National minorities, nationalizing states, and external national homelands in the new Europe: notes toward a relational analysis

"Nationalism remains central to politics in and among the new nation-states. Far from »solving« the region's national question, the most recent reconfiguration of political space – the replacement of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia by some twenty would-be nation-states – only recast it in a new form. It is this new phase and form of the national question that I explore in this paper. I begin by outlining a particular relational configuration – the triadic relational nexus between national minorities, nationalizing states, and external national homelands – that is central to the national question in post-Soviet Eurasia. In the second, and most substantial, section of the paper, I argue that each of the »elements« in this relational nexus – minority, nationalizing state, and homeland – should itself be understood in dynamic and relational terms, not as a fixed, given, or analytically irreducible entity but as a field of differentiated positions and an arena of struggles among competing »stances.« In a brief concluding section, I return to the relational nexus as a whole, underscoring the dynamically interactive quality of the triadic interplay." (author's abstract

Accidental diasporas and external 'homelands' in Central and Eastern Europe: past and present

'Dieses Papier zielt darauf ab, einen Vergleich über Zeit und Raum hinweg anzustellen, wobei grenzüberschreitende 'homeland Nationalismen' von Weimar Deutschland und der ehemaligen Sowjet Union untersucht werden. Beide erheben den Anspruch die Entwicklungen zu überwachen, den Wohlstand zu fördern und die Rechte und Interessen von 'external ethnonational kin' - Personen, die auf die eine oder andere Art und Weise als 'zugehörig' zum Staat gesehen werden, obwohl sie BürgerInnen und EinwohnerInnen anderer Staaten sind - zu schützen. Zumindest auf der Oberfläche ergeben sich auffallende Parallelen auch zwischen den Zielgruppen - den 'ethnisch' Deutschen, die nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg in eine Reihe von Nachfolgestaaten verstreut wurden, und den 'ethnischen' Russen (und anderen Gruppen, die Russisch sprechen) die auf eine ähnliche Weise nach dem Zerfall der Sowjet Union verstreut wurden. Obwohl dieses Papier diese und andere Parallelitäten aufgreift, werden auch wesentliche Unterschiede zwischen den beiden Fällen und dem jeweiligen breiteren Umfeld analysiert.' (Autorenreferat)'This paper attempts a comparison across time and space, focusing on the transborder homeland nationalisms of Weimar Germany and post-Soviet Russia. Both involve claims to monitor the condition, support the welfare, and protect the rights and interests of external ethnonational kin - persons who are seen as 'belonging' to the state in some way despite being residents and citizens of other states. There are superficially striking parallels between the target populations as well - the ethnic Germans stranded in an array of nationalizing successor states after the First World War, and the ethnic Russians (and other Russian-speakers) similarly stranded after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Yet while noting these and other parallels, the paper focuses on key differences between the two cases, and between their broader interwar and contemporary contexts.' (author's abstract)

Beyond “identity”

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43651/1/11186_2004_Article_243859.pd

Popular Conceptions of Nationhood in Old and New European Member States: Partial Support for the Ethnic-Civic Framework

One of the most influential theories in the study of nationalism has been the ethnic-East/civic-West framework developed by Hans Kohn. Using the 2002 Eurobarometer survey on national identity and building on earlier survey studies, this article examines whether the Kohn framework is valid at the level of popular understandings of nationhood. It scrutinizes the framework both conceptually - do people define nationhood in civic or ethnic terms? - and regionally - is the East indeed more ethnic than the West and the West more civic than the East? It will show that identity markers cluster in a political, a cultural and an ethnic dimension. Respondents do not see these dimensions as competing sources of nationhood, however. The article further lends some support for the regional component of the framework. Lastly, it argues that it is the intensity of national identifications rather than their qualitative nature (ethnic-civic) that correlates with xenophobia. © 2006 Taylor & Francis

Charles Tilly as a Theorist of Nationalism

This paper considers Charles Tilly as an important but underappreciated theorist of nationalism. Tilly’s theory of nationalism emerged from the “bellicist” strand of his earlier work on state-formation and later incorporated a concern with performance, stories, and cultural modeling. Yet despite the turn to culture in Tilly’s later work, his theory of nationalism remained state-centered, materialist, and instrumentalist—a source of both its power and its limitations