The objective of this study is to compare the work of Laitin, Geertz, Hobsbawn, and Anderson and to answer as to which argument is the most persuasive for why nations and nationalism exist. The nation is best defined by the individuals that comprise that nation with the nation's definition fitting to the characteristics of its citizenry than attempting to mold the citizenry to ‘fit' into the definition of the nation. This is because where no growth exists stagnation becomes dominant and with growth comes change evidenced in the ‘tips' and ‘cascades' that occur within society and the nation-at-lager. Of course there are some things that one cannot imaging changing since it is unlikely that Israel will ever become a Muslim nation and just as unlikely that the United States will assume a communist stance in politics. With that being said, perhaps a nation might be best viewed upon the basis of its guiding principles and beliefs that stand apart from any cultural, ethnic, or linguistic framework, which everyone understands, are principles that have served as the basis for the formation and growth of that nation.
¶ … Nations and Nationalism Exist: Comparison of the Work of Laitin, Geertz, Hobsbawn, and Anderson
The objective of this study is to compare the work of Laitin, Geertz, Hobsbawn, and Anderson and to answer as to which argument is the most persuasive for why nations and nationalism exist.
Definition of 'Nation'
Anderson (1991) defines the concept of nation to be such that results in theorists of nationalism being perplexed by three specific paradoxes include: (1) the objective modernity of nations to the historians eye vs. their subjective antiquity in the eyes of nationalists; (2) the formal universality of nationality as a socio-cultural concept -- in the modern world everyone can, should, will 'have a nationality as he or she has a gender vs. The irremediable particularity of its concrete manifestations, such that, by definition, 'Greek' nationality is sui generis; (3) the political power of nationalism vs. their philosophical poverty and even incoherence. (p. 6) Anderson defines nation as "an imagined political community -- and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign. (1991, p.6) Anderson (1991) writes that the nation is limited since, no matter what the size of the population "has finite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations." (p.7)
II. Nation As A Territory
Hobsbawn (1990) writes that the nation is "territory over all of whose inhabitants it ruled and separated by clearly distinct frontiers or borders from other such territories." (p. 80) The nation is stated to have politically ruled over and to have administered to the inhabitants directly rather than through "intermediate systems of rulers and autonomous corporations." (p. 81) Also stated is that in nations characterized by bureaucracy and those that were well policed a system formulated by personal documentation requirements and requirements of registration resulted in the inhabitants of that nation being in more direct contact with those in rule and administration of the nation.
III. Identities
It is stated that the United States of America is representative of the "revolutionary concept of the nation as constituted by the deliberate political option of its potential citizens. Democracy is held to be such that has the potential to identify solutions to the acquisition of legitimacy for states and nations from the view of the citizenry. The schools are utilized in the nation state to establish the nations heritage as well as its image and to "inculcate attachment to it and to attach all to country and flag." ( )
Identity shift can be understood as a "tip or cascade": ( p. 20) A tip is described to be common in social life as are cascades. For example when black individual purchase a home in a white community the white families begin selling their homes and black individuals become the only individuals willing to purchase a home in that neighborhood which is representative of a 'tip'. A cascade is described as a movement or sentiment that spreads rapidly across a population such as a protest. Identity shift may also result in a cascade effect.
There are reported to be two identity issues involved in nationalist politics: (1) the issues of national revival in a relatively homogeneous region in a culturally heterogeneous state; and (2) nationalist politics involve the assimilation of members of minority groups or immigrants into the new national culture. (Hobsbawn) In national revivals and assimilation cascades it is reported that there are pressures politically to change the individual's "identity project." (Hobsbawm 1990, p. 22)
IV. Ties That Strongly Bind
According to Geertz (nd) individuals who live in the same nation are many times motivated by different factors and have completely different and even opposing identities. This is true most clearly in nations located in the Middle East. Language is held in the work of Laitin and Geertz to be of primary importance in the determination of a nation however, the national language is reported in the work of Hobsbawn to be a "pragmatic matter and still less a dispassionate one, as is show by the reluctance to recognize them as constructs, by historicizing, and inventing traditions for them." (1990) It is noted however, that language for some is viewed as the nation's soul and in some cases is a prerequisite for nationality.
Geertz writes that in new nation states that the new states
"are abnormally susceptible to serious disaffection based on primordial attachments. By a primordial attachment is meant one that stems from the "givens" -- or, more precisely, as culture is inevitably involved in such matters, the assumed "givens" -- of social existence: immediate contiguity and kin connection mainly, but beyond them the givenness that stems from being born into a particular religious community, speaking a particular language, or even a dialect of a language, and following particular social practices." (Geertz, nd, p. 4)
These blood, speech, cultural and other such ties are held to be strong and in some cases coercive for when the individual is effectively bound by kinsmanship and so forth the outcome is not just affection on a personal basis or necessitated practicality or even common interest or some obligation that has been incurred. The varying strength of these ties is varied from one to another individual and from one society to another.
Discussion
It is difficult to discern whose notion of how a nation is best defined is between the authors reviewed in this study however, from the viewpoint of this writer it appears that Anderson has the most rational view of what constitutes a nation at least from the view of an American citizen. The nation cannot be defined solely on the basis of the territory in which that nation is situated or even upon the language which is predominantly spoken by the people comprising the nation. Moreover, the nation cannot be defined solely by its cultural, religious or political beliefs since just as in the United States of America, in other nations too exist a great diversity of individuals and belief systems as well as political parties.
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