Paradoxes of Nationalism, The
The French Revolution and Its Meaning for Contemporary Nation Building
Publication Year: 2007
Published by: State University of New York Press
THE PARADOXES OF NATIONALISM
Contents
Download PDF (32.3 KB)
pp. vii-viii
Acknowledgments
Download PDF (34.4 KB)
pp. ix-
I am grateful to numerous colleagues and friends who offered input and support at various stages of this project, especially Andrew Hurrell, Adam Roberts, James Mayall, Jennifer M. Welsh, Elena Jurado, Jan-Werner M�ller, Linda B. Miller, Jenia Iontcheva Turner, and the two anonymous reviewers for State University of New York Press. I also benefited greatly...
Prologue
Download PDF (31.7 KB)
pp. 1-21
A monarchy on the brink of bankruptcy. Short on options, Louis XVI convokes the Estates-General, a meeting of delegates from all over France, for the first time since 1614. As in 1614, delegates are summoned from France’s three “estates”: the nobility, the clergy, and the so-called Third Estate, which encompasses almost everyone else. Perhaps not...
Paris, June 1789
Download PDF (34.0 KB)
pp. 1-3
A monarchy on the brink of bankruptcy. Short on options, Louis XVI convokes the Estates-General, a meeting of delegates from all over France, for the first time since 1614. As in 1614, delegates are summoned from France’s three “estates”: the nobility, the clergy, and the so-called Third Estate, which encompasses almost everyone else. Perhaps not...
Examining the Nation-State Principle
Download PDF (50.8 KB)
pp. 3-12
Before turning to the French Revolution, it is worth canvassing some salient aspects of the nation-state model. This model prescribes that each self-identified nation should have exclusive control of a single, uninational state. Any arrangement short of sovereign statehood is, by definition, suboptimal. This is because a belief in the primacy of the nation...
Exploring the French Revolution
Download PDF (54.9 KB)
pp. 12-21
Chapters one through four focus on a critical stage in the development of the principle of national self-determination: the years of the French Revolution, during which the idea of the nation was fused with that of self-government. Other historical periods and events have also clearly had an impact on ideas of international legitimacy and the configuration of international order...
1. Conception: How to Imagine a Preexisting,Voluntarist Nation
Download PDF (32.6 KB)
pp. 23-43
The paradox of conception flows from the need to be able to imagine the nation in order to articulate nation-based arguments and build nation-based states. This need is paradoxical because national identity is often, and even usually, forged by state and other administrative institutions.However, a logically coherent account of national self-determination ends...
Introduction
Download PDF (32.6 KB)
pp. 23-24
The paradox of conception flows from the need to be able to imagine the nation in order to articulate nation-based arguments and build nation-based states. This need is paradoxical because national identity is often, and even usually, forged by state and other administrative institutions.However, a logically coherent account of national self-determination ends...
1.1 Conceptions of the Nation in Eighteenth-Century Polemical Dictionaries
Download PDF (58.1 KB)
pp. 24-35
Dictionary definitions, while not always reliable indicators of popular understandings, nevertheless provide an illustrative starting point for analyzing eighteenth-century French ideas of nationhood.1 This is especially true of Revolutionary dictionaries, which offer a rich body of...
1.2 Conceptions of the Nation in Social Contract Theories
Download PDF (47.1 KB)
pp. 35-42
Although monarchical authority was not challenged directly until late in the eighteenth century, Enlightenment thinkers drew a sharp distinction early on between absolute and arbitrary rule, only the first of which was deemed legitimate. Support for monarchy in general did not entail unconditional support for the king. This implied the existence of some...
Conclusion
Download PDF (37.4 KB)
pp. 42-43
This chapter has canvassed the paradox of conception: how to imagine a nonpolitical, voluntarist nation as the basis for the political and territorial legitimacy of a state. During the eighteenth century, this dilemma was situated within a particular set of concerns, namely, how to develop principles of governmental accountability against the historical backdrop of...
2. Constitution: How to Give the Nation a Political Voice
Download PDF (32.8 KB)
pp. 45-68
In addition to emerging political theories, concrete power struggles within France served as a catalyst for an increasing emphasis on the idea of the nation, a development with crucial conceptual and institutional implications. In co-opting and operationalizing the contractualist requirement of popular consent to bolster their own importance, the parlements...
Introduction
Download PDF (35.1 KB)
pp. 45-
In addition to emerging political theories, concrete power struggles within France served as a catalyst for an increasing emphasis on the idea of the nation, a development with crucial conceptual and institutional implications. In co-opting and operationalizing the contractualist requirement of popular consent to bolster their own importance, the parlements...
2.1 The Entrenchment of the Nation in French Political Rhetoric
Download PDF (50.8 KB)
pp. 47-55
The emergence of the nation as a political platform was fueled by parliamentary remonstrances, petitions submitted by the parlements to the king. Under Louis XIV, remonstrances were a mere formality, presented after royally enacted laws had already been registered. At Louis XIV’s death in 1715, the regent Philippe d’Orléans allowed the remonstrances to be...
2.2 The Creation of a National Assembly
Download PDF (45.9 KB)
pp. 55-61
Emphasizing the rights of the nation served the parlements for as long as they could claim to be the nation’s most authentic “organ.” In the absence of an Estates-General, and assuming that the nation was indeed separate from the king, the parlements enjoyed this privileged status largely by...
2.3 The Contribution of the Abb� Siey�s
Download PDF (45.9 KB)
pp. 61-66
The creation of a National Assembly was largely inspired by the political thought and rhetoric of Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès. This priest-cum-politician became famous in 1789 with the publication of his provocative pamphlet Qu’est-ce que le Tiers État? (What is the Third Estate?). He was subsequently elected as a delegate from the Third Estate...
Conclusion
Download PDF (33.4 KB)
pp. 67-68
The reaction to this transformation was not uniformly enthusiastic. A 1796 dictionary, published in Germany by a French émigré, says of the word “Constitution”: Vieux mot Français, dont on n’a pas encore su fixer le vrai sens. . . . On a sermenté, on s’est embrassé, on s’est battu, on a égorgé, on a...
3. Composition: How to Define Insiders and Outsiders
Download PDF (32.8 KB)
pp. 69-86
The eighteenth-century reconception of the relationship among nation, state, and king provided a foundation for the development of the nation-state idea. The Revolutionaries’ regeneration of the French polity institutionalized the previously implicit contract between governor and governed, and enshrined national, as opposed to royal, sovereignty as the...
Introduction
Download PDF (35.2 KB)
pp. 69-70
The eighteenth-century reconception of the relationship among nation, state, and king provided a foundation for the development of the nation-state idea. The Revolutionaries’ regeneration of the French polity institutionalized the previously implicit contract between governor and governed, and enshrined national, as opposed to royal, sovereignty as the...
3.1 Implementing National Sovereignty
Download PDF (37.1 KB)
pp. 71-74
The monarchical nation had been held together symbolically by the king and delineated territorially by the reach of his administration. The Revolutionary nation was defined more subjectively and even metaphysically, based on the people’s will to live together.7 The will to live together was assumed to exist among members of the French nation (those who spoke...
3.2 Defining National Membership
Download PDF (45.1 KB)
pp. 74-80
The initial voluntarism at the heart of the Revolutionary nation-state was not uniformly sustained. Ostensibly voluntarist definitions of national belonging could be just as exclusive as nonvoluntarist ones, as their terms were equally if not more susceptible to manipulation by political �lites...
3.3 Consolidating National Identity
Download PDF (40.0 KB)
pp. 80-84
National identity, although imagined as separate and preexisting, was fostered by deliberate policies of the Revolutionary state. For example, the formal unity of the French nation, and of the state created in its name, was enshrined by the National Assembly and its proclamations. The Assembly’s decrees of...
Conclusion
Download PDF (36.6 KB)
pp. 84-86
The idea of the nation as a moral and political entity entails the need to delineate members and nonmembers. In theory, principles of delineation can be fluid, including an exit option for those who wish to leave. In practice, such openness tends to work against the emotional resonance and...
4. Confrontation: How to Interact with Other Political Units
Download PDF (32.7 KB)
pp. 87-119
This chapter explores the contradictions and potential abuses of nationalist platforms—even those of the “liberal” or emancipatory variety— in interstate relations. It focuses on the challenges faced by French Revolutionaries in their attempt to implement a universalist nationalism during the Revolutionary Wars of the 1790s: that is, to...
Introduction
Download PDF (37.2 KB)
pp. 87-90
This chapter explores the contradictions and potential abuses of nationalist platforms—even those of the “liberal” or emancipatory variety— in interstate relations. It focuses on the challenges faced by French Revolutionaries in their attempt to implement a universalist nationalism during the Revolutionary Wars of the 1790s: that is, to...
4.1 Revolutionary Principles
Download PDF (52.5 KB)
pp. 90-99
As previous chapters have indicated, the cornerstone of Revolutionary political theory was the concept of the nation as the source and first holder of sovereignty, separate from and prior to the king and the state. Within France, the National Assembly drew its legitimacy from its claim to represent the French nation...
4.2 Revolutionary Policies
Download PDF (42.2 KB)
pp. 99-104
This section highlights three explicit principles that guided foreign policy making during the Revolution: the renunciation of wars of conquest and the break with the royalist past; the idea of a democratic peace; and the doctrine of natural frontiers. Despite the apparent innocuousness of at least the first two of these ideas, all were considered threats to the existing...
4.3 Revolutionary Practice
Download PDF (60.1 KB)
pp. 104-116
While the tensions explored above may be difficult to avoid, the Revolution did not become aggressive in a vacuum. Expansionism and interventionism were largely implicit in the vision of a universal nation, but internal factors (fear of political rebellion and organized attacks by �migr�s) and external pressures (ideological and military competition with monarchical...
Conclusion
Download PDF (41.8 KB)
pp. 116-119
While the French Revolution is remembered primarily as a domestic political uprising, it had lasting repercussions in the international sphere. It was perceived as embodying a clash between two radically different conceptions of international order or, in the words of Austrian statesman and diplomat Baron von Thugut, between order and anarchy.114 As...
5. Synthesis
Download PDF (32.6 KB)
pp. 121-147
The preceding chapters offered an overview of the core tensions and trade-offs involved in the conception, constitution, composition, and confrontation of nation-states during the French Revolution. This historical analysis provides a framework for exploring the nation-state principle as a basis for world public order. Even if the contemporary...
Introduction
Download PDF (32.6 KB)
pp. 121-122
The preceding chapters offered an overview of the core tensions and trade-offs involved in the conception, constitution, composition, and confrontation of nation-states during the French Revolution. This historical analysis provides a framework for exploring the nation-state principle as a basis for world public order. Even if the contemporary...
5.1 Drawing Insights from the Four Paradoxes
Download PDF (41.0 KB)
pp. 122-127
The paradoxes of conception, constitution, composition, and confrontation can provide a framework for analyzing and evaluating claims based on national entitlements and aspirations. Each “paradox” highlights a valuable use of the idea of the nation as a platform for identity-formation and political mobilization. However, each benefit entails a corresponding...
5.2 Re-examining the Nation-State Principle
Download PDF (36.9 KB)
pp. 127-130
Both political theory and international relations (IR) tend to take states for granted, each in its own way. Political theorists generally focus on authority within politically organized communities (states) without problematizing its external dimension or boundaries. IR has been defined as the study of interaction between states, generally insulating state...
5.3 Exploring Alternatives to Nation-Statism
Download PDF (72.4 KB)
pp. 130-145
The tension between the appeal and the danger of the nation-state principle is reflected in the ambiguity of international legal provisions on self-determination. The attraction of state leaders to the nation-state idea as a legitimating principle (with nations reinforcing the prerogatives of states) has been balanced by their fear of national self-determination as a potential threat...
Conclusion
Download PDF (45.8 KB)
pp. 145-147
Politics is not just about the exercise of power, but about its justification. Power can best be exercised and compliance ensured when those subjected to it perceive it as legitimate. The use of the nation as a political platform was and is more than just a rhetorical device: it is a way of mobilizing individuals by shaping their conceptions of their political entitlements and their...
6. Epilogue—Confrontation Revisited
Download PDF (32.8 KB)
pp. 149-165
The dilemmas canvassed in the preceding chapters—including the questions of whether democracy can be exported, and whether non-exclusionary forms of solidarity can be forged in multinational and pluri-ethnic states—have taken on even greater urgency in the wake of the U.S.-led effort to replace Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime with a function...
Introduction
Download PDF (35.3 KB)
pp. 149-151
The dilemmas canvassed in the preceding chapters—including the questions of whether democracy can be exported, and whether non-exclusionary forms of solidarity can be forged in multinational and pluri-ethnic states—have taken on even greater urgency in the wake of the U.S.-led effort to replace Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime with a function...
6.1 Exporting American Ideals
Download PDF (55.8 KB)
pp. 151-159
Speeches made by U.S. President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and in the months leading up to and during military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq offer a guide to the administration’s public rationale for its foreign policy decisions. This...
6.2 Building an Iraqi Democracy
Download PDF (45.8 KB)
pp. 159-163
Many of the challenges associated with building democratic institutions in Iraq flow from the political vacuum and infrastructural deficiencies brought about by the U.S.-led removal of Saddam Hussein from power and the ensuing (and, as of the date of writing, continued) military occupation...
Conclusion
Download PDF (39.3 KB)
pp. 163-165
The above discussion suggests certain continuities in the tension between universalism and particularism in international relations, particularly in the context of attempts to export a particular political ideal. These tensions are magnified when that ideal itself emphasizes the value of self-government. The contradiction involved...
Conclusions
Download PDF (38.7 KB)
pp. 167-170
The paradoxes of conception, constitution, composition, and confrontation offer a framework for exploring the tensions involved in building nation-states and imagining alternative models. The political utility of nation-based platforms, and the pressures that push national self-definitions and policies toward exclusionary extremes, stem largely from the...
Appendix
Download PDF (37.9 KB)
pp. 171-173
Notes
Download PDF (151.2 KB)
pp. 175-216
Selected Bibliography
Download PDF (56.3 KB)
pp. 217-225
Index
Download PDF (83.7 KB)
pp. 227-233
E-ISBN-13: 9780791480762
Print-ISBN-13: 9780791469576
Print-ISBN-10: 0791469573
Page Count: 243
Illustrations: 1 table
Publication Year: 2007
Series Title: SUNY series in National Identities
Series Editor Byline: Thomas M. Wilson
