Nations and Social Complexity

References

• Hobsbawm , E. J. 1990 . Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . See 179ff.
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• Teeple , Gary , ed. 1972 . Capitalism and the National Question in Canada Toronto : University of Toronto Press . Only occasionally is this distinction noted. For example, see Stanley B. Ryerson, ‘Quebec: Concepts of Class and Nation’ in 211–27. Ryerson distinguishes ‘a political entity’ from ‘a community of people’ (212).
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• Confusions are compounded by nation-states often being thought of as states with a single nation in the sense of a societal group. Is there any state composed solely of people of one nationality?
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• 1995 . On Nationality Oxford : Clarendon Press . Notice that ‘nationhood’ (like ‘statehood’) applies to the country as a whole (collectively) rather than to its individual citizens (distributively), contra David Miller in for example on p. 17.
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• The term ‘nationality’ is often applied to citizens of political nations as a modifier designating country of origin, but when it refers to a group it is about a societal nation. I use the term ‘nationality’ to refer to a societal group.
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• Tamir , Yael . 1993 . Liberal Nationalism Princeton , NJ : Princeton University Press .
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• Matthen , Mohan and Ware , Robert , eds. 1994 . Biology and Society 69 – 105 . In this context it is especially important to recognize the unscientific nature of the concept of race. Confusions about race have complicated conceptions of a nation or people. On race, see Nancy Holmstrom, in Supp. Vol. 20 of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy (Calgary: University of Calgary Press
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• Tamir . Liberal Nationalism See 26.
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• Of course, a country can be discontinuous, even encompassing an archipelago, but not through a process of dispersing.
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• Do the individuals partake of the culture that the nationality as a whole has, or is the culture of the nationality the aggregate of the culture of each individual?
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• Berlin , Isaiah . 1991 . “ ‘Nationalism: Past Neglect and Present Power’ in ” . In Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas Oxford : Clarendon Press . See 345. See also Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 and Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso 1991).
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• Davidson , Basil . 1992 . The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State New York : Times Books . See especially in his ‘Conclusion,’ on the nationstate as a devil to be overcome in Africa as well as elsewhere.
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• 1997 . Monitor , 3 Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives8 (Feb. 12, using ‘The Top 200: The Rise of Global Corporate Power’ by Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, DC. For other relevant figures, see David C. Korten, When Corporations Rule the World (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Kochler 1995), chap. 17.
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• Berlin . ‘Nationalism,’ 350. The very change that I am discussing contradicts the idea that there is such a thing as true nationalism.
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• Davidson . The Black Man's Burden. See
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• Davidson . The Black Man's Burden 165
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• Joshi , Shashi . 1994 . The Colonial State, the Left and the National Movement , 1 : 1920 – 1934 . (New Delhi: Sage 1992) as quoted in Gail Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution (New Delhi: Sage, 15.
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• Chatterjee , Partha . 1995 . The Nation and Its Fragments 9 Delhi : Oxford University Press .
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• The Nation and Its Fragments. For a good discussion of this see Chatterjee, ‘Whose Imagined Community?’ in “Even our imaginations must remain forever colonized,” he says. (Chatterjee, 5)
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• It should be obvious that my use of the term ‘theory’ in this context is broad, covering the diverse kinds of understanding that we find in social studies. My inclination is towards rigorous and more specific descriptions of social phenomena and their mechanisms. I would countenance social laws except that the social sciences appear to be like the biological sciences in their paucity of laws. I hope that what I have to say in this discussion of nationalism and related phenomena will be mostly independent of particular theories and metatheories, other than the points about referring to social entities.
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• Taylor , Charles . 1995 . “ ‘Cross-Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate’ in his ” . In Philosophical Arguments 202 Cambridge , Ma : Harvard University Press .
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• Miller . On Nationality See 17. Of course, many or most of the people in a nation (or nationality) will have beliefs about the nation of which they are members, but the existence of the nation does not depend on the beliefs of its nationals, as is suggested in the passage.
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• I am not sure that nations cannot be observed—countries certainly can be—but I am sure that they do not have to be observed to be known to exist.
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• Different things have to be said about the Queer Nation or the Nation of Islam, although they are real forces to contend with and the structure of their reality is similarly gained through assertiveness, activity, and recognition.
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• 1993 . The Disorder of Things Cambridge , Ma : MIT Press . There are important suspicions about there even being natural kinds of animais. See John Dupré,.
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• Hacking , Ian . 1995 . “ ‘The Looping Effects of Human Kinds’ in ” . In Causal Cognition: A Multidisciplinary Debate Edited by: Sperber , Dan , Premack , David and James Premack , Ann . 351 – 94 . Oxford : Clarendon Press . See
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• Hacking . See ‘The Looping Effects of Human Kinds,’ 366–70. A current example that fits Hacking's analysis is that of whiteness. Recent studies try to explain the importance of being white, of thinking about the property of whiteness, as a way of better understanding classifications in a racist society.
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• Norman , Wayne . 1995 . “ ‘The Ideology of Shared Values: A Myopic Vision of Unity in the Multi-nation State’ in ” . In Is Quebec Nationalism Just? Perspectives from Anglophone Canada Edited by: Carens , Joseph H. 137 – 59 . Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press .
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• 1995 . The Literary Review of Canada , 4:10 : 13 – 15 . See Will Kymlicka's review of Carens’ book in ‘The Paradox of Liberal Nationalism,’ (November
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• Anderson . Imagined Communities 4 But it should be noted that Anderson also gives weight to the importance of functionaries, the media, and various structures of the state. See, for example, Imagined Communities, 65 and 160. It is not simply a matter of imagination for him.
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• Black Man's Burden Quoted in Davidson, 43. Cf. Isaiah Berlin's claim that “no political movement today, at any rate outside the western world, seems likely to succeed unless it allies itself to national sentiment” (Berlin, ‘Nationalism,’ 355).
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• The Black Man's Burden In this context, see Davidson, and Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments.
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• 1993 . ‘Quebec-as-distinct-society , 18:3 : 251 – 69 . For a discussion of our ignorance about this social kind, i.e., societies, see Claude Denis, as Conventional Wisdom: The Constitutional Silence of Anglo-Canadian Sociologists.’ Canadian Journal of Sociology
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• For critical comments and useful discussions about nationalism and nations, I thank Jocelyne Couture, Diana Hodson, Kai Nielsen, Peter Okeke, and Michel Seymour.
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