John Breuilly

Reflections on nationalism

Nationalism is the most important political ideology of the modern era. It is also the one on which there is the least agreement. There is a gulf between ideological commitment and theoretical reflection. No one would consider the nationalist writers Mazzini, or Heinrich von Treitschke, or Palacky important theorists of nationalism in the way one would consider Karl Marx on socialism, or John Stuart Mill on liberalism, or Edmund Burke on conservatism. There is a gulf between those who regard nationalism as the product, in however exaggerated or distorted a form, of an underlying national reality, and those who regard it as myth, the cause rather than the product of nationality. There is a tension between those who see the nation as a political association and those who regard it as a cultural community. There are further differences concerning the type of political association or cultural community which is envisaged as the aim of nationalism. There are two major reasons for this failure to agree even on fairly basic questions. First, the sheer universality and apparent power of nationalism has created a vast range of cases and vested interests which make it difficult to agree upon basic approaches to the subject. Second, nationalism is peculiar in that it combines a descriptive with a prescriptive claim, There is a nation and it should be free. Some students of nationalism focus on the descriptive claim: are there such entities as nations, and, if so, how do we account for them? Others focus on the prescriptive claim: why do nationalists make such a claim and why do others support it? The net result is a literature that grows larger every year but does not progressively advance knowledge of nationalism as it grows. Instead one confronts an immense variety of historical and theoretical writings on nationalism the findings of which are impossible to compare let alone integrate. In order to appreciate fully the two books under review it is necessary briefly to indicate what have been the major types of approach to nationalism. i

What is social history

Ever since its elevation to the status of a disdpline, and the emergence of a hierarchically organised profession, history has been very largely concerned with problematics of its own making. Sometimes it is suggested by ‘gaps’ which the young researcher is advised by supervisors to fill; or by an established interpretation which, iconoclastically, he or she is encouraged to challenge. Fashion may direct the historians’ gaze; or a new methodology may excite them; or they may stumble on an untapped source. But whatever the particular focus, the context is that enclosed and esoteric world in which research is a stage in the professional career; and the ‘new’ interpretation counts for more than the substantive interest of the matter in hand.

What Does It Mean to Say that Nationalism Is ‘Popular’?

The theme of this volume concerns a major deficit in the field of nationalism studies, both historical and contemporary. These studies focus overwhelmingly on either discourse or politics. In the case of discourse, there are many studies of intellectual arguments, literature, art, music, theatre, architecture, ritual and ceremony. In the case of politics, much is published on the propaganda, ideologies, policies and actions of nationalist movements and regimes. Often the two concerns are virtually fused, as when forms of nationalist politics are seen as expressions of mind-sets shaped by discourse, or where the discourse of nationalism is seen as a function of political interests.1

Modernisation as Social Evolution: The German Case, c. 1800-1880

This essay outlines a theory of modernisation that is related to changes in the German lands. Modernisation is defined as societal transformation from corporate to functionally specialised institutions. The focus is upon institutions as modes of power (coercive, economic, cultural) and how these modernise through processes of social evolution. Specific types of change are considered for the periods 1800–15 (coercive-political power), 1815–48 (economic power), the revolutions of mid-century (cultural power) and the era of German unification (coercive-military power). A concluding section considers the main patterns of modernisation over the whole period and the kind of modern social order that had been achieved by 1880. (READ 23 January 2004 AT THE GERMAN HISTORICAL INSTITUTE, LONDON)

Napoleonic Germany and State-formation

In the first decades of the nineteenth century, some frustrated German cartographers decided to stop drawing political maps. No sooner had they completed one set than Napoleon won another war and changed all the boundaries. They opted instead for maps with ‘natural’ frontiers: Napoleon could not redirect rivers or move mountains.1 Faced with constant change, one looks for something underlying and enduring.

Modern empires and nation-states:

Empires and nation-states are not opposed or distinct forms of polity but closely linked forms. Pre-modern empire existed without any contrasting form of polity we might call a nation-state. Rather, they contrasted with non-national state forms such as city-states, small kingdoms and mobile, nomadic polities. These in turn were in constant interaction with any neighbouring empire or empires, perhaps becoming the core of an empire themselves, perhaps taking over all or part of an existing empire, perhaps maintaining some autonomy by virtue of remoteness or lack of attractiveness, perhaps by balancing opposed empires against each other. Empires did not have a national core, and non-empires were not national. By contrast, modern empires have always had a clearly designated nation-state core and a physically separate set of non-national peripheries. This has been crucial to ensuring that when formal empire is ended, both the imperial core and the former colonies are defined as nation-states. But ex-imperial nation-states and ex-colonial nation-states are really two kinds of states. Much contemporary confusion about the prospect for a world order of nation-states revolves round the failure to make that basic distinction.

The Response to Napoleon and German Nationalism

The dominant image of the German response to Napoleon has been that his conquest and exploitation of the country stimulated strong nationalism.1 This is partly the work of a national historiography which assumes what it should be seeking to establish, namely a propensity amongst ‘Germans’ to respond on a national basis against ‘foreign’ conquest. This historiography has been sharply criticised to make the point that nationalism was rather less important than other concerns, such as material deprivation or dynastic interest. However, both national historiography and its critics assume that ‘nationalism’ can be seen as an alternative to these other concerns. That in turn implies that nationalism and its alternatives are the same kinds of thing — perhaps a set of motives or a political ideology or a sense of identity. However, this is rarely made explicit.2

Nationalism and the First Unification

Biefang, in his book Politisches Burgertum in Deutschland 1857–1868, a study of four national pressure groups and the bourgeois figures who ran them, begins strikingly with an episode from a Reichstag debate in May 1889. Conservative deputy Julius von Helldorf had attacked the principles of the French revolution and its legacy in the shape of socialist and communist movements. August Bebel, the socialist leader, rose to reply. Without the French revolution, he contended, there would have been no Reichstag to debate the matter. Some of the Liberal deputies present for the debate, and many of their fathers, had opposed the status quo and were instrumental in bringing about revolution in 1848, which in turn had ushered in a constitutional regime in Prussia. Bebel went on: Consider also the later Nationalverein, whose principal leaders, Herr von Bennigsen and Dr. Miquel, are here amongst us today. Without the agitation of this association, without its persistent incitement of unrest and dissatisfaction at the existing situation amongst the German people, we would not have achieved German unity.1

1848: connected or comparable revolutions?

The easy answer to the question in the title is — yes to both. What happened in one place had connections to what happened elsewhere, e.g. the February Days stimulated popular demonstrations in south-west Germany which in turn influenced the mood of government and opposition in Vienna, Milan and Berlin (to take just the other three sites of serious urban conflict in March). News of Metternich’s overthrow contributed to the March insurrection in Berlin. And so on. We can study the mechanics of these connections, e.g. the impact of newly installed telegraph lines which transmitted news and rumours with unprecedented speed, the way railways could take people into some towns to participate in demonstrations, the ways in which print media helped convey a sense of European revolution. The difficulties lie not in displaying connections but in establishing why they existed and how significant they were.

Liberalism or Social Democracy: A Comparison of British and German Labour Politics, c.1850-75

In the period between 1850 and 1875 labour politics in Germany and Britain’ seemed to move in opposite directions. In Britain the decline of Chartism was followed by a shift on the part of politically active working men from independent action to the pursuit of franchise and other reforms in co-operation with elements in the established political parties. The co-operation between the Reform League, the most important working-class political organization in the 1860s, and the Liberal Party in the campaign for franchise reform and in the General Election of 1868 (the first held on the new franchise) marked a step towards the ’Lib-Lab’ politics which dominated labour politics in Britain up to 1914. In Germany, by contrast, the partnership between liberalism and labour movement seemed to be brief and of limited