truly reconcile


17/21


nationalismand liberalism.50Otherssharethis conclusion butspeakinsteadof a returnto "nations without nationalism"or "nationsagainst states,"5'since, like myself, they identifynationalismwiththepoliticalself-assertionof nations.The viabilityof such a solution to the problemsthat nationalismcreatesfor liberal democraticpolitics dependson just what it is thathas led to thepoliticizationof nationalcommunityin the modern world. If the politicalself-assertionof national communitiesis a passing phenomenonbased onvalues andpracticesthatwe arereadyto discard,then this may indeed be apromisingpathfor liberaldemocrats o follow. If, instead,it has developedbecause of featuresof modern ife andpoliticsthatwe now holddearand/orindispensable,hen t is not.Inthisarticle,I havetried o show that he latter strue and thus thatpurifyingnationalismof its taste forpoliticalpoweris nomoreplausibleaproject han he civic nationalists' ffortsatpurifyingpoliti-cal nationalismof its taste for culturalparticularism.For the key to thepoliticizationof national oyaltieslies in a notionthat iberaldemocratscon-tinueto hold both dear andindispensable o a decentpoliticalorder: he ideaof popularsovereignty.

NOTES1. I. Hont, "PermanentCrisis of a Divided Mankind:The ContemporaryCrisis of theNation-State n HistoricalPerspective,"PoliticalStudies(1994), 166-231, 171.2. See L.Greenfeld,Nationalism:Five RoadstoModernityCambridge,MA: HarvardUni-

versityPress, 1992), 21-22. Of course, one can get around his difficulty by expandingone'sunderstandingf modernizationo includeearlierdevelopments,iketheemergenceof the mod-ernstate in thesixteenthand seventeenthcenturies, hatprecedetheemergenceof nationalism.But doing so seriouslyundermines he idea of modernizationby identifying t witheverynewdevelopment n thepastfew centuries.On theproblemscreatedby confusing temporaland sub-stantiveunderstandings f modernity n this way, see B. Yack,The Fetishismof Modernities(NotreDame,IN:Universityof NotreDame Press, 1997).3. H.Kohn,TheIdeaofNationalism,3, andH. Seton-Watson,NationsandStates(London:Methuen,1977),445.4. For nteresting xceptions,see LiahGreenfeld,Nationalism,5-26;M.Canovan,Nation-hood and PoliticalTheory Cheltenham,UK: EdwardElgar,1996);S. Beer,ToMake a Nation(Cambridge,MA: Universityof HarvardPress, 1993); and above all, I. Hont, "PermanentCrisis."

5. M.Walzer,"TheNew Tribalism:Notes on aDifficultProblem," 06, ed.,R.Beiner,The-orizingNationalism(Albany:SUNY, 1998), 205-18.6. See M. Finley,"TheAncient GreeksandTheirNation," n Finley,TheUse and AbuseofHistory(New York:Viking, 1975);and B. Yack,"TheMythof the Civic Nation,"ed., Beiner,TheorizingNationalism,111-14.Oneproblemwithmanycurrent tudies of nationalism s thattheyincludethe claimtopoliticalsovereignty n theirverydefinitionof anation, herebymaking


18/21


it verydifficultto make sense of the distinctionbetweennationalandpolitical communitythatprevaileduntilrecentcenturies.See, forexample,BenedictAnderson'sdefinitionof anationas acommunity maginedas boundedandsovereign, n B. Anderson,ImaginedCommunitiesNewYork:Verso,1991), 6-7.7. See, in particular,R. Emerson,FromEmpire o Nation(Cambridge,MA:HarvardUni-versityPress, 1960), 214.8. E. Morgan,Inventing hePeople (New York:Norton,1988), 83.9. As we shall see below,Frenchwriters requentlyuse thetermnation whereEnglishandAmericanwriterswould use the termpeople.10. I. Hont,"PermanentCrisis,"172.11.As EdmondMorgannotes(InventinghePeople,60), although he new doctrineof popu-larsovereignty"encouraged reaterpopularparticipation,tspurposeremained hesame"as theideologies it was designedto replace:"topersuade hemanyto submit o the few."Muchof thehistoryof the doctrine"canbe readas ahistoryof the successiveeffortsof differentgenerationsto bringthe facts into closerconformitywith thefiction,efforts thathavegradually ransformedtheverystructure f society"(ibid., 152).As aresult,themodem notion of popular overeigntyis frequentlyattackedby supporters f participatory emocracy n the nameof an older,moredirectunderstanding f the concept.See, forexample,J.Mostov,Power,Process, and PopularSovereignty Philadelphia:Temple UniversityPress, 1992).12. On the theoryof constituentsovereignty, ee J.Franklin,John Lockeand the TheoryofSovereignty; . Hont,PermanentCrisis,"201;M. Forsyth,"ThomasHobbesand theConstituentPowerof the People,"Political Studies29 (1981), 191-203;0. B6aud,Lapuissance de l'etat(Paris:PUF,1994),208-27; S. Beer,ToMakea Nation(Cambridge,MA:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1993),312-21; andP.Pasquino,Sieyeset l'inventionde la constitutionen France(Paris:OdileJacob, 1998).13.Nevertheless, his distinctionbetweenthepeople'stwo bodiesstrongly nfluences evenmodemrestatementsof directpopularrule,such as Rousseau's.Forexample,it informsRous-seau's famousdistinctionbetweenthegeneralwill of thepeopleandtheexpresswill of all or of amajority n the legislativeassembly.Theformer,Rousseauargues, s neverwrongandremainsthesourceof all legitimateauthority.The lattererrs and needs to be correctedwithreference othisgeneralwill of the imagined people.

14.InEnglish,the termnationtends to have moreof a cultural onnotation, hepeoplemoreof apoliticalconnotation. nGerman, t is the otherway around,althoughasEmmerichFrancispointsout,that s the resultof a longevolutionthatreversed heuse of the terms.See E. Francis,Ethnosund Demos (Berlin:DunckerundHumblot,1965), 61.15.ThatFrenchpoliticaltradition endsto follow Sieyes in callingthis formof community"thenation," ather han Rousseauin calling it "thepeople,"should not be allowedto interferewiththedistinction hatI ammakinghere. As Sieyes himselfmakesclear,"apoliticalsociety,apeople,a nationaresynonymous erms."E.J.Sieyes, "Contreare-totale,"n P.Pasquino,Sieyeset l'inventionde la constitutionen France,175.In anotherplace,he insiststhatpublicauthority"comesfrom thepeople,that s to say,thenation," dding hat"these wo termsoughttoby syn-onymous."E. J.Sieyes, EcritsPolitiques(Paris:Editionsdes ArchivesContemporaines,1985),200. Therevolutionaries' reference orthe termnation reflects the lingeringnegativeassocia-tionsof theterm hepeople with theplebsor mob.See E.Fehrenbach, Nation,"nHandbuchderPolitische-SozialeGrundbegriffen Frankreich1680-1782 7(1986), 75-107, 83-84, I. Hont,"PermanentCrisis,"194-250, and L. Greenfeld,Nationalism,6-8. One consequence of thisdevelopment s thatFrench egal andpolitical thoughthas long distinguishedbetween nationalandpopular overeignty,eventhoughby nationalsovereignty,whatis meant s thekindof indi-rect or constituentsovereigntyassociated with the new doctrine of popularsovereigntythatI


19/21


have been describing.See G. Bacot, Carre de Malberg et l'origine de la distinctionentresouverainetedu peuple et souverainete nationale (Paris:Editions du Centre National de laRechercheScientifique,1985).16. Needless to say,I presenthere a sketch of conclusions rather hananelaborationof theevidence thatmightsupportmydistinction.This is especiallytruewithregard o the definitionofnational ommunity,a fieldof vastcontroversyhatI deal within"TheMythof the Civic Nation"and n the firstchaptersof my forthcomingbook,Nation and Individual.Withregard o thepeo-ple, incontrast, here s a relativedearthof seriousreflection.See M. Canovan,NationhoodandPoliticalTheory p. 16) for an interestingdiscussionof why this is so.17.AlthoughI employBenedict Anderson'sexpression(ImaginedCommunities, p. 1-7),Iuse it here in a somewhat differentmanner han Andersondoes. Andersonfocuses on lack offamiliarityand thusdefinesan imaginedcommunityas a communitywhose membershave nodirect nteractionwith each other.As I amusingtheconcept,however,animaginedcommunityis a communitywhoseexistenceis derived rom its members' maginationof theirconnections,rather hanthroughsharedprocessesor interactions.The nation is an imagined community nboth Anderson'sandmy sense because it is acommunitybased on an imaginedheritagesharedby widely separated roupsof individuals.But as I amusingtheterm, herecan be large, mper-sonalcommunitiesthat are based on shared nteractionsandprocedures hat arenot imaginedcommunities.When,forexample,we speakof the urbanoreven the worldcommunity,we canbespeakingaboutshared nterdependence rinteraction, atherhananykindof imageof sharingacommunity.Andtherecanbe small communities hatarebasedon imaginedconnectionsratherthanon any direct interactionor interdependence.18.Accordingly, hepeopleis conceivedwithreference o thestate, nparticularo the mod-ern state that ntegratesall coerciveauthoritywithina territoryn a singlehierarchical tructure.When scholars suggest that it is "pointlessto talk about nationsapartfrom the state"(EricHobsbawm,Nations and Nationalismsince 1780 [Cambridge,UK: CambridgeUniversityPress, 1990], 9), they areconflatingthe nation withthis imageof thepeople.19.SeeM.Canovan,Nationhoodand PoliticalTheory, 2, andB. Anderson, maginedCom-munities,9-12.20. Onthispoint,see R.Scruton,"InDefenceof theNation,"nScruton,ThePhilosopheronDover Beach (Manchester,CT:Carcanet,1990), 301.

21. M. Canovan Nationhoodand Political Theory,107) notes this absence.RogersSmithtries to correct or this absencein "Trust nd Worth:The Politics of People-Building" the 1999CharlesE. LindblomLectureat YaleUniversity).22. R. Emerson,FromEmpire o Nation,90.23. IwanttoemphasizeherethatI amnotendorsing hedubiousclaims thatso manynationsmake about the antiquityof their nationaltraditions. am definitelynot suggestingthat all oreven most nations are old, with their roots in the mists of some distantprimordialage. I ammerely saying that the nation,as a distinctive form of community, s, relativelyold, while thepeople representsa relativelynew way of thinkingaboutcommunity.24. On thispoint, see especiallyL. Greenfeld,Nationalism,6-8.

25. "Opposedto the sovereignty of the monarch,the sovereignty of the people is one ofthe confused notions based on the wild idea of the "people."Takenwithout ts monarch .. thepeople is a formless mass and no longer a state. It lacks every one of those determinatecharacteristics-sovereignty, overnment,udges,magistrates,lass-divisions, tc.-[by which]apeople cease to be thatindeterminate bstractionwhich, when represented n a quite generalway,as the 'people."'


20/21


G.W.F.Hegel,PhilosophyofRight,(Oxford,UK: OxfordUniversityPress,1967),?279.Onthispassage,see J.Stevens,Reproducinghe State(Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversityPress,1999),79-80.26. "Thewordmostonits lipsis the 'people;'butthespecialmarkwhichitcarrieson its browis the hatredof law."For aw "is theshibbolethwhich marksout these false friendsandcomradesof whattheycall the 'people."'G.W.F.Hegel, Philosophy of Right,Preface,6-7.27. It alsocontinues o inspiremoreradicaldemocrats,who are attracted o the idea that"thewill of the people resists all representation."ee P.Markell,"MakingAffect Safe for Democ-racy:On ConstitutionalPatriotism," olitical Theory28 (2000), 38-63, 50.28. "Aking,howeverdubioushisdivinitymightseem,did not havetobe imagined.Hewas avisiblepresence,wearinghis crown andcarryinghis scepter.Thepeople,on the otherhand,arenevervisibleas such.Before we ascribesovereignty o thepeople,we have to imaginethatthereis sucha thing, somethingwe personifyas though t werea single body." E. Morgan, nventingthePeople, 153)29. J.Franklin, ohn Lockeand theTheoryof Sovereignty,124. See also,I.Hont,"PermanentCrisis,"201, andM.Forsyth,"ThomasHobbesand the ConstituentPowerof thePeople,"Politi-cal Studies 29 (1981), 191-203, 191.30. Accordingly,onemightargue hat heemergenceof themoder sovereignstateas a formof political organization s a necessarycondition for the emergenceof this new idea of thepeople.31. This is my formula ora trucebetween the "modernist" nd"primordialist"nderstand-ingsof nationalism. repeat hatI amnotsuggestingthatall or most nationsareold;Imeanonlyto suggest that the nation as aform of community s, unlikenationalism,relativelyold.32. See J. Armstrong,Nations before Nationalism (Chapel Hill: University of NorthCarolinaPress, 1982).33. Theclassic statementof thetraditional, ctivistunderstanding f citizenship s foundinAristotle's Politics (1275a23), thatthecitizen is someone who shares n "judgment nd office"andtakes turns n rulingandbeing ruled.34. I. Hont,"PermanentCrisis,"184-85.35. Idiscuss thestrengthsandweaknessesof Greenfeld'sargumentn "ReconcilingNation-alism and Liberalism,"PoliticalTheory 1995), 165-82, 175-80.

36. See especiallyL.Colley,Britons:TheMakingofa Nation(NewHaven,CT:YaleUniver-sity Press, 1992).37. L. Greenfeld,Nationalism, 3-14, 76-77.38. Ibid.,76-77. ThequotationsaremostlyfromMilton's most famous and nfluentialpoliti-cal essay, Areopagitica.39. This argument s presentedmost effectively by J. Breuilly,Nationalism and the State(Chicago: Universityof ChicagoPress, 1994), 62, 390.40. I add"sitesof past greatness" o emphasize,with IstvanBibo, thatit is the memoryofconnection oterritory, ot ust presentdwelling,that eads tonationalist onflicts. The intermix-ing of peoplesin theBalkans,Bibo suggests, mighthave been sortedout with far ess violence ifit were notforthe fact that hesepeoplesweresustainedbytales of pastgreatness n thesameter-ritories.See I.Bibo, "TheDistress of EastEuropeanSmallStates,"nBibo,Democracy,Revolu-tion,and Self-DeterminationNew York:ColumbiaUniversityPress, 1991), 13-86, 22-23.41. Quoted n R. Emerson,FromEmpire o Nation,43.42. A. Hamilton,J. Jay,andJ. Madison,The FederalistPapers,no. 1.43. "Naturaldivisions,the spontaneous endenciesof thepeoples will replacethe arbitrarydivisions sanctionedby badgovernments.The countriesof thePeoplewill rise,definedby the


21/21


voice of the free, upontheruins of thecountriesof Kingsandprivilegedcastes."(G. Mazzini,TheDutiesof Man [London:Dent, 1907], 52)44. See F.Whelan,"DemocraticTheoryandtheBoundaryProblem," ds.,J.R.PennockandJ. W.Chapman,NomosXXV:LiberalDemocracy New York:NYU Press,1983), 13-47, 13,andM. Canovan,Nationhoodand Political Theory,17-18.45. This ambiguitybetween collective self-determination nd thedetermination f collec-tive selves plaguesmostattempts ojustify therightto nationalself-determination.46. For example, see M. Ignatieff,Blood and Belonging (New York:Farrar,Strauss,&Giroux,1993),7-13. For similararguments, ee BogdanDenitch's defenseof civic nationalisminEthnicNationalism:TheTragicDeathof YugoslaviaMinneapolis:Universityof Minnesota,1994),Liah Greenfeld'sdistinctionbetweenAnglo-Americanand continentalEuropean ormsof nationalismn Nationalism:Five RoadstoModernity, ndDominiqueSchnapper's efenseofthe idea of the civic nation,in which she attempts o provethat the "verynotion of an ethnicnationis a contradictionn terms," n La communautedes citoyens:sur l'idee moderne de lanation(Paris:Gallimard,1994), 24-30, 95, 178.47. In "TheMythof the Civic Nation,"ed., R. Beiner,TheorizingNationalism,103-18.48. Rebecca West,BlackLamb,GreyFalcon (London:Penguin, 1988), 843. Like Tamir,Westis indebtedto Herder'scelebrationof culturalpluralism n her vision of liberal culturalnationalism.49. A different,butequallyterribleronyhungover the book atthetimeof itspublication.ForWest published Black Lamb, Grey Falcon shortly after the Nazis invaded Yugoslaviaand

destroyedso manyof the people and forms of life that she had so lovingly described.See herremarks n the book's preface.50. Yael Tamir,Liberal Nationalism,57-58. I discuss the strengthsand weaknesses ofTamir'sargumentmoregenerallyin "ReconcilingLiberalismandNationalism,"170-75.51. J.Kristeva,NationswithoutNationalism NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,1993);G. Gottlieb,NationsagainstStates(New York:Councilon ForeignRelations,1993).

BernardYackeachespolitical theoryat theUniversityof Wisconsin,Madison.His mostrecentbook s The Fetishismof Modernities:EpochalSelf-Consciousness nContempo-rarySocial and PoliticalThought.He is currentlycompletinga book titled Nation andIndividual:Contingency,Choice andCommunity n ModemPolitical Life.

Documents

Bernard Yack Sovereignty Nationalism