National identity and the “Kohn dichotomy”

Abstract

This article assesses the analytical value of the “Kohn dichotomy” – the notion that there are two types of nationalism, resting on civic values in the West and on ethnic values outside the West. It begins by outlining the intellectual history of this dichotomy since its origin in the 1860s and by analyzing its main features. It contrasts the state traditions of Central and Eastern Europe and Western Europe in three areas: the geopolitical evolution of the state, the state’s perspective on its own population as reflected in efforts to measure “ethnic nationality” through such instruments as the population census, and divergences in citizenship law. It shows that data from recent programs of comparative survey research, and analysis of nationalist ideology, highlight the variety of forms that nationalism may take in the two parts of Europe. The article concludes that the “ethnic–civic” dichotomy is valuable as an ideal type with the capacity to shed light on the nature of ethnic affiliation, not as a categorical classification system. Different ethnonational groups comprise mixtures of people who use a combination of “ethnic” and “civic” reference points; they do not coincide with global territorial zones that may be identified with any level of clarity.

Keywords:

• Hans Kohn
• nationalism
• Europe
• civic nationalism
• ethnic nationalism
• language

Acknowledgements

Revised version of a paper presented at the 21st Annual World Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, Columbia University, New York, 14–16 April 2016. I am indebted to conference participants, Stephen Larin and Joseph Long for comments. An earlier version of parts of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Seattle, 1–4 September 2011.

Notes

1 The terminology used to describe the two types has varied, with the “civic–ethnic” one perhaps the most common; others include the distinction between “demotic” and “ethnic” nationalism made by Francis (1976).

2 “Groupism” has been defined by Brubaker (2002, 164) as “the tendency to take discrete, sharply differentiated, internally homogeneous and externally bounded groups as basic constituents of social life, chief protagonists of social conflicts, and fundamental units of social analysis,” a tendency that would undermine scientific analysis of ethno-social phenomena, but one that can all too easily be attributed to those using ethnonyms as labels of convenience.

3 Bös (2000) argues that “nationality” refers to the legal concept of formal affiliation to the state, while “citizenship” is a broader political concept; but this need not lead to any confusion with the concept of ethnic nationality discussed here.