Reassessing nationalism and the building of nation-states in Europe: applying a new theoretical synthesis

7/28/2019 Reassessing nationalism and the building of nation-states in Europe: applying a new theoretical synthesis.

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Reassessing nationalism and the building of nation-states in Europe:applying a new theoretical synthesis

Chris Bailey

The European nation-states are a comparatively modern development. They first

began to appear in the 18th century, starting with Britain in the first half of that

century, followed by France after 1789. From the first half of the 19 th century, the

building of nation-states became a dominant feature of European politics; and

nationalism, the ideological and political movement that advocated the building and

maintaining of nation-states, grew into one of the most powerful movements in human

history.

Nation-states emerged initially from a world that had been dominated by very

different conceptions from those of nationalism. For more than 1,500 years the

Christian ideal of a universal world-state had held sway. The challenge to the

domination of the Church of Rome, when it came in the form of the Reformation, did

not at first claim to stray from this belief. On the contrary, it sought to restore a single

kingdom of god on earth against what it saw as a corrupt clergy who were

undermining it. However, the greed of princes and kings, including particularly Henry

VIII of England, eventually transformed Protestantism. Seeing an opportunity to rob

the church of its wealth they established their independence from it. In doing so they

created the conditions that eventually led to the rise of the European nation-states.

However, analysing and explaining the emergence of these nation-states has involvedmajor theoretical difficulties that have been the subject of controversy for the last two

hundred years. An enormous amount has been written on the subject during that time.

Yet no completely adequate theory of nationalism has resulted. This dissertation

reconsiders and tries to overcome some of the problems involved. The author believes

the difficulties have been largely due to methodological problems within social

science itself. He re-examines these problems in the light of important advances in our

understanding of nationalism that have been made within the last twenty years in

order to develop a new theoretical synthesis. This is then applied to reassessing and

re-interpreting the emergence of nationalism and the history of nation building in

Europe.

What is a nation?

At first sight, the basic principle involved in the creation of nation-states seems simple

to understand. One of the leading nationalists of the 19th century, Giuseppe Mazzini,

defined it as "every nation a state, and only one state for the entire nation". 1 Millions

of people have fought and died for this doctrine in the last 150 years. However,

behind this apparently simple principle, which has provided such powerful

motivation, lies a major enigma.


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What is a nation? Surely, for states to be based upon this concept, it would seem

necessary to have a clear understanding of its meaning. During the entire period in

which nationalism has prevailed, however, a scientific definition has proved to be

impossible. Thus, in 1887, Walter Bagehot, having presented the history of the 19th

century as one of "nation-building", then went on to say of the term "nation":

"We know what it is when you do not ask us, but we cannot very quickly

explain or define it."2

Ninety years later, at the conclusion of the most comprehensive world-wide survey of

nationalism ever carried out, Hugh Seton-Watson unhappily concluded:

"Thus I am driven to the conclusion that no "scientific definition" of the nation

can be devised; yet the phenomenon has existed and exists."3

The question of method

This failure to be able to define one of the most important aspects of human

development over the last two hundred years raises profound methodological

questions concerning the adequacy of social science.

Historically, there have been two major attempts to derive a science of human society.

The first of these came about through the work of Auguste Comte in the 1830s.

Comte developed what he believed was a science of society he called "sociology".

The second attempt at a scientific approach to explaining the movement of humansociety was made approximately ten years after Comte's. It has become known as

"historical materialism" and was initially developed independently by Karl Marx and

Friedrich Engels, who then worked together in a life long partnership to advance their

common theoretical approach.

It is proposed to now consider the relevance of these two attempts at social science for

deriving a theory concerning the historical development of nation-states.

Comte's conception of sociology came out of a wider philosophical position which he

called "positive philosophy", but was called "positivism" by its later proponents.

Essentially, it was a form of empiricism that believed that the only "scientific" methodwas induction. According to this viewpoint, all science proceeds through collecting a

series of observable facts, looking for common features and then making a hypothesis

to explain them. Only theory arrived at in this way is considered valid. Reason and

deduction are regarded as defective methods based ultimately on "metaphysics".

Comte saw no reason why this method could not be extended to developing a science

of society. All that was required was to begin collecting data about any particular

social phenomena. When enough facts had been systematically collected, a hypothesis

could then be made to generalise and explain them. Comte believed all science

proceeded in this way and that simply applying this method to social phenomena

would produce his new science of sociology.

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The majority of attempts at explaining what a nation is have been broadly based on

this method of sociology. A list of nations has been compiled and then some

common defining feature such as language, culture, etc has been looked for. The work

of Hugh Seton-Watson, mentioned above, is a classic example of this. Such attempts

to define what a nation is have failed completely. Why?

The failure of sociology to explain what a nation is or why nation-states began to

come into existence from the 18th century onwards is not due to any errors in the

application of the method. Nor is it due to some unique problem concerning nations

and nationalism. It is quite simply due to the fact that positivism is flawed as a method

and is wrong in its conception of how scientific knowledge proceeds. Because of this,

positivist sociology has remained a pseudo-science throughout its existence. It has not

been able to proceed beyond collecting and correlating data to providing meaningful

scientific explanations for social phenomena.

The main flaw in the positivist method was known before Comte first proposed his

definition of scientific method. The philosopher David Hume had, in fact, proved theinductive method to be a fallacy a hundred years earlier. Comte's claims to have

revealed the only genuine scientific method were, moreover, widely disputed at the

time he put them forward. Certainly, Engels went to considerable lengths to contrast

the scientific method he and Marx were pursuing to that of Comte.

Despite this, positivism dominated the philosophy of science for most of the 20th

century. Its final demise in the 1960s was mostly due to the efforts of one person, Karl

Popper. Popper campaigned relentlessly from the 1920s onwards against the claims of

the positivists to represent scientific method. He was responsible for the most

systematic exposure of the flaws in the positivist method, at the same time advancing

his own alternative explanation of how scientific knowledge proceeds.

For Popper, "induction is a dispensable concept, a myth. It does not exist. There is no

such thing."4 and "the belief that we can start with pure observations alone, without

anything in the nature of a theory, is absurd".5

Popper admits that theories can sometimes arise through generalisation from

observation; considering a number of instances of a phenomenon may provoke a new

conjecture to explain it. But the positivists have mistaken a psychological process for

a logical one. Perfectly valid theories can also arise through "dreams or dreamlike

states; in flashes of inspiration; even as a result of misunderstanding and mistakes".6

In fact, the vast majority of new scientific theories are derived through "modifying

already existing theories".

Do empirical facts play no role in the development of theory then, according to

Popper? Of course they must. But their role is one of refutation, not confirmation.

Facts continually prove theories wrong and force a re-examination in the light of the

new contradictions revealed. According to Popper, that is how science actually does

proceed, not by the route the positivists maintain. As Hume had realised, a million

facts confirming a theory do not prove it to be true, but just one fact can prove it to be

false.

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The domination of this false theory of scientific knowledge has undoubtedly been an

important factor in the failure to find a scientific explanation for the emergence of

nationalism and the nation-state. Important steps forward in deriving a theory of

nationalism first began at about the same time as positivism was finally discredited.

These developments took place in England where Popper had most influence. In

varying degrees all of the theoreticians involved made clear their rejection ofpositivist methods. One of the most significant, Ernest Gellner, whose theoretical

work on nationalism, beginning from his 1964 bookThought and Change, played a

pioneering role, openly acknowledged the influence of Popper. Gellner had been a

junior colleague of Popper and earlier books by him had been devoted to publicising

Popper's views.7

Before examining these more recent developments in theories of nationalism, it is

necessary to consider in some depth the other major attempt at a scientific approach to

explaining the movement of human society, that of Marx and Engels.

Historical materialism

InDialectics of Nature, Engels refuted the inductive method of positivism. He pointed

particularly to the revolution Darwin had made in the biological sciences:

"It is also characteristic of the thinking capacity of our natural scientists that

Hckel fanatically champions induction at the moment when the results of

induction - the classifications - are everywhere put in question (Limulus a

spider,Ascida a vertebrate orchordate, theDipnoi, being fishes, in opposition

to all original definitions of amphibia) and daily new facts are beingdiscovered which overthrow the entire previous classification by induction.

What a beautiful confirmation of Hegel's thesis that the inductive conclusion is

essentially a problematic one!"8

Marx and Engels frequently made clear that their intention was to do for social

science what Darwin had done for the biological sciences. But what was the nature of

the revolution Darwin had made? Engels explained it in terms of an earlier

development in another scientific field, that of thermodynamics:

"A striking example of how little induction can claim to be the sole or even the

predominant form of scientific discovery occurs in thermodynamics: thesteam-engine provided the most striking proof that one can impart heat and

obtain mechanical motion. 100,000 steam-engines did not prove this more

than one, but only more and more forced the physicists into the necessity of

explaining it. Sadi Carnot was the first seriously to set about the task. But not

by induction. He studied the steam-engine, analysed it, and found that in it the

process which mattered does not appearin pure form but is concealed by all

sorts of subsidiary processes. He did away with these subsidiary circumstances

that have no bearing on the essential process, and constructed an ideal steam-

engine (or gas engine), which it is true is as little capable of being realised as,

for instance, a geometrical line or surface, but in its way performs the same

service as these mathematical abstractions: it presents the process in a pure,independent and unadulterated form."9

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In contrast to the classification methods of induction, the real basis for science is the

abstraction of essential underlying laws of motion from what is merely contingent.

Until this has been done, a science can not really be said to exist in a particular field.

Thus Darwin developed a theory of evolution in contrast to the mere classifications of

Linnaeus, and turned biology into a realscience. Marx and Engels set out to do thesame for social science against the pseudo-science of sociology.

The central hypothesis of the theory of historical materialism is summarised in Marx's

preface to his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, written in 1859:

"In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite

relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production

appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of

production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the

economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and

political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of socialconsciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general

process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of

men that determine their existence, but their social existence that determines

their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive

forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or

- this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms - with the property

relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From

forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into fetters.

Then begins a period of social revolution. The changes in the economic

foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense

superstructure."10

Elsewhere Marx made clear that "relations of production" involved definite social

classes existing in society. Transformations in the relations of production caused

changes in the relationship between these social classes. The underlying economic

developments therefore expressed themselves through conflict between classes.

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." 11

Although Marx considered all his writings as an application of these general

principles he did not formulate them anywhere more clearly than in the abovequotation from his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. There have,

however, been problems with understanding exactly what he meant in this passage

and this has led to different interpretations. The first four sentences seem clear

enough; the problem is in the last four.

Perry Anderson, inPassages from Antiquity to Feudalism, strongly opposed one

widely held interpretation:

"For one of the most important conclusions yielded by an examination of the

great crash of European feudalism is that - contrary to widely received beliefs

among Marxists - the characteristic 'figure' of a crisis in a mode of productionis not one in which vigorous (economic) forces of production burst

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triumphantly through retrograde (social) relations of production, and promptly

establish a higher productivity and society on ruins. On the contrary, the forces

of production typically tend tostalland recede within the existent relations of

production; these then must themselves first be radically changed and

reordered before new forces of production can be created and combined for a

globally new mode of production. In other words, the relations of productiongenerally changepriorto the forces of production in an epoch of transition,

and not vice versa."12

In a detailed study of feudal society, Anderson showed that only a small number of

technical innovations were responsible for the rise of feudalism. These were:

"the use of the iron-plough for tilling, the stiff-harness for equine traction, the

water-mill for mechanical power, marling for soil improvement and the three-

field system for crop rotation."13

Once feudalism began to emerge, Anderson insists that its further evolution was notdue to further technical innovation:

"It is in the internal dynamic of the mode of production itself, not the advent of

a new technology which was one of its material expressions, that the basic

motor of agrarian progress must be sought."14

He advanced an analysis of the "internal dynamic" of feudal society, showing that it

relied on constant expansion. According to this, feudalisms eventual crisis and

decline arose mainly because certain essential aspects of this dynamic, particularly the

continuous reclamation of forestland, were in the end exhausted.

If we consider Anderson's interpretation of historical materialism in the context of

Marx's description in Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, it does not

fare well compared with the "widely received beliefs among Marxists" he attacked. In

the next sentence after the quotation given above, Marx wrote about the possibility of

determining the "material transformation of the economic conditions of production"

brought about by developments in the productive forces "with the precision of natural

science" as opposed to the "legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic - in short,

ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out." It

seems clear that the conflict referred to is between the new "forces of production" and

the present "relations of production".

However, Marx's own voluminous writings on capitalism do not themselves follow

this method. In fact, they lend weight to Anderson's view of what the essential method

of historical materialism should be. Determining the "material transformation of the

economic conditions of production" brought about by changes in the forces of

production, as described in Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, would

primarily be the work of an economic historian or a writer on the history of

technology. Neither of these roles appear as major features of Marx's own work.

Although regarding continuous and rapid development of the productive forces as a

major aspect of capitalism, he did, in fact, set out to analyse in depth the "internal

dynamic" of the capitalist mode of production in much the same way as Anderson hastried to do for feudalism.

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Andersons version of historical materialism will be used as the method of approach

in this dissertation. Essentially this method arises from the following considerations.

Transformations take place in society that ultimately derive from changes in the

productive forces. These transformations periodically bring about a change in the

mode of production. Each mode of production possesses an internal dynamic of itsown that is independent of the will of human beings. A scientific study of society

therefore involves attempting to understand this objective dynamic for any given

mode of production. It is this that dictates general economic developments and

ultimately also determines the dominant ideas in people's heads. "It is not the

consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that

determines their consciousness."15

Proceeding from this method, how then should we approach the problem of

explaining the nation-state and nationalism? We need to show that the growth of

nation-states arose out of a necessary dynamic of the capitalist mode of production.

Nationalism could then be explained as the reflection in the human mind of thisindependent and objective necessity that could only ultimately be realised through the

actions of human beings.

One thing immediately tends to confirm this hypothesis. The initial development of

the capitalist mode of production took place in Britain and coincided with its

emergence as the first nation-state. Capitalism then spread from Britain to Europe and

America and was accompanied in both cases by the further growth of nation-states.

To proceed beyond this favourable empirical evidence, a theory of the dynamic of

capitalism that explains the development of nation-states is required. The obvious

place to look for such a theory is in Marx's own writings on capitalism.

This turns out to be unhelpful. Nowhere does Marx make any attempt to explain the

growth of nation-states and nationalism as part of the dynamic of capitalism. This

fact, in itself, requires some consideration.

Marx on the nation-state

Far from seeing capitalism as causing the growth of nationalism, Marx saw it as

leading to its disappearance! This is made clear in The Communist Manifesto of 1848:

"National differences and antagonisms between peoples are daily more and

more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of

commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and

in the conditions of life corresponding thereto. The supremacy of the

proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster"16

This internationalist conception linked to and arising from the continued growth of

free trade was central to Marx's whole perspective. He regarded free trade as "the

normal condition of modern capitalist production" while protection was "an artificial

means of forcibly abbreviating the transition from the medieval to the modernmode of production".17 In 1888 Engels was still standing firmly by this prognosis

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despite the growing signs that it was clearly wrong. He denounced the now very

obvious growth of protectionism in Germany as "absurd" and "ruinous" and claimed

the emerging cartels and trusts were "the surest sign" that protectionism was now

hampering the further development of capitalism.18 In fact, such cartels and trusts

were to be a predominant feature of a still developing capitalism for more than a

hundred years!

Protectionism means the intervention by the state in the economy. The failure of Marx

and Engels to understand the role of protectionism in the development of capitalism

was essentially a failure to understand a necessary role of nation-states. To understand

the background to this failure we need to consider the general consensus that existed

in Marx's time about what a nation was. Marx's writings show that his views on this

question were virtually indistinguishable from this consensus. In so far as he had a

theory, he merely echoed the viewpoint of Hegel, who had attempted to provide a

theoretical foundation for the consensus.

Although the concept of a state coinciding with a nation was new in the 19 th century,those who advocated it thought they knew what they meant by it. When Mazzini made

the call, quoted at the beginning of this dissertation, for every nation to have a state

and for there to be one state for each nation, he listed what he regarded as nations. 19 A

couple of them, the Poles and the Hungarians, might have been slightly controversial

at the time, but there would have been common agreement concerning the rest.

At this time, the concept of a nation was synonymous with the termpeople or the

German Volk. As early as the 1770s theEncyclopdie had given a list of nations

together with their "national characteristics" that coincided fairly closely with most of

the nationalities that early 19th century nationalists considered important.20 The list

included French, Italians, Spanish, English, Scots, Germans, and Irish.

Although there might be some minor disputes over who belonged on the list, people

were agreed that there were a number of "historic" nations. Others not belonging to

this list were regarded as "people without history", not properly constituting nations.

Hegel attempted to define such people as "not bearers of the world spirit". Whereas

the "historic" peoples would ultimately crown their history by achieving their own

state, for Hegel the highest and ultimate personification of the "world spirit", the

"non-historic" people would not be able to and would "count no longer in history".

Marx once made a famous claim that in Hegel theory was "standing on its head" andthat he had turned it "right side up again".21 Doing so in this case, however, did not

produce any more of a scientific definition than Hegel's. Rejecting, of course, the

"world spirit", Marx instead simply definedthe "historic" people as those he

considered capable of forming a state as opposed to the "non-historic" people who he

didn't think could. His list of "historic" and "non-historic" nations coincided pretty

much with everyone else's. Ephraim Nimni comments inMarxism and Nationalism:

"These speculations are perhaps one of the weakest features of Hegel's

political philosophy and are certainly in direct opposition to a historical

materialist conception of history. It is indeed strange to find this

conceptualisation echoed in the works of the founding fathers of historicalmaterialism." 22

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Nimni shows that Marx's position on this question often amounted to nothing more

than prejudice, sometimes leading to open racism. All that can be said in Marx's

favour here is that he was reflecting the general consensus at the time. Similar racism

towards "unhistoric" peoples was also to be found amongst most liberals of the time,

including John Stuart Mill. 23

Marx's position can be summarised as follows. Certain "historic" nations were capable

of forming states of their own and should be supported in their demands to do so.

Other "non-historic" peoples should be incorporated into these states, by force if

necessary. These states would then begin to progress down the path of capitalist

development following, he insisted, the same route Britain had. In all of this, Marx's

position differed very little from the views of liberal democracy. He also agreed with

the liberal democrats that these states would only flourish through free trade. Only at

this point did he diverge. Marx believed the effect of free trade would be to destroy

nationalism through internationalising the proletariat, a class that would overthrow

capitalism and destroy nationalism in the process of doing so:

"The proletarians in all countries have one and the same interest, one and the

same enemy, and one and the same struggle. The great mass of proletarians

are, by their very nature, free from national prejudices and their whole

disposition and movement is essentially humanitarian, anti-nationalist. Only

the proletarians can destroy nationality, only the awakening proletariat can

bring about fraternisation between the different nations. 24

It is clear that we will not find in Marx's analysis of capitalism an explanation for the

growth of nationalism, which was to accelerate greatly after his death, including

within the proletariat. His work does not contain any original insight into the

emergence of nation-states. Along with most people at the time, he saw this simply as

the final realisation of long "historic" developments. He believed these states would

soon be demolished by the international movement of the working class anyway.

Recent developments in theories of nationalism

Before looking further for an explanation of nationalism in terms of the essential

dynamic of capitalism, we now need to consider major transformations in theories of

nationalism that have taken place within the last twenty years. These have shed newlight on the growth of nationalism in the 19th century and challenged previous

conceptions about what it represented.

The central thesis of the new thinking was stated as early as 1960 by Elie Kedourie in

his bookNationalism. Kedourie claimed that national consciousness, even within the

so-called "historic" nations, was a recent invention dating from the beginning of the

19th century. He challenged the long held belief that it had developed over hundreds of

years. As we have seen, that belief was already prevalent at the time of Marx, and was

still dominant at the time Kedourie wrote his book. A typical statement was that of the

French historian Marc Bloch:

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"the texts make it plain that so far as France and Germany were concerned

national consciousness was already highly developed about the year 1100".25

In 1964, Ernest Gellner advanced a new theory of nationalism.26 Later, in 1983, he

was to develop this theory much further, but already in its early version it lent support

to the position Kedourie had advanced. Gellner saw national consciousness as aninevitable product of a modern society that required "cultural homogeneity" if it was

to exist at all. He claimed that earlier concepts of a nation or a people were completely

different from this, had only existed within very narrow strata of the population, and

were irrelevant to the question of nationalism, which was purely a modern

development.

In 1979, this view received a great boost from the empirical study made by Eugen

Weber entitledPeasants into Frenchmen: The Modernisation of Rural France, 1870-

1914. Weber showed that the vast majority of rural and small town dwellers in France

did not see themselves as "Frenchmen" as recently as 1870, and that many still did not

at the time of World War One. His findings were considered particularly amazingbecause France had previously been thought to be one of the oldest of Europe's

'historic' nations.

In the context of Weber's study, Gwyn Williams stated a view that is now widespread

amongst theorists of nationalism:

"Nations have not existed from Time Immemorial as the warp and woof of

human experience. Nations are not born; they are made. Nations do not grow

like a tree, they are manufactured. Most of the nations of modern Europe were

manufactured during the nineteenth century; people manufactured nations as

they did cotton shirts. The processes were intimately linked, as peoples called

non-historic invented for themselves a usable past to inform an attainable

future, under the twin stimuli of democratic and industrial revolutions."27

This passage is noteworthy on two counts. Firstly, it links nationalism with

industrialisation and also the growth of democracy. Secondly, it clearly equates the

"historic" and "non-historic" people as both inventing a history to justify their

nationhood.

Gellner was later to develop this theme of a connection between the growth of

nationalism and industrialisation into a comprehensive theory. He was by no meansthe only one proposing a new theoretical approach to nationalism in this period. The

collapse of the old views about the length of time national consciousness had existed

opened up a wide ranging discussion. The debate took place mainly in the English

language, but involved writers from a number of nationalities. Besides Gellner,

particularly notable contributions came from Benedict Anderson and John Breuilly.

The second theme raised by Williams, that of invented history, was taken up by Eric

Hobsbawm and a number of other historians. In their bookThe Invention of Tradition

published in 1983 they showed how supposedly ancient pageantry, such as that

surrounding the British monarchy, was actually an invention of the nineteenth

century, and that during that period historians had been engaged in seeking out all

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kinds of long forgotten events to create histories for nations. Hobsbawm was later to

declare that:

"historians are to nationalists what poppy-growers in Pakistan are to heroin

addicts: we supply the essential raw material for the market." 28

The nation-states of Europe, both "historic" and "non-historic", were all manufactured

with such designer-made histories. Only afterthese states had come into existence

could they set about creating the nations they had supposedly sprung up from. The

poet Massimo d'Azeglio gave the game away for one of the "historic" nations when he

declared, after the formation of the Italian state that "We have made Italy, now we

have to make Italians." At the time, only 2.5% of the population even spoke Italian.

Gellner's theory of nationalism

Ernest Gellner's theory has been widely acclaimed as the most convincing explanation

of nationalism arising out of the new understanding outlined above. His theory linksnationalism to industrialisation. He compared industrial economies with previous

predominantly agricultural economies to look for the causes of nationalism. The main

difference, as he saw it, was the question of innovation: modern industrial societies

involve continuous technical and organisational innovation, whereas earlier societies

were essentially technologically static.

In pre-modern societies occupational structures changed little. Training could be left

to families and guilds and tied to various social and trade rituals. For the bulk of the

population there was little need for a universal culture through which to communicate.

The various social and occupational groups within society could be almostunintelligible to each other, in effect speaking a different language, often literally.

Only at the highest levels of society was there a need for what Gellner called a "high

culture" or "idiom" and even here there was great stress on cultural differentiation

rather than on homogeneity, reflecting the stratification into segregated military,

administrative, clerical and sometimes commercial ruling classes.

The needs of modern industrial society contrast sharply with this. Continual

innovation means occupational structures change significantly in less than a

generation. Training now needs to be in a far more universal idiom requiring

communication in context-free concepts. This can only be accomplished by making it

a responsibility of society as a whole, requiring the creation of all-embracingeducation systems. A high culture needs to be extended to the whole population.

The state becomes the protector of this high culture or idiom. Here, says Gellner, lies

the origin of the nation-state. Anyone excluded from the prevailing idiom for

whatever reason or possessing the wrongidiom is cut off from all prospect of a decent

life. Faced with a difference between their own idiom and the prevailing one needed

for success, people either acquire the latter or see that their children do, or they

attempt to force their own idiom into prominence. To be successful this last option

requires bringing about a new state protecting the alternative idiom. Thus

industrialisation generates nationalism which in turn produces new nation-states.

Essentially, each nation-state fosters one and only one idiom.

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Nations arising from this process may often be constructed in a highly arbitrary way

with a great deal of false consciousness about reviving or maintaining folk traditions

that never really existed. Sometimes blatant fabrication is involved. Ultimately all that

is required is for each state to possess a single idiom that can be continuously

reproduced, and sometimes recreated, through the education system.

Gellner's theory undoubtedly provides important insights into the growth of

nationalism. Critics of the theory, however, have pointed towards his concentration on

culture as providing too narrow a foundation to adequately explain all facets of

nationalism. In particular, John Breuilly has stressed the political nature of nationalist

movements. Whilst acknowledging that this is a one-sided approach, he has shown

that it counterbalances Gellners equally one-sided emphasis on culture. A political

movement is always required to bring about a society with a new cultural idiom. This

movement may be dependent on a number of prevailing social factors besides cultural

ones. There have been numerous examples where nationalist or separatist movements

arose within what previously appeared to be culturally homogenous populations; and

also many examples where quite major cultural differences dissolved without muchtrace into a single nationalist political movement.

Gellner and historical materialism

If we consider this dispute, about whether politics or culture should be considered

primary, from the theoretical viewpoint of historical materialism defined above, we

are bound to reject both positions. This theory sees politics and culture as both being

forms in which human beings become aware of an underlying necessity generated by

essential economic developments in the mode of production.

Gellner devoted a considerable amount of time to opposing such an approach. He

stated his objections to historical materialism on a number of occasions. He described

his own theory as "materialist, though by no means Marxist".29

For Gellner, nationalism was not the product of the predominant mode of production,

capitalism, under which it arose, but of industrialisation.

"My own conception of world history is clear and simple: the three great

stages of man, the hunting-gathering, the agrarian and the industrial, determine

our problems, but not our solution."30

According to Gellner, each of these stages required different patterns of culture and

power to function and this was the underlying reality of history:

"The genuine reality underlying the historic development seems to me to be a

transition between two quite different patterns of relation between culture and

power."31

Thus Gellner would appear to be ruling out economic developments as the

determining factor of social change. However, he then continues in the next sentence:

"Each of these patterns is deeply rooted in the economic bases of the socialorder, though not in the way specified by Marxism."

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He then gives a reference to Communism and Nationalism: Karl Marx versus

Friedrich Listby Roman Szporluk, implying that Szporluk's book shows how

nationalism is rooted in economic factors. That certainly is what Szporluk's book tries

to do; and therefore its argument seems to run counter to the main theme of Gellner's

own theory of nationalism. Yet Gellner confirms his support for Szporluk's position inEncounters with Nationalism, where he devotes a complete chapter to Szporluk's

book.

Here, Gellner expresses some slight disagreements with Szporluk, but appears to

accept the main argument, describing Szporluk's book as "a remarkable study in the

history of ideas".32 The theme of the book is of major relevance to the subject matter

of this dissertation and will now be examined in some depth.

The economics of Friedrich List

Szporluk's book is devoted to comparing the theories of Karl Marx with those of hiscontemporary Friedrich List, the German economist. In doing so it looks at one

question in particular. This was summed up by Gellner:

"Structural change of human society means, if it means anything, some basic

alteration in the relationship of the parts or elements of which mankind is

composed. The dramatis personae of history change their positions relative to

each other. But who or what exactly are these dramatis personae? There are

two principal candidates for the crucial role: classes and nations."33

Marx and List are seen by Szporluk as presenting arguments in favour of thealternative "principal candidates", Marx arguing in favour of classes and List in

favour of nations. Marx did, in fact, write an unfinished article against List in 1843

along such lines. After examining the way history has developed since then, Szporluk

concludes that Marx has been shown to have been wrong and List correct. It has been

nationalism and not the class struggle that has predominated over the last one hundred

and fifty years.

It is not difficult to see why Gellner rushed to support this view. It would seem to

endorse his own position linking nationalism to industrialisation. As Szporluk

showed, List's central proposition was that "industrialisation intensified national

differences".34

In fact, Gellner was walking into a trap. Having persistently arguedagainst historical materialism and the proposition that economic developments in the

mode of production ultimately determined cultural developments, he was now in

effect conceding the opposite. List's argument that industrialisation aggravated

national differences was expressed entirely in economic terms and arose from his

theories concerning the necessary international development of the capitalist mode of

production. Even if List was totally correct in his evaluation of the evolution of

capitalism compared with that of Marx, this would not prove Marx's theory of

historical materialism wrong. On the contrary, if List's economic analysis predicted

the political and cultural developments it would actually prove the theory correct.

The differences between Marx and List were more complicated than Szporluk andGellner allow. Certainly, a part of the argument of Marx against List did concern the

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development did not actually produce a substitute for Marx's theory that history

moves through class conflict. The transformation from agricultural to capitalist

industrial society could still only take place through a conflict between the classes

representing the various interests involved. Certainly, the growth of nation-states

predicted by List, accompanied by the greatly increased state intervention involved,

would greatly alter the pattern of class developments that Marx had foreseen, but itwas a question of class conflicts taking different forms, not of them being abolished

altogether.

Even at the empirical level, Gellner's claim that nations not classes have proved to be

the "dramatis personae" of historical change does not hold water. Nationalism may

have been the dominant political movement in the history of the last 150 years, but

socialism comes a close second! A theory that only attempts to explain one and not

the other is obviously inadequate.

Integrating List's economic theories into Marx's theory of historical change is not

difficult. It means substituting List's amended theory of the progression to eventualfree trade for the original one developed by the classic liberal economists, which

Marx had begun from, and then considering the consequences of this change for

historical development and class conflict.

The resulting synthesis provides an essential correction to Marx's theory of the

dynamics of capitalist development. If we also take into account Gellners work

concerning the cultural changes that are necessary in moving from a mediaeval to a

modern industrial society, and Breuillys insistence that nationalistpolitical

movements are essential to bringing about these changes, then we have a viable

theoretical basis from which to begin explaining the growth of nationalism and

nation-states in Europe. The rest of this dissertation will try to do so from this

standpoint.

The 'Age of Absolutism'

Feudalism underwent a prolonged 'first crisis' from 1300-1450. InLineages of the

Absolutist State, Perry Anderson analyses how responses to this crisis led to an 'Age

of Absolutism' representing an early modern state system. He also shows how this

Absolutism took different forms in Western and Eastern Europe. In the West theabsolute state was "a compensation for the disappearance of serfdom", while in the

East it was "a device for the consolidation of serfdom"41. Jen Szcs in Three

Historical Regions of Europe - An Outline, basing himself on Anderson's analysis,

shows how the abolition of serfdom and the growing importance of towns for the

economy laid the basis in Western Europe for a distinctive development there.

As discussed earlier, Anderson's study of feudalism concludes that the crises it went

through were due to its need for continuous expansion of the territories under its

domination. Eastern Europe (Russia) possessed a much greater potential for such

expansion than Western Europe. This difference meant, says Szcs, that

"the Western model (of Absolutism) was based on eliminating serfdom, whilethe Eastern was based on prolonging it. The decisive element in Russian

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expansion was the agrarian colonization of large areas that offered practically

unlimited space for the peasantry's mobility."42

Although Western European feudalism was able to make some expansion into

Central-Eastern Europe, it had to compete there with a Russian feudalism that was

intrinsically much stronger because of its ability to expand in other directions as well.It was this weakness of West European feudalism that forced it to "create an entirely

new model of political and social power"43 "preserving what was preservable from

feudalism, preparing for capitalism, and forming the framework of the nation-state

system".44

Szcs sees the dynamic of this capitalist nation-state system as later having a

profound effect on Russian Absolutism itself, producing there also a form of

nationalism. In a process begun by Peter the Great and continuing until the present

day (Szcs was writing before 1989):

"the Russian Empire was forced to 'open a window' to Europe, give up its ownseparate 'world economy' and become part of the European economy, and at

the same time to make enlightenment a state concern by 'civilising' its subjects

in such a way that, in terms of their social character, they still remained

subjects (and not 'civiles')".... the result was that a Russian nation was forged

from within the Russian 'imperial' framework, just as in the West nations were

forged from absolutism. But this concealed a difference as well. Under the

Western model national society freed itself from absolutism as the theoretical

depositee of sovereignty, so that it could then control the state in practice.

Under the Eastern model, the Russian nation remained both in theory and

practice a social framework subordinated to the 'freedom of the state'

(Marx)."45

Although Szcs analysis raises intriguing questions concerning the post-1989

development of Russia, a study of Russian style nationalism and its own peculiar form

of 'nation-state' is beyond the scope of this dissertation. More relevant, however, is

Szcs consideration of the effects of competing Eastern and Western forms of

Absolutism on Eastern-Central Europe. There Szcs points particularly to the

Habsburg dynasty as

"marked for almost four centuries by a specific and even ambiguous position

between the Western and Eastern prototypes of the developing system ofEuropean states. ... It followed that the dissolution of this four-centuries-old

hybrid structure was followed by mounting chaos, and not by relaxation. This

absolutism was by nature unsuited to making its 'peoples' into modern nations

- either clearly defined nation-states or linguistic nations - although in both the

West and the East that was one of the fundamental (if unevenly completed)

historic tasks of absolutism."46

The particular problems involved in creating nation states in Eastern-Central Europe

was also tackled by Gellner in his theoretical work on nationalism and we shall look

at this again later, but an examination of West European evolution is essential first.

The emergence of capitalism

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Essentially the restriction of further growth in the area under the control of Western

feudalism forced it in the direction of a qualitative rather than quantitative solution to

its crisis. If new lands could not come under its cultivation, then there really was

ultimately only one other solution to its problems, the raising of productivity in areas

already within its domain. This clearly posed the need for a development in the meansof production and the eventual creation of a new mode of production.

A major feature of the changes that took place in West Europe in response to the crisis

of feudalism was devolution of power downwards with certain elements of

sovereignty being given to the towns. This produced, says Szcs, a new economic

formula that of the autonomous urban economy. It was associated with a growing

division of labour and a widening of the market in goods and services. As Adam

Smith was to point out later, this in itself encouraged technological innovation.47

David Landes describes West Europe in the Middle Ages as "one of the most

inventive societies that history has known".48 He lists a number of key inventions first

widely used in this period, the water wheel, eyeglasses, the mechanical clock, printingand gunpowder. Along with this "invention of invention", as Landes calls it, came

also geographical exploration. The discovery of America, in particular, opened up

major new possibilities for West European development.

Thus, in contrast to an Eastern Europe, which had no real need for invention and

innovation, Western European society became far more receptive to anything that

raised labour productivity or opened up new regions for exploration. However, as

Gellner's analysis of nationalism shows, something much more is required to create a

universal culture of innovation. Gellner's work contains great insight into the cultural

differences between mediaeval society and a modern society geared to "continual

innovation". However, as Breuilly's criticism implied, Gellner's work contains a

weakness concerning the transformation from one form of society into the other:

essentially apoliticalmovement is required to make such a cultural changeover.

It is precisely this problem that was the central concern of Max Weber in his famous

essay, written in 1904-05, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber

saw capitalist society as one in which "the external goods of this world have gained an

increasing and finally an inexorable power over the lives of men as at no previous

period in history"49. Under capitalism human beings strive continuously to maximise

their material wealth.

Weber concluded that there was nothing natural about such a condition, but that it was

produced through certain social and cultural features of capitalist society. By contrast,

pre-capitalist societies had not thought in terms of maximising wealth, but rather

considered how much work was needed to meet usual needs.

"A man does not 'by nature' wish to earn more and more money, but simply to

live as he lives and as he is accustomed to live, and to earn as much as is

required to do so."50

Weber claimed that the growth of capitalism could only come about through a

"wholly irrational" development. Under capitalism,

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"Man is dominated by acquisition as the purpose of his life; acquisition is no

longer a means to the end of satisfying his material needs. This reversal of

what we might call the 'natural' situation, completely senseless from an

unprejudiced standpoint, is evidently as definitely a leading principle of

capitalism as it is foreign to all peoples not under capitalistic influence."51

The transformation of 'traditional' society into capitalism required a political

movement based not on reason or logic, said Weber, but based instead on blind belief

- a religious movement. Weber saw the Calvinist branch of Protestantism as having

performed this task. Examining particularly the writings of the English 17th century

Puritan, Richard Baxter, Weber discovered there, as a product of the doctrine of

predestination, a religious belief that saw idleness and time-wasting as major sins

"because every hour lost is lost to labour for the glory of God "52. Whilst excessive

consumption, "enticement to idle luxury" was frowned upon, the accumulation of

wealth was seen as a sign of being one of God's elect, whose soul would be saved

from eternal damnation. It is here, said Weber, that we find the origin of capitalist

accumulation.

Webers essay was intended as a direct challenge to Marxs method of historical

materialism. By showing that the political movement that created capitalism preceded

the major economic changes involved rather than reflected them Weber believed he

had repudiated historical materialism as a theory.

We must free ourselves from the view that one can deduce the Reformation,

as a historically necessary development, from economic changes.53

Although Webers explanation for the rise of capitalism would disprove the most

widely held interpretation of historical materialism, it does not, in fact, contradict the

version advanced by Anderson, the one being used in this dissertation. On the

contrary, it is saying very much the same thing as Anderson did. Anderson also

maintained that the relations of production generally changepriorto the forces of

production in an epoch of transition, and not vice versa.54 It is true that Webers

conception seems to imply that capitalism is the product of an accidental

development, whereas Andersons version of historical materialism would imply a

causal explanation in which the prolonged crisis of feudalism eventually produced a

solution. This is not, however, such a major difference. It mirrors very closely a

dispute that has taken place within the biological theory of evolution on whether

naturally selected mutations are randomly produced or are caused in some way bythe requirements of a given environmental situation. Whether or not Calvinism was

actually caused by the crisis of feudalism is not really relevant here. What matters is

that by bringing about an accumulation of capital, Calvinism produced new

possibilities for the development of human productive forces and thereby provided a

way out of the prolonged crisis of West European feudalism.

Gods Englishmen

The Puritan movement in England produced the most decisive changes of all. It was

through its religious and political crusade, culminating in the revolution of 1642-49

and its consequences, that the basis for a capitalist society adapted to continuousinnovation of the productive forces was created. According to Gellners theory of

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nationalism, such changes would need to include the creation of a single cultural

idiom, and it is the process of creating one that we should examine to find the

emergence of modern nationalism.

We do not need to look far. The writings of the Puritan movement are permeated with

a completely new conception of an English nation, produced by transferring biblicalnotions of Gods chosen people from the Israelites to the English and combining this

with Calvinist conceptions of Gods elect. Its most eloquent advocate was the

Puritans ablest propagandist, John Milton. In a written speech addressed to

Parliament he proclaimed:

Why else was this nation chosen before any other, that out of her as out of

Zion should be sounded forth the first tidings and trumpet of reformation to all

Europe? Now once again, by all concurrence of signs and the general instinct

of holy and devout men, God is decreeing to begin some new and great

reformation in his Church, even to the reforming of the Reformation itself.

What does he, then, but reveal himself to his servants, and (as his manner is)first to his Englishmen?55

This speech from Milton was made to persuade Parliament to withdraw a new law

against unlicensed printing. It argued for a new relationship between Englishmen and

their government, calling for the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely,

according to conscience56. The connection between this demand and a new culture of

innovation was made very explicit:

Consider what nation it is whereof you are governors, a nation not slow and

dull, but of quick, ingenious and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and

sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human

capacity can soar to.57

This new conception of a nation whose people, as members of that nation, were all

Gods elect and therefore entitled to specific rights and liberties guaranteed by

government was to reappear in a more secular form in all subsequent nationalist

movements. It first showed itself here in the English Puritan movement that

established the basis for the first development of capitalism. Nationalism and the

construction of nation-states based on a single cultural idiom was an essential feature

of the development of capitalism from its beginning.

Britain

InBritons. Forging the Nation 1707-1837Linda Colley shows how the original

conception of the English as being God's elect was extended after the Act of Union in

1707 to also include the Welsh and the Scots. It was with this Act that "Great Britain

was invented"58. The original reason for this was to ensure that the Scots did not

recognise a Catholic, James Edward Stuart as king. The English and the Welsh had

already agreed to import a new Protestant dynasty from Hanover. A full legislative

union between England, Scotland and Wales seemed the only way to ensure Scottish

collaboration with this plan.

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As Colley says "few pretended at the time or later that a union on paper would

automatically forge a united people"59. This unity was created by appealing to a

common history and destiny of Protestantism in all its forms in a struggle against

Catholicism. The printing press was used to spread this message extensively amongst

the whole population of Britain. Of particular note here was John Foxe'sBook of

Martyrs, containing an account of the sufferings and death of the Protestants in thereign of Queen Mary. First published as a Puritan tract in 1563, it was repackaged and

republished in 1732 in short instalments so that "the common people might be also

enabled by degrees to procure it"60. This was so successful that further editions were

published in 1761 and 1776. It eventually became "one of the few books that one

might plausibly expect to find in even a working-class household". The message of

theBook of Martyrs and other similar propaganda published at the time, such as John

Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, was simple:

"Protestant Britons learnt that particular kinds of trials, at the hands of

particular kinds of enemies, were the necessary fate and the eventual salvation

of a chosen people. Suffering and recurrent exposure to danger were a sign ofgrace; and, if met with fortitude and faith, the indispensable prelude to the

victory under God"61

The original Puritan conception of the English as God's chosen people was thus

transformed to include all Protestants throughout England, Scotland and Wales.

"More than anything else, it was this shared religious allegiance combined

with recurrent wars that permitted a sense of British national identity to

emerge alongside of, and not necessarily in competition with older, more

organic attachments to England, Wales or Scotland, or to county or village.

Protestantism was the dominant component of British religious life.

Protestantism coloured the way that Britons approached and interpreted their

material life. And an uncompromising Protestantism was the foundation on

which their state was explicitly and unapologetically based."62

Thus emerged the first real nation-state, "an invented nation, heavily dependent for its

raison dtre on a broadly Protestant culture"63.

France

A central aspect of the forging of the British nation was a series of wars between

Britain and France. They were at war between 1689 and 1697 and on a larger scale

between 1702 and 1713, 1743 and 1748, 1756 and 1763, 1778 and 1783, 1793 and

1802 and, finally, between 1803 and 1815. These were only the more violent

expression of a continuous rivalry.

Time and time again, war with France brought Britons, whether they haled

from Wales or Scotland or England, into confrontation with an obviously

hostile Other and encouraged them to define themselves against it.64

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As the worlds foremost Catholic power, France personified the enemy that threatened

to overthrow Protestantism, the defining feature of the British identity. In all the wars

up until the middle of the 18th century, one of Frances main aims was to restore the

Stuart Roman Catholic claimants to the English throne and overthrow the Protestant

settlement that had been central to the creation of Great Britain.

Behind this religious rivalry, however, there was a deeper process taking place that

involved important economic and political factors. The Puritan revolution, followed

by the constitutional settlement of 1688 and the 1707 Act of Union, had brought about

a new type of society in Britain. As discussed above, it had created conditions for a

rapid growth of capitalism based on individual innovation and enterprise. Already by

the beginning of the 18th century this was having a considerable effect on the overall

productivity of the British economy and some French were pointing this out to their

own government. Pierre Le Pesant, seigner de Boisguillebert (1656-1714), French

magistrate and economist, observed:

England does not make the quarter of France, neither in number nor thefertility of its land .Yet England has been able to yield the Prince of Orange

for the last three or four years revenues of 80 million livres [say 3 million

pounds], and do it without reducing the population to begging or forcing them

to abandon their land.65

After 1760, the pace of development of the British economy reached new heights in

what became known as the Industrial Revolution. As Friedrich List had observed in

the analysis discussed earlier, other European nations could not resist an

industrialisation process that was initially driven by their contact with Britain.

David Landes observes:

The Industrial Revolution in England changed the world and the relations of

nations and states to one another. For reasons of power, if not of wealth, the

goals and tasks of political economy were transformed. The world was now

divided between one front-runner and a highly diverse array of pursuers. It

took the quickest of the European follower countries something more than a

century to catch up.66

It was France that felt the most immediate effects of the growth in the British

economy. Economic strength translates into military strength. With the notableexception of its joint effort with Englands rebel colony in the American War of

Independence (1778-83), France came off very much the worse in the series of wars

with Britain. At the same time, it suffered military defeats in the East from Prussia,

Russia and Austria.

The French state sought to reverse these humiliations by building a massive army and

a naval fleet to match that of Britain at one and the same time. In the end, this proved

to be an impossible task, however, even to attempt it required emulating the industrial

development of Britain. French emissaries and spies were sent to Britain to learn

British techniques and the French state attempted to encourage industrial enterprise by

monopoly privileges, subsidies and tax exemptions.

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The result was a considerable growth in the French economy. European trade

increased fourfold while colonial trade rose tenfold between 1700 and 1789.

Accompanying this growth was the development of a dynamic bourgeoisie, growing

from 700,000 in 1700 to 2.3 million by 1789. At the same time the demand for legal,

medical and administrative services multiplied the members of the liberal professions.

Although these developments allowed Frances rate of growth in many sectors of the

economy to even surpass that of Britain, there was an inherent contradiction maturing

within French society as a result. Britains rapid industrialisation was taking place as a

result of the creation of a nation-state politically and culturally adapted to individual

innovation and enterprise. The French states importation of similar industrial

development was actually building a force that contradicted the structure of French

society and stood in opposition to the very state that was encouraging its growth.

These contradictions could be seen in the day-to-day operation of the capitalist

enterprises that had been created. They constantly came up against restrictions arising

from the medieval structures that were an essential feature of a French society stilladapted to an absolutist state. Firmly entrenched guilds, sanctioned and defended by

the crown, maintained traditional vested interests in trade and manufacture. A

complex array of river and road tolls, entrance fees at city gates, etc. interfered with

transport and travel. At the same time, the lack of a unified nation-state meant that

many regions were subject to their own laws and customs. France at this period

represents a suitable case study for Gellners theory that a society based on a medieval

culture and social structure cannot support a modern industrial society, and that the

transformation to a society based on a single universal high culture adapted to

innovation and enterprise is required.

These economic and cultural contradictions became strongly reflected within French

society. The growth of private capitalist industry brought about the development of a

civil society independent of the state. The same thing had already happened in

Britain, but in France the conflict between this civil society and the absolutist state

became acute. Whilst the Enlightenment developed via a mass of literary and

scientific salons, coffee-houses, reading rooms and masonic lodges, where all sorts of

ideas could be exchanged, the French state was still strictly censoring the press and

imprisoning writers in the Bastille for expressing dangerous thoughts.

By the late 1770s, according to Jacques Necker, Louis XVIs finance minister, public

opinion had become an invisible power that, without treasury, guard or army, givesits laws to the city, the court and even the palaces of kings 67.

Along with this growing power of public opinion there arose a conception of a French

nation that represented the will of the people. This expressed for the first time a

far more advanced and rational notion of nationalism than the Puritan one of a nation

of Gods elect had been. In opposition to this conception, addressing the Paris

parlement in 1766, an outraged Louis XV sought to restore the claims of Royal

absolutism:

The entire public order emanates from me. The rights and interests of the

nation whom you dare to make a separate body from the monarch rest solelyin my hands.68

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This clash was to be repeated in much sharper form in 1789. Faced with massive

debts from the French states military efforts Louis XVI sought new finance by

convening a meeting of the Estate General, the first since 1614. Within a short time he

was forced to convert it into a National Assembly, representing the nation, very

much independent of and in opposition to his own will, which was supposed torepresent that of God. From this point, events moved inexorably to the eventual

overthrow of the king, and on 21 September 1792 Europes second nation-state

emerged as a republic, proclaiming to be one and indivisible, with a constitutional

Convention elected by universal male suffrage.

The Age of Nationalism

The French revolution played a pivotal role in the development of nationalism and the

building of nation states in Europe. Ideas emanating from the revolution had a

powerful influence on the thinking of wide layers of people throughout the continent.The relationship between la Patrie and les Citoyens expressed in theMarseillaise

became central to all future nationalisms. From then on the creation of nation-states

was seen as conferring inalienable rights on those (male) citizens who were lucky

enough to be accepted into membership of such a state. Enormously influential texts,

such as the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 26 August 1789, defined these rights.

Demands for individual freedom of speech and assembly and freedom from arbitrary

government formed the basis for a mass popular following for a nationalist ideology

that challenged from below the absolutist monarchies still dominating Europe. The

call of the Paris masses for Death to the Tyrants deeply influenced large sections of

the population everywhere in Europe.

However, it was not the ideas of the French revolution alone that transformed Europe.

In the Revolutionary Wars of 1792-1815 these ideas captured a large proportion of

Europe through the guns and bayonets of those who held them.

by sweeping aside the entire museum of antiquated state structures in Europe,

from the Holy Roman Empire to the Republic of Venice, the revolutionary

armies cleared much of the ground for the administrative reforms of the

nineteenth century. Again, nationalism was not created whole by the French

Revolution; but both the ideology of the nation and the consciousness of

nationality was immensely strengthened in all those countries where the oldorder was overturned.69

Besides inspiring nationalist movements from below, the effects of the Revolutionary

Wars began to generate another form of nationalism from above. Whilst the former

concerned the fight for freedoms and rights, the latter was often inspired in the first

place by questions of military survival. In the English Revolution of 1642, Cromwell

had first proved the superiority of a national army based on men who know what it is

they do as opposed to the enforced or mercenary armies of absolute monarchs. The

French revolution took this to a whole new level. The call of theMarseillaise Aux

armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! was first heard on 21 September 1792 when

volunteers, fighting alongside the heavy artillery of the regular army, defeated theAustrian and Prussian armies in the cannonade of Valmy. The German writer Goethe,

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who was present at the battle, told his colleagues This is the beginning of a new

epoch in history, and you can claim to have witnessed it.70 The concept of the

Nation in Arms became central to the defence of the revolution from outside

intervention. The leve en masse of August 1793 brought three-quarters of a million

men under arms and brought the total size of the army and its support services up to

one million men. Even in the distorted and opportunist form developed by NapoleonBuonaparte, the superiority of an army built on loyalty to the nation showed its

decisive superiority on the battlefields of Europe.

Defeat at Napoleons hands provoked military reforms across Europe. The immediate

aim of these reforms was to build armies capable of withstanding the French military

might. It was soon realised, however, that this could not be done without political

reform as well. The Prussian army reforms of 1806-1815 were typical. Baron von

Stein, who headed the Prussian government after its military collapse before the

French army, summed up the need for political reform following his first audience

with Frederick William thus:

The chief idea [behind the reforms] was to arouse a moral, religious and

patriotic spirit in the nation, to instil into it again courage, confidence,

readiness for any sacrifice on behalf of independence from foreigners and for

the national honour.71

In his bookArmies in Revolution, John Ellis summarises the position:

If the reformers had been able to obtain this new national cohesion through

rhetoric and tub-thumping they would have gladly limited themselves to that.

But they were all too aware of the bankruptcy of the regime seriously to hope

that they could make any progress without granting any concrete reforms. If

they were to create a new mass commitment to the nation, if they were to

make the notion of the fatherland meaningful to its inhabitants, they had to

make some effort to create a new constitutional framework which would give

the Prussians some vested interest in fighting for its preservation. 72

What applied to Prussia applied throughout Europe. Absolutism had proved incapable

of mobilising the population in its defence. Even at a military level, the creation of

nations in which much wider sections of the population had a stake was becoming

essential to survival.

The Congress of Vienna settlement of 1815 set out to return the map of Europe to

where it had been before the Revolutionary Wars. It made few concessions to

nationalism and attempted to restore dynastic principles. But the genie of nationalism,

at least in its popular from below version, refused to go back into the bottle.

Nationalist movements linked closely with liberalism continued to grow across

Europe. They had their finest hour in 1848 when nationalist revolts broke out all over

Europe. These were eventually put down. Only tiny Switzerland, where the nationalist

revolt had started a year earlier in 1847, managed to emerge with a liberal nationalist

constitution.

Yet 1848 still represented a turning point. Whilst nationalism from below hadfailed, nationalism from above was strengthening. Reactionary regimes had

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defeated the nationalist revolts, but had been shaken by them. As in the case of the

military question discussed above, there was now a growing recognition that

Absolutism was in an indefensible position. The creation of nation-states from above

with citizens loyal to the fatherland began to gain support within even quite

conservative forces. Allegiance to the nation was gained by granting many of the

demands of the earlier popular nationalist movement as political and social reformslinked to the new nation-states.

Underlying these developments was a number of emerging necessities facing the

rulers of Europe. Central to these was a dynamic arising from the expansion of

industrial capitalism in Britain. In its early stages this had been the driving force that

had compelled French Absolutism down the path of the industrialisation that had

prepared its own ultimate destruction. After the revolution, French industrialisation

grew considerably until by 1848 it could be considered an industrial power, though

one still lagging far behind Britain. With the exception of Belgium, which outstripped

even France through British investment in the economy, the rest of Europe was far

behind in the industrialisation process. It was, however, being forced to go furtherdown the path of industrialisation by British economic development, which now

dominated the whole of Europe. All the same issues as had existed earlier in France

applied again for the industrialisation of the rest of Europe. The basic political,

economic and cultural requirements of an industrial economy remained the same and

demanded the building of further nation-states.

For much of the 19th century, this process advanced only slowly. The underlying

necessity still remained largely hidden. As Lists analysis showed, the first stages of

contact between non-industrialised countries and an industrialised one (Britain) would

produce benefits for both. The non-industrialised countries would find that demand

for agricultural products and raw materials increased and could import manufactured

articles in exchange. This is precisely what happened throughout the period from 1848

until 1873. Apart from short depressions in 1857 and 1866, the period was one of

continuous and unprecedented economic expansion for most of Europe. Total world

trade during this period increased by a staggering 260%.

This was the time in which free trade was seen as the key that had opened the door to an

era of endless expansion. But List, opposing the majority of economists at the time, saw

that what was really happening was a growing domination of Europe by Britain. As

Gellner says of this period inEncounters with Nationalism:

an international free-trade system, presented and accepted as the work of the

Hidden Hand, was acceptable, largely because it engendered prosperity, and

partly because the fact that the hand was invisible prevented many from noticing

that it was not impersonal but British.73

List believed that only for Britain was the cosmopolitan and the national principle one

and the same thing.74 For other countries the immediate future must be one of building

nation-states capable of protecting their economies from British domination and

allowing them to industrialise. Only after this had happened could a future era of free

trade be beneficial to all.

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The "Great Depression" of 1873 to 1896 showed how prophetic List had been. Until

the early 1870s the cost of transporting American wheat to Europe had made its price

prohibitive there. Improvements in shipping changed this, and cheap US wheat began

to flood the European market. This was a major factor in creating the ensuing slump.

The price of grain collapsed throughout the period until by 1894 it was only a third of

its 1867 price.

This collapse in agricultural prices revealed that the previous free trade period had

been one of British domination in which Britain was trying to impose a particular

form of world market on everyone else. This would have meant Britain remaining the

great manufacturing centre while all other countries were simply suppliers of raw

materials and agricultural products. It entailed the subordination of potentially powerful

manufacturing economies in their own right to the requirements of British industry.

The ultimate economic future of the other European countries, particularly Germany,

clearly did not lie in being just food and raw material exporters. The need for them to

industrialise now became obvious. In order to do so they had to create nation-states,as Britain and France already had done. From the 1870s there was a rapid acceleration

in nation-building and the driving force for this now came very much from above

rather than from below. This new nationalism was closely linked to the economic

needs of state instigated industrialisation catering initially for strongly protected home

markets. Attempts were continuously made to mobilise and harness popular feeling

behind this new growth of nationalism, but it was now clearly a much more

conservative and right-wing movement than the earlier nationalism, which had been

linked with liberal and radical ideology, including free trade.

Building a nation

The construction of nation-states based on, and guardians of, a single high culture has

posed different problems for different parts of Europe. Earlier, reference was made to

Jen Szcs consideration of the problem of nation building in Eastern-Central

Europe. This area did not come wholly under either Western or Eastern Absolutism,

but represented an area where the two contested with each other for power and

influence. Szcs maintains that Absolutism, by strongly enforcing a degree of

uniformity, laid the basis for the later emergence of nation-states in Western Europe.

He says a similar development did not take place in Eastern-Central Europe. If

anything, the constant contest between West and East in the area tended to intensifyexisting cultural divergence rather than reducing it. Szcs refers particularly to the

area eventually coming under Habsburg dynastic rule. For perhaps slightly different

reasons, this seems to be even truer for the area formerly within the Ottoman Empire.

The Habsburgs made some limited attempts to impose a uniform religion and culture

on the area within their domain, whereas the Ottoman Empire never did. While

suppressing any political opposition, it always tolerated a large measure of religious

and cultural autonomy throughout the Empire.

Beside maintaining diverse religious and cultural differences, the contest between the

various major powers operating in the Eastern-Central European region, often taking

the form of open warfare, frequently caused population shifts from one area toanother. The overall result was to produce a region that Gellner describes as being

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task has always been to first establish the new state. As Pilsudski, the first leader of

the newly independent state of Poland after 1918, declared:

It is the state which makes the nation and not the nation the state." 81

In general, new nation-states have at first commanded very little loyalty from themass of their population. Coercion has invariably played an important role in

maintaining the authority of the state in this early period. The aftermath of both the

English revolution of 1642-49 and the French revolution of 1789 were marked by

considerable terror against local populations to ensure loyalty to the new state.

Although in both cases this was ostensibly aimed at remnants of Royalist support,

much of it was designed to

Documents

Reassessing nationalism and the building of nation-states in Europe: applying a new theoretical synthesis