Abstract
The deep concern in Europe today about the nature and consequences of the link between ethnicity1 and nationalism2 stems from the revolutionary events of the late 1980s, the present turbulent state of affairs in parts of Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and the contemporary ethnic resurgence within Europe, sustained by the ideology of nationalism, which seeks the creation, by any means necessary, of political entities which emphasize ethnic interest. North-western Europe, grown a trifle too self-confident and complacent as a result of the unprecedented prosperity and political stability of the last four decades, is seeking to come to terms with the outbreak of ethnic violence in the Balkans and the states of the former Soviet Union. In doing so, two interconnected questions are asked. What makes the combination of nationalism and ethnicity so dangerous to the stability of the state system that has emerged from the collapse of Soviet domination imposed on Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans by the victors of the Second World War through the Yalta settlement? Could this combination of ethnicity and nationalism help resolve conflicts rather than make them more complex, help maintain stability rather than subvert the political structures that the successor states of collapsed empires have inherited?
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Notes
W.W. Isajiw, ‘Definitions of Ethnicity’, Ethnicity, I (July 1974), pp. 111–24.
See Isiah Berlin’s reflections on the neglect of nationalism by scholars in the essay ‘The Bent Twig: On the Rise of Nationalism’, The Crooked Timber of Humanity (New York: Vintage Books, 1992).
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See particularly, Anthony D. Smith, Theories of Nationalism (London: Duckworth, 1983)
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Paul R. Brass, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison (New Delhi: Sage, 1991), pp. 8–9.
Paul Brass’s reference was to Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986)
John A. Armstrong, Nations before Nationalism (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1982).
For a recent study see Mikulas Teich and Roy Porter (eds), The National Question in Europe in Historical Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
T.O. Ranger, ‘Connections Between “Primary Resistance” Movements and Modern Mass Nationalism in East and Central Africa’, Part I, The Journal of African History, IX, 3, 1968, pp. 437–53
See Eric Stokes, ‘Traditional Resistance Movements and Afro-Asian Nationalism: The Context of the 1857 Mutiny Rebellion’, The Peasant and the Raj (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 120–39.
K.M. de Silva, ‘Nineteenth-Century Origins of Nationalism in Ceylon’, in K.M. de Silva (ed.), History of Ceylon, Vol III (Colombo/Kandy: University of Ceylon Press, 1973), pp. 249–61.
B. Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983).
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On South-East Asia see Lim Joo-Jock and Vani S, Armed Separatism in South-East Asia (Singapore: Institute of South East Asian Studies, 1984)
Chandran Jeshuran, Governments and Rebellions in South-East Asia (Singapore: Institute of South East Asian Studies, 1985).
I. Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origin, History and Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984)
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See, for instance, Ruth McVey,’ separatism and Paradoxes of the Nation-State in Perspective’, in Lim Joo-Jock and Vani S, Armed Separatism in South-East Asia, pp. 3–29. See also, R. Premdas et al. (eds), Secessionist Movements in Comparative Perspective (London: Pinter, 1990).
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© 1996 The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS)/The Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael
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de Silva, K.M. (1996). Ethnicity and Nationalism. In: van de Goor, L., Rupesinghe, K., Sciarone, P. (eds) Between Development and Destruction. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24794-3_6
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