Nations and Nationalism Exist: Comparison of the Essay

Nations and Nationalism Exist: Comparison of the Work of Laitin, Geertz, Hobsbawn, and Anderson

The objective of this study is to compare the work of Laitin, Geertz, Hobsbawn, and Anderson and to answer as to which argument is the most persuasive for why nations and nationalism exist.

Definition of 'Nation'

Anderson (1991) defines the concept of nation to be such that results in theorists of nationalism being perplexed by three specific paradoxes include: (1) the objective modernity of nations to the historians eye vs. their subjective antiquity in the eyes of nationalists; (2) the formal universality of nationality as a socio-cultural concept -- in the modern world everyone can, should, will 'have a nationality as he or she has a gender vs. The irremediable particularity of its concrete manifestations, such that, by definition, 'Greek' nationality is sui generis; (3) the political power of nationalism vs. their philosophical poverty and even incoherence. (p. 6) Anderson defines nation as "an imagined political community -- and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign. (1991, p.6) Anderson (1991) writes that the nation is limited since, no matter what the size of the population "has finite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations." (p.7)

II. Nation As A Territory

Hobsbawn (1990) writes that the nation is "territory over all of whose inhabitants it ruled and separated by clearly distinct frontiers or borders from other such territories." (p. 80) The nation is stated to have politically ruled over and to have administered to the inhabitants directly rather than through "intermediate systems of rulers and autonomous corporations." (p. 81) Also stated is that in nations characterized by bureaucracy and those that were well policed a system formulated by personal documentation requirements and requirements of registration resulted in the inhabitants of that nation being in more direct contact with those in rule and administration of the nation.

III. Identities

It is stated that the United States of America is representative of the "revolutionary concept of the nation as constituted by the deliberate political option of its potential citizens. Democracy is held to be such that has the potential to identify solutions to the acquisition of legitimacy for states and nations from the view of the citizenry. The schools are utilized in the nation state to establish the nations heritage as well as its image and to "inculcate attachment to it and to attach all to country and flag." ( )

Identity shift can be understood as a "tip or cascade": ( p. 20) A tip is described to be common in social life as are cascades. For example when black individual purchase a home in a white community the white families begin selling their homes and black individuals become the only individuals willing to purchase a home in that neighborhood which is representative of a 'tip'. A cascade is described as a movement or sentiment that spreads rapidly across a population such as a protest. Identity shift may also result in a cascade effect.

There are reported to be two identity issues involved in nationalist politics: (1) the issues of national revival in a relatively homogeneous region in a culturally heterogeneous state; and (2) nationalist politics involve the assimilation of members of minority groups or immigrants into the new national culture. (Hobsbawn) In national revivals and assimilation cascades it is reported that there are pressures politically to change the individual's "identity project." (Hobsbawm 1990, p. 22)

IV. Ties That Strongly Bind

According to Geertz (nd) individuals who live in the same nation are many times motivated by different…