Nationalism as a Political Construct: Reading Hobsbawm

Introduction: Is Nationalism Natural or Manufactured?

The concept of nationalism would appear organic to us, with the allegiance and affinity that one feels toward one's homeland emerging from a sense of natural interconnectedness with the land and its people. However, this perception is undermined by the idea that nationalism is largely a manufactured concept designed to impose cultural homogeneity in concurrence with existing political hegemony. While the latter may be formed by concrete borders, jurisdictions, and ruling majorities, the former is actually quite difficult to achieve and exists on an ethno-linguistic continuum described in Eric Hobsbawm's 1991 address before the American Anthropological Association.

Hobsbawm makes the argument that ethno-linguistic features are attributed to the concept of nationality as an afterthought — as a device for the validation of political and power-driven structures. As Hobsbawm most convincingly phrases this notion, "ethnicity is one way of filling the empty containers of nationalism." This concept is instructive and agreeable on two levels: first, that the ethnic attributes given to nationality are consequent rather than determinant, and second, that without them, nationalism is indeed an "empty" concept at its heart.

Nationalism as a Modern Ideological Doctrine

As many of the texts consulted in follow-up research demonstrate, nationalism is viewed by many scholars as having emerged in more recent centuries in order to create populist connections between political boundaries and personal identity. To this end, Gellner & Breuilly (2006) voice the idea that nationalism has been largely conjured as a way of promoting sentiments of collectivity, unity, and alignment that help to justify the authority and territorial jurisdiction of certain ruling parties. Accordingly, Gellner & Breuilly report the perspective — among others voiced in their text — that nationalism is "a modern, irrational doctrine which could acquire sufficient power so as to actually generate nationalist sentiments and even nation states" (p. xx).

Anti-Colonial Nationalism and the Rhetoric of Self-Determination

Evidence is in easy supply to suggest that the invocation of this doctrine has been successful in a wide array of contexts. Hobsbawm's address connects these ideas to both the formation of superpowers such as the United States and to the movements for independence from colonial occupation that swept through the world during the Industrial Revolution. During this era of revolution and independence, the notion of nationalism created a great sense of unity toward the cause of self-determination and helped to prop up the concept of the nation as a manifest destiny rather than as a political, military, or social movement. By consequence, nationalism is a concept that succeeds in presenting deep historical roots even when its animating ambitions are more typically bound to the immediate events surrounding it.

Hobsbawm asserts that nationalism during this era "aimed to extend the scale of human social, political and cultural units: to unify and expand rather than to restrict and separate. This is one reason why Third-world national liberation movements found the 19th century traditions, both liberal and revolutionary-democratic, so congenial. Anti-colonial nationalists dismissed, or at least subordinated, 'tribalism', 'communalism' or other sectional and regional identities as anti-national, and serving the well-known imperialist interests of 'divide and rule'" (Hobsbawm, p. 2).

Conclusion: Power Structures and the Construction of National Identity

Indeed, within the context of the United States or Europe, the idea of a homogeneous linguistic, ethnic, racial, or religious set of conditions is not only unrealistic but is also considered anathema in modern progressive discourse. Some critics attribute this discourse to the erosion of the nation-state in the face of globalization. However, it may be more accurate to extrapolate from the Hobsbawm address that nationality is a force driven more by power structures, political bodies, and governments than by ethnicity or linguistic tradition. Indeed, it is only in the face of these encompassing and irresistible power structures that we come to view nationality in terms of culture.

Works Cited

Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso.

Gellner, E. & Breuilly, J. (2006). Nations and nationalism. Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.

Guibernau, M. & Rex, J. (2010). The ethnicity reader: Nationalism, multiculturalism and migration. Polity Press.

Hobsbawm, E. (1991). Address. American Anthropological Association.

Smith, A. D. (2010). Nationalism. Polity Press.