Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T07:50:31.290Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Toward a Synthesis of Conflict and Integration Theories of Nationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Jeffrey Martin
Affiliation:
Lawrence University
Get access

Abstract

This study is an attempt to generate a theory of nationalism through a synthesis of the conflict and integration theories of nationalism. On the premise that conflict and integration theories have tapped different aspects of the same phenomenon, a more powerful theory of nationalism may be distilled. Such an endeavor, however, requires the inclusion of concepts and relationships heretofore neglected in the literature of nationalism, e.g., the concept of relative deprivation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Sauvigny, G. de Bertier de, “Liberalism, Nationalism, Socialism: The Birth of Three Words,” Review of Politics, XXXII (April 1970), 147–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 For examples of the former see Shafer, Boyd C., Nationalism, Myth and Reality (New York: Harcourt Brace and World 1955), 10Google Scholar; Pfloff, Richard, “The Function of Arab Nationalism,” Comparative Politics, 11 (January 1970), 150Google Scholar; Hayes, Carlton, Nationalism: A Religion (New York: Macmillan 1960), 10Google Scholar; Shillto, E., “The Religion of Nationalism,” Hibbert Journal, xxx (October 1931), 22Google Scholar; and Kohn, Hans J., The Idea of Nationalism (New York: Macmillan 1945), 16Google Scholar. Several scholars have ei phasized the negative, often evil, aspects of nationalism, among them Braunth, Julius The Paradox of Nationalism (London: St. Botolph 1946), 7Google Scholar, and Hen, Frederick “The Nature of Nationalism,” Social Forces, XIX (March 1941), 412Google Scholar. For an excelle discussion explaining the historian's propensity to inject mysticism and prejudice in the study of nationalism, see Potter, David M., “Historian's Use of Nationalism ai Vice Versa,” American Historical Review, Vol. 67 (July 1962), 924–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Kedourie, Elie, Nationalism (London: Hutchinson 1971), 9Google Scholar. Robert I. Rotbei among others, advances the argument that the mere achievement of independence by territory does not demonstrate the working ethos of nationalism within it. That is say that the ideological conception of nationalism articulated by Kedourie is beggii the question in that it assumes what is yet to be proven. See Rotberg, “African N tionalism: Concept or Confusion,” Journal of Modern African Studies, IV (May 1966–46.

4 Silvert, K. H., Expectant Peoples, Nationalism and Development (New Yor Vintage 1963), 46Google Scholar. For a comprehensive critique of conceptions of nationalism, s Smith, Anthony B., Theories of Nationalism (New York: Harper and Row 1971)Google Scholar

5 Fishman, Joshua A., Language and Nationalism (Rowley, Mass.: Newbury Hou 1972), 5Google Scholar.

6 Doob, Leonard, Patriotism and Nationalism (New Haven: Yale University Press 1964), 6Google Scholar.

7 Deutsch, Karl W., Nationalism and Social Communication (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press 1953), 104Google Scholar.

8 Lenski, Gerhard, Power and Privilege (New York: McGraw-Hill 1966), 81Google Scholar.

9 This argument was advanced by Weber, Max, Economy and Society, Vol. II (New York: Bedminster Press 1968), 926–40Google Scholar; see also Sorokin, Petirim, Society, Culture, and Personality (New York: Harper 1947)Google Scholar.

10 The opposite position has been adopted by Hodges, Donald C. in his “Class Analysis and Its Presuppositions,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology, xx (October 1963), 23Google Scholar.

11 A further complication is the assumption that one can set observable parameters for the concept, “society.” Discussion of the elements comprising this concept is beyond the scope of this paper. It is understood here in the spatial sense. For useful discussions of the concept, see Bottomore, T. B., Sociology (New York: Pantheon 1971)Google Scholar, chap. 7; Parsons, Talcott, Societies (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1966)Google Scholar; Parsons, Talcott and Smelser, Neil J., Economy and Society (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press 1956), chap. 2Google Scholar.

12 Carlton Hayes is the chief exponent of the typology of nationalism according to the content of the demands. See his The Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism (New York: R. R. Smith 1931). Most typologies of nationalism have focused upon the direction of the demands; more specifically, they deal with the goals which nationalists strive toward. For examples of this approach, see Symmons-Symonolewicz, K., “Nationalist Movements: An Attempt at a Comparative Typology,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, VII (January 1965), 221–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Seton-Watson, Hugh, Nationalism, Old and New (London: Methuen 1965)Google Scholar. Louis Snyder and Hans Kohn have used the geographic region of the nationalist movement to classify different types of nationalism. See Snyder, The New Nationalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press 1968); Kohn (fn. 2). See also Worsley, Peter, The Third World (University of Chicago Press 1970)Google Scholar.

13 Weiner, Myron, in “Political Integration and Political Development,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 358 (March 1965), 53CrossRefGoogle Scholar, singles out five current usages of the term; the first is the one adopted in this paper.

14 Claude, Inis L. Jr., National Minorities, An International Problem (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1955), 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Zolberg, Aristide R., “Patterns of National Integration,” Journal of Modern African Studies, v (December 1967), 451Google Scholar.

15 The nature of primordial attachments is explained in Shils, E., “Primordial, Personal, Sacred, and Civil Ties,” British Journal of Sociology, VIII (June 1957), 130–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Geertz, Clifford, “The Integrative Revolution—Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States,” in Geertz, ed., Old Societies and New States (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press 1965), 104–57Google Scholar.

16 This definition of modernization is from Welch, Claude E. Jr., “The Comparative Study of Political Modernization,” in Welch, ed., Political Modernization (2d ed.; Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth 1971), 7Google Scholar. See also Levy, Marion J. Jr., Modernization and the Structure of Societies (2 vols., Princeton University Press 1966)Google Scholar. For a discussion of the relationship between quantitative and qualitative changes in group organization, see Connor, Walker, “Nation-Building or Nation-Destroying?” World Politics, XXIV (April 1972), 330Google Scholar.

17 Apter, David E., “The Role of Traditionalism in the Political Modernization of Ghana and Uganda,” World Politics, XIII (October 1960), 4568CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also, The Politics of Modernization (University of Chicago Press 1965). Apter suggests that instrumental systems which are structured along hierarchical authority stemming from a king or command figure can more easily adapt to changes than consummatory systems which regard religion as the cement that is binding society, the state, and authority.

18 Deutsch (fn. 7), 71.

19 Kriesberg, Louis, The Sociology of Social Conflicts (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1973), 64Google Scholar; Leibholz, H. G., “Nationality in History and Politics,” Hib-bert Journal, Vol. 62 (October 1944), 122Google Scholar.

20 Deutsch, Karl W., “Social Mobilization and Political Development,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 60 (September 1961), 507Google Scholar.

21 Ibid., 494; and Deutsch (fn. 7), 63.

22 Ibid., 101–05. A people “forms a social, economic, and political alignment of individuals from different social classes and occupations around a center and a leading group.” A nationality is “a people pressing to acquire a measure of effective control over the behavior of its members.” A nation results when “a nationality has added this power to compel its earlier cohesiveness and attachment to group symbols.”

23 Kautsky, John H., Political Change in Underdeveloped Countries: Nationalism and Communism (New York: Wiley 1962), 1356Google Scholar; Worsley (fn. 12), 49–84.

24 Silvert (fn. 4), particularly the Appendix; Eisenstadt, S. N., Modernization: Protest and Change (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1966)Google Scholar; Smelser, N. J., Essays in Sociological Explanation (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1968), 125–46Google Scholar; cf. Smith (fn. 4).

25 Eisenstadt (fn. 24), 15.

26 Other scholars have also expressed this proposition. Daniel Katz, for example, suggests that the motivating force behind nationalism can be “traced to three sources: it makes possible a greater satisfaction of men's material needs; it makes possible an enhanced psychic income; it supplements the projection of hatred and hostility upon ihe out-group.” See “Th e Psychology of Nationalism,” in Guilford, J. P., ed., Fields of Psychology (New York: Van Nostrand 1940), 165Google Scholar; Mostofi, Krasrow, Aspects of Nationalism, A Sociology of Colonial Revolt (Salt Lake City: Institute of Government, University of Utah 1964), 41Google Scholar.

27 Anthony Smith writes that the concepts of nationalism and in-group sentiment cannot be treated as equivalents because the latter concept deals with group identity at many levels of analysis while the former is fixed at the societal level of aggregation. Thus, the identity function fulfilled by the nation could also be fulfilled by other institutions. See “Ethnocentrism, Nationalism, and Social Change,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology, XIII (March 1972), 5.

28 Wright, Quincy, “The Nature of Conflict,” Western Political Quarterly, IV (June 1951), 197Google Scholar.

29 It should be noted here that the two theories are not mutually exclusive. Many scholars (Kautsky, Emerson, and Deutsch, for instance), incorporate elements from both theories into their own writings. For example, Emerson views nationalism in the context of social class conflict, yet he also recognizes integration tendencies among groups within a society. See Emerson, Rupert, From Empire to Nation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 The pluralist argument is best illustrated in several of the writings contained in Smith, M. G. and Kuper, Leo, eds., Pluralism in Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press 1971)Google Scholar; and Barth, Frederik, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (Boston: Little, Brown 1969)Google Scholar.

31 See George Simmel, Conflict (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press 1955); Coser, Lewis, The function of Social Conflict (New York: Free Press 1956)Google Scholar.

32 Breton, Albert, “The Economics of Nationalism,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 72 (August 1964), 376–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Johnson, Harry, “A Theoretical Model of Economic Nationalism in New and Developing States,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 80 (June 1965), 169–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 See Goulet, Denis, The Cruel Choice (New York: Atheneum 1971)Google Scholar; Kautsky, John H., The Political Consequences of Modernization (New York: Wiley 1972), esp. chap. 4Google Scholar.

34 The definition is from Reinhard Bendix and Seymour Martin Lipset, “Karl Marx's Theory of Social Class,” in Bendix and Lipset, eds., Class, Status, and Power (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press 1953), 7.

35 Landecker, Werner S., “Class Crystallization and Social Cleavage,” Sociology and Social Research, Vol. 54 (April 1970), 343–56Google Scholar.

36 Weber (fn. 9).

37 Several studies are informative in their discussion of Marx's failure to explain nationalism. See, for example, Kautsky (fn. 23), 67; Bottomore, T. B., Classes in Modern Society (London: Ruskin House 1965), 22Google Scholar; Davis, Horace B., Nationalism and Socialism: Marxist and Labor Theories of Nationalism to 1917 (New York: Monthly Review Press 1967)Google Scholar.

38 Several proponents of this theory argue that colonial relations between developed and underdeveloped countries have elevated the plane of conflict to the international system, with the developed countries adopting the role of the oppressor class and the developing countries taking the role of the oppressed class. For a more detailed discussion, see Smith (fn. 4), chap. 4. However, others—particularly Worsley and Kautsky—depict this process as taking place within the colonial society. Consequently, the process of nationalism can be treated as a conflict among groups within a society. This perspective removes the tautological definition that nationalism is anticolonialism. In addition, such a viewpoint recognizes that other types of class relationships can generate nationalism.

39 Kautsky (fn. 23), 37.

40 Ibid., 62.

41 Coser (fn. 31); Simmel (fn. 31).

42 See Zolberg (fn. 14), 460.

43 See Kilson, Martin L. Jr., “Nationalism and Social Classes in British West Africa,” Journal of Politics, xx (May 1958), 368–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Minogue, K. R., Nationalism (Baltimore: Penguin 1967), 6061Google Scholar; Johnson, Chalmers, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power (Stanford University Press 1962)Google Scholar.

44 Rosenblatt, Paul C., “Origins and Effects of Group Ethnocentrism and Nationalism,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, VIII (June 1964), 131CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Znaniecki, Florian, Modern Nationalities: A Sociological Study (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press 1952), 30Google Scholar.

45 Gellner, Ernest, Thought and Change (University of Chicago Press 1964), 163Google Scholar; Geertz (fn. 15). A note of caution: one should not necessarily equate the erosion of primordial loyalties with the erosion of traditional patterns of authority.

46 Gellner (fn. 45), 171; Smith (fn. 27), 18; also, Smith (fn. 4), chap. 6.

47 Akzin, B., State and Nation (London: Hutchinson 1964), 53Google Scholar.

48 Lightbody, Gordon, “A Note on the Theory of Nationalism as a Function of Ethnic Demands,” Canadian Journal of Political Science, II (Summer 1964), 331Google Scholar.

49 Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press 1968), 3738Google Scholar.

50 Kuznets, Simon, “Qualitative Aspects of the Economic Growth of Nations, VIII: Distribution of Income by Size,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 68 (January 1963), 180CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Olson, Mancur, “Rapid Growth as a Destabilizing Force,” Journal of Economic History, XXIII (December 1963), 529–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Even more significant are the findings of Cynthia Adelman and Irma Morris, in Economic Growth and Social Equity in Developing Countries (Stanford University Press 1973), which showed economic development to be accompanied by an absolute decline in the living standards of those who were already disadvantaged.

52 Huntington (fn. 49), 57–59.

53 This contention is contrary to Huntington's analysis (ibid., 53–56). He argues that a combination of mobilization and inequality will lead to social frustration and ultimately to political demands only when opportunities for mobilization are not present. Although opportunities for mobilization can reduce frustration, this sort of analysis is begging the question. It has already been shown that modernization creates inequalities which include the lack of mobility for a large segment of the population. See also Geschwender, James A., “Continuities in Theories of Status Consistency and Cognitive Dissonance,” Social Forces, XLVI (December 1967), 169Google Scholar, for a discussion of mobility and frustration. The analysis offered in the present article is also in conflict with the assumption that economic growth may be dependent upon nationalism. Cf. Hoselitz, Bert F., “Nationalism, Economic Development, and Democracy,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 305 (May 1956), 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The discrepancy between the two positions can be explained by noting that Hoselitz perceives nationalism to be a sentiment of fellowship, while we maintain that a definition of nationalism must recognize the elements of conflict inherent in nationalism.

54 Kornhauser, William, “Rebellion and Political Development,” in Eckstein, Harry, ed., Internal War (New York: Free Press 1964), 146Google Scholar.

55 Gurr, Ted, Why Men Rebel (Princeton University Press 1970), 13Google Scholar. Gurr and others have derived this concept from the proposition that aggression is always a consequence of frustration and that frustration always leads to some form of aggression. What is perceived to be frustrating depends upon the balance of value expectations and value capabilities. See Dollard, John, Doob, Leonard W., Miller, Neil E., Mowrer, O. H., and Sears, Robert R., Frustration and Aggression (New Haven: Yale University Press 1939)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Berkowitz, Leonard, Aggression: A Social Psychological Analysis (New York: McGraw-Hill 1962)Google Scholar.

56 An additional advantage of this concept is the very high degree of explanatory power it has acquired in studies of social conflict, of which nationalism is a part. For example, see Gurr, Ted, “A Causal Model of Civil Strife: A Comparative Analysis Using New Indices,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 62 (December 1968), 1104–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in which he explains over one-third of all civil strife by using the concept of relative deprivation. Other highly informative studies include Feierabend, Ivo K., Feierabend, Rosalind L., and Nesvold, Betty A., “Social Change and Political Violence: Cross-National Patterns,” in Feierabend, Feierabend, and Gurr, eds., Anger, Violence, and Politics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1972), 107–18Google Scholar; Davies, James C., “Toward a Theory of Revolution,” American Sociological Review, XXVII (January 1962), 519CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Bwy, Douglas P., “Political Instability in Latin America: The Cross-Cultural Test of a Causal Model,” Latin American Research Review, III (Spring 1968), 1766Google Scholar.

67 See Dollard and others (fn. 55).

68 Obershall, Anthony, “Rising Expectations and Political Turmoil,” Journal of Development Studies, VI (October 1969), 8Google Scholar.

59 Coser, Lewis, Continuities in the Study of Social Conflict (New York: Free Press 1967), 59Google Scholar.

60 Farmer, B. H., “The Social Basis of Nationalism in Ceylon,” Journal of Asian Studies, XXIV (May 1965), 431–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Feierabend and others (fn. 56), 117.

62 Arnold S. Feldman, “Violence and Volatility: The Likelihood of Revolution,” in Eckstein (fn. 54), 121. Feldman describes this process as “fragmentation” rather than modernization.

63 Feierabend and others (fn. 56), 117–18.

64 The terms “traditional,” “transitional,” and “modern” societies correspond to the meaning given to them by M.I.T. Study Group, “The Transitional Process,” in Welch (fn. 16), 29–46.

65 See Michels, Robert, Political Parties (New York: Free Press 1962)Google Scholar.