Abstract
The historical purpose of the linguistic nation state is to give those who speak a mother tongue hegemony in a language area with state borders. Language as the most important medium of communication in modern society also has cultural and emotional functions alongside ones that promote economy of labour, which contribute to social communication and the forging of a collective identity in modern society. While the overall economic and security policy function of the nation state is decreasing significantly in the era of globalisation, its cultural and social function is becoming ever more important. While globalisation may strengthen international dependency structures, at the same time, the sovereignty of the nation state even among the smallest states is hugely reinforced by condemnation of wars of aggression and the ending of imperial wars of conquest, making it likely that many new nation states will be created.
The need for nation statehood can be satisfied not only in an independent state, but also in a federated member state or an autonomous territory, so that the process of forming independent nation states could come to an end. It depends on the degree of tolerance between the linguistic nations whether they are prepared to organise their coexistence via a multinational decentralisation of their common state. The EU as a voluntary, democratic union of states only has the possibility of developing into a more intensely connected association of states or even to a federal state if the nations that underpin it have the opportunity to reproduce themselves within it.
Three prospects for European integration can be perceived, which at different times could be transferred to the rest of the world: (1) A preservation of the national language through a state policy of assimilation and restriction on immigration; (2) A linguistic-ethnic pluralisation of all European countries through generous immigration and naturalisation policies, which would result in a minoritisation of the indigenous European peoples; (3) A prospect for the linguistic unification of Europe, i.e. the Anglicisation first in the fields of science and the economy, and then also in politics and public life, as a result of which all national languages spoken to date, English aside, would degenerate into folklore languages. A fourth prospect, as a global-human and multinational one, would foresee the preservation of as many languages as possible, which initially can only be achieved through legally secured territories for the language cultures; in the longer term, these could however be supplemented or replaced entirely by aterritorial national corporations with state functions, which would enable the reproduction of the linguistic nations regardless of geographic location.
Lecture given on 2.6.2014. Final part of a three-part series on nation state formation and nationalism.
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Notes
- 1.
On the types of minorities, see Sapper et al. (2007, p. 12).
- 2.
For Karl Deutsch, communication networking between people is not necessarily conducted in a single standard language, the decisive factor for the emergence of a “nationality” (i.e. a community as opposed to a society) which frequently regards itself and is regarded by others as being a “nation”, in Deutsch (1966, p. 105). However, he himself prefers the statist concept of the nation, and for this reason also does not speak of “national”, but of “nationalistic” movements of the nationalities. See also Deutsch (1972, p. 27).
- 3.
Such as the Chinese occupation of Tibet, 1950/51. A unique occurrence was the mass civilian occupation of the major part of West Sahara, which was then militarily secured, however. The annexation attempt following the Iraqi conquest of Kuwait in August 1999 was foiled several months later by a multinational counter-intervention.
- 4.
- 5.
The commingling of different groups describes their coexistence in the same space, while mixing also refers to the parentage of members of both groups. Group advantages, social and religious barriers can over a longer period of time prevent the mixing of groups, despite the fact that they live together.
- 6.
One example of this is the famous golf player and highest-paid sports personality in the world, Eldrick “Tiger” Woods. From recent generations, he has Afro-American, Indian, Chinese, Thai and Dutch roots according to http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Woods
- 7.
It is almost never linked to religious-confessional assimilation. At most, secularisation and therefore a depoliticisation of the religious communities takes place. There is no scope here for a discussion of the changes in religious-confessional majority and minority relations and their interconnection with ethnic-national consciousness. However, their importance is largely underestimated.
- 8.
The surprising agreement by the Swiss to limiting immigration, with 50.3 %, on 16.2.2014, has following completion of this manuscript clearly brought this perspective to the forefront of awareness in Europe.
- 9.
Historic examples of this are the extensive Catalanisation of the Basque region, the Frenchification of Brittany, the Germanisation of the Wend and Sorb areas, the Albanianisation of Kosovo and still in the twentieth century, the Russification of large parts of Estonia and Latvia. In all of these cases, however, the linguistic-ethnic majority ratios were completely or almost entirely achieved as a result of foreign rule. By contrast, the Hispanisation of the southern regions in the USA has been conducted largely voluntarily.
- 10.
The logical consequence of denationalisation and de-ethnicisation of the states would be the replacement of their “racist” (if one uses the fashionable, inflationary concept of racism for ethnic discrimination) by “neutral” names, i.e. instead of France e.g. Seineland, instead of Britain Thamesland and instead of Germany Elbeland.
- 11.
It is interesting to follow the development of the Eurovision Song Contest, which was initially called Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson, from the point of view of the language chosen in the song entries. See also Wolther (2006).
- 12.
One should not exclude the possibility that artificial languages that are easy to pronounce, and with a simple orthography and grammar, will then experience a renaissance in the competition for a global tourism and business language.
- 13.
Many authors regard nations simply as being subgroups of humanity, which obtain their unity by setting themselves apart from other nations. For them, nationalism is therefore of necessity particularist. A global nation could however be created in the process of finding ways to tackle the threat of an invasion by extra-terrestrial life forms. By contrast, Liah Greenfeld has not problem in principle with the possibility of a nation of humanity: “nationalism is not necessarily a form of particularism […]A nation coextensive with humanity is in no way a contradiction in terms” in Greenfeld (1992, p. 7).
- 14.
To date, there is unfortunately still no comprehensive account of the truncated, neglected nation formations such as that of the Kashubians, Sorbs, etc.
- 15.
See e.g. the journal The Federalist Debate. Papers on Federalism in Europe and the World since 1987.
- 16.
Ernest Renan already stressed in 1882: “A community of interest is assuredly a powerful bond between men. Do interests, however, suffice to make a nation? I do not think so. Community of interest brings about trade agreements, but nationality has a sentimental -side to it; it is both soul and body at once; a Zollverein (today, one could say: a European Union and a Schengen Agreement, E.J.) is not a patrie. […] A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this soul or spiritual principle. […] One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present-day consent, the desire to live together […] More valuable by far than common customs posts and frontiers conforming to strategic ideas is the fact of sharing, in the past, a glorious heritage and regrets […] the fact of having suffered, enjoyed, and hoped together. […] Where national memories are concerned, griefs are of more value than triumphs, for they impose duties, and require a common effort (1992, pp. 52–54).
- 17.
Today, there are still 774 million illiterate people in the world (http://www.unesco.de/alphabetisierung.html) among the total population of 7.1 billion.
- 18.
Renan (1992, pp. 52–54).
- 19.
In the case of the referendum on independence in Montenegro, agreement was reached in advance on a minimum participation of 50 % of those eligible to vote and a minimum agreement of 55 % for independence. In May 2006, with voter participation of 86.4 %, just 55.49 % voted in favour of independence, while in 1992, 95.7 % still came out in favour of a joint state with Serbia among those eligible to vote, with voter participation of 66 %. In Quebec, those in favour of independence were in the minority with a de facto referendum on independence in October 1995, with 49.4 % and with voter participation of 93.5 %; in 1980, they were clearly far less successful on the same issue, with 40.4 %.
- 20.
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Jahn, E. (2015). A Global-Human Perspective: The United Nation States of Europe and the World. In: World Political Challenges. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-47912-4_3
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