Nationalism and the Multination State
Alain Dieckhoff, Nationalism and the Multination State (translated by Cynthia Schoch), London, Hurst and New York, Oxford University Press, September 2016. An interview with the author.
Let’s start with a short historical reminder: when and how did the concept of nationalism emerge? You situate it at the heart of modernity. Can you tell us more?
Nationalism is both an ideology and a political movement that aims to make the nation—a human community sharing common characteristics, be they cultural (language, religion, shared history) and/or political (belonging to the same territorialized political community)—the focus of collective expression. The term originated in the main European languages, first timidly at the end of the 18th century, and then firmly took hold in the following century. This means that it is a modern phenomenon related to a major transformation: political sovereignty is vested in the people, no more in monarchs.
How do you explain that nationalism has switched from a ‘positive’ connotation, synonymous with freedom and emancipation, to a ‘negative’ connotation, synonymous with exclusion and withdrawing into oneself?
Because the idea of nation was at odds with the unequal society of the Ancien Regime, it was inseparable from the rise of democracy as government by the people. Nationalism originally had a truly revolutionary and emancipatory dimension. From the Peoples’ Spring in 1848 through the 1950-60s great wave of decolonization and up to the ‘decommunization’ of peoples under Soviet rule in the 1990s, it was this emancipatory aspect of nationalism that was clearly at the forefront.
From the late nineteenth century, however, first in France and Germany, then in many other European countries, nationalism gradually took on another meaning when some conservative political movements decided to make it their own doctrine based on the absolute primacy of the values and interests of their nation alone.
This nationalism of withdrawal, of reaction, of rooting, goes together with a double exclusion. The first targets other nations, considered inferior and which are at best ignored and at worst enslaved or eliminated. The second takes place within the same political body which must be purged of all "non-national" elements, in other words, basically, those who do not share the same "organic identity."
Clearly, nationalism is Janus-faced in nature. It is a factor of emancipation because it enables people to attain collective emancipation, through mutual respect. Conversely, it can also nurture dreadful practices of xenophobic and racist exclusion.
In what conditions could nationalism disappear?
Liberals and Marxists differ on many issues, but they share a common conviction: that increased interaction will bring about a reduction in differences between peoples and gradually lead to the unification of the world. Yet the supposed end of nationalism is an illusion, for two reasons. First, neither tendency realizes that globalization also provides new resources for nationalism, as is clear with the insolent force of what I have called nationalism of affluence. By promoting direct access to the world market, globalization enables Catalan or Quebec nationalists to bypass the central government and assert their own national project. Second, as long as the state remains the dominant figure of the political, there will be nationalism because the state works to match political society and cultural identity. That is the very principle of the nation-state.
Yet your book deals with the multinational state. What is that?
It is a mode of state organization based on the dissociation of civic community and national community, in other words between the political realm and the realm of identity. It is a reality, at least partly in Canada, Spain, and Belgium but also in Russia, Bolivia. It is also something we need to work toward, because, clearly, the principle of self-determination which is at the heart of nationalism will continue to produce its effects. There are only two options. Either we accept the proliferation of nation-states with strong identity foundations—as was the case after the dissolution of Yugoslavia— or we try to preserve or create bi- or multinational states in order to organize the coexistence of different national groups within a single democratic state, which frequently involves the implementation of federalism.
What does not seem a credible interpretation, on the other hand, is the post-national perspective, as proposed by its most prominent advocate, Jürgen Habermas. It seeks to base participation in the political community on the sole principles of democracy and rule of law. The recurrent crisis of the European project lies precisely in the lack of attention paid to the crucial question of a European identity. In fact, Europe cannot create a strong sense of belonging and this leaves the door open either to various forms of sovereignty (Brexit being the most recent example) or to “dissociative” nationalism of the like at work in Catalonia and Scotland.
Interview by Miriam Perier, CERI
