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Minority Nationalist Movements and Theories of Political Integration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Anthony H. Birch
Anthony H. Birch
Affiliation:
University of Victoria, British Columbia
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Abstract

The recent growth of minority nationalist movements poses the conceptual question of the validity of social science theories dealing with national integration, and the practical question of assessing the options open to governments faced with nationalistic agitations and demands for secession. Older theories predicting the decline of ethnic and cultural conflicts have been challenged by the theory of internal colonialism and by a group of theories stressing the durability of ethnic loyalties. The theory of internal colonialism is analyzed and found to be unhelpful. The durability of ethnic loyalties is accepted; four propositions are advanced to explain the growth of minority nationalist movements. It is suggested that this is a rational development in view of recent changes in the international order. Canadian and British experience indicates that it is difficult for governments to prevent demands for secession from arising. However, the growth of interdependence has reduced the significance of secession; this view is supported by a brief analysis of relations between the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , April 1978 , pp. 325 - 344
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1978

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References

1 See Deutsch, Karl, Nationalism and Social Communications (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1953)Google Scholar. It should be noted that Deutsch has modified his theory in later writings.

2 Hechter, Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536–1966 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1975)Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., 8–9.

4 See Gonzales-Casanova, Pablo, “Internal Colonialism and National Development,” and Rodolpho Stavenhagen, “Classes, Colonialism, and Acculturation,” both in Studies in Comparative International Development, 1 (1965)Google Scholar.

5 See Hechter (fn. 2), 9–10 and 38–40.

6 Ibid., 41.

7 Commission on the Constitution, Research Paper 10 (London: H.M.S.O. 1973), 72Google Scholar.

8 See Bell, Wendell and Freeman, Walter E., eds., Ethnicity and Nation-Building: Comparative International and Historical Perspectives (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications 1974)Google Scholar; Campbell, Ernest Q., ed., Racial Tensions and National Identity (Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Press 1972)Google Scholar; Connor, Walker“Self-Determination: The New Phase,” World Politics, XX (October 1967)Google Scholar, and “Nation-Building or Nation Destroying?” World Politics, XXIV (April 1972)Google Scholar; Connor, , “The Politics of Ethnonationalism,” Journal of International Affairs, XXVII, No. 1 (1973)Google Scholar; Enloe, Cynthia H.Ethnic Conflict and Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown 1973)Google Scholar; Glazer, Nathan and Moynihan, Daniel P., eds., Ethnicity: Theory and Experience (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1975)Google Scholar; and Kovacs, Martin L. and Cropley, A. J., Immigrants and Society: Alienation and Assimilation (Sydney: McGraw-Hill 1975)Google Scholar.

9 See William Petersen, “On the Subnations of Western Europe” in Glazer and Moynihan (fn. 8), 177–208.

10 See Connor, “The Politics of Ethnonationalism,” (fn. 8).

11 See Connor, “Nation-Building or Nation-Destroying?” (fn. 8), 339–41.

12 For a discussion of the political viewpoint of the Ulster Protestants, regarded as a form of nationalism, see Birch, Political Integration and Disintegration in the British Isles (London: Allen and Unwin 1977)Google Scholar, chap. 4.

13 Hechter (fn. 2), 310.

14 John Porter, “Ethnic Pluralism in Canada,” in Glazer and Moynihan (fn. 8), at p. 291.

15 This point has been made by Deutsch, Karl in “Between Sovereignty and Integration: Conclusions,” Government and Opposition, IX (1974)Google Scholar.

16 As several writers have pointed out, there are few, if any, sizeable states which do not contain ethnic or cultural minorities. If a total population of 10 million qualifies a state as sizeable, Japan and the two Koreas are the only ones that come close to complete ethnic homogeneity; and even Japan contains a scattered minority of Korean immigrants.

17 Black, Edwin R.Divided Loyalties: Canadian Concepts of Federalism (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press 1975), 142CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Ibid., 83.

19 See Commission on the Constitution (fn. 7), 23. For fuller details, see Birch (fn. 12), chaps. 3 and 6.

20 Senator Eric Cook, quoted in the Vancouver Sun, February 4, 1977Google Scholar.

21 Max Saltsman, quoted ibid.

22 Meisel, John, Wording Papers on Canadian Politics (2d ed.; Montreal: McGillQueen's University Press 1975), 211Google Scholar.

23 It is not suggested that the state is becoming obsolete, as some writers have proposed—only that the degree of interdependence between states is now so great that for many purposes it is more meaningful to analyze the situation in terms of areas of relative autonomy and partial dependence than to do so in “absolute” terms like sovereignty and independence.

24 In the twelve months ending in February 1977, the rate of inflation in the United Kingdom was 16.2% and that in Ireland was 16.7%. The O.E.C.D. figures for neighboring states were France, 9.1%; Belgium, 8.1%; Holland, 7.3%; Denmark, 11.7%; and Norway, 8.9%.

25 See O'Cuiv, Brian, Irish Dialects and Irish-speaking Districts (Dublin: Institute for Advanced Studies 1951)Google Scholar.

26 The difficulties of the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland have been amply documented in recent years, most carefully in Barritt, Denis P. and Carter, Charles F., The Northern Ireland Problem (rev. ed., London: Oxford University Press 1972)Google Scholar. For the difficulties of Protestants in the Republic, see Jackson, Harold, The Two Irelands (London: Minority Rights Group 1971)Google Scholar.