Transcript
Speaker: Hello everyone! I am Masir, your host. and This is Modern Subjects. So it is pretty common in our modern societies, especially in big cities,
Speaker: to get to know people from all over the world. With the strange sounding names, speaking weird languages and with a strange customs of all kinds. And when meeting them, one of the first questions raised is inevitably, Where are you from?
Speaker: The answer to the question usually goes along the following lines. I'm a Frenchman or an American or a Chinese. and this in most cases aligns with what is written down. and official documents such as passports.
Speaker: If you were to say something else, for example, that you were Scottish rather than British, well... That seems to imply a misalignment between your identity and the categories into which it might fall.
Speaker: I was raised in the Basque Country, and for those who don't know, this is a territory in northern Spain. With a long history of cultural and political exclusivity, with the language and representative institutions of its own.
Speaker: The world in with which I was born was marked by the conflict between two different and competing nationalism. Spanish and Basque. and both of them thought themselves exclusive from one another. So in other words you were either a Basque or you were a Spaniard and there was little room in between.
Speaker: In such a world, what official documents such as passports claimed was of little importance. What mattered was how others us perceived you. and in these instances waving a particular flag, attending a particular club, supporting a particular political party or even being a fan of a given football team.
Speaker: could stand for a symbol that could be interpreted as endorsement for one of these two identifications.
Speaker: What I am trying to say with all this is that nationalism for me was never a merely about politics. Think about food for example. all around the world. Everyone knows about Italian food.
Speaker: But what makes a particular dish Italian? Is it the origins or ethnicity of the cooks? the provenance of the ingredients employed, Is it a sense of unbroken continuity with traditions harking back to a city or a region that in the past 200 years has happened to fall under the boundaries of the Italian nation -state.
Speaker: These of course are not easily answerable questions and the matter is complicated in cases such as the Basque with the competing national identifications. Some of you might have heard about the Basque cheesecake.
Speaker: But... We're curious to see if this... can be considered an exclusively Basque dish. or part of Spanish cuisine. I can think of many people that would believe it if the latter was the case.
Speaker: So in other words, nationalism is not a political doctrine. It is instead part of the very air that we, as inhabitants of the modern world, breathe every single day of our lives.
Speaker: Every time we respond by saying i'm a french or i am german instead of referring to a particular town or a particular region We choose without thinking about it for a second to put emphasis on nationhood as the most defining and important category by which to define ourselves.
Speaker: It is normal course. and you know an innocent perhaps. but it is certainly a very distinct and very particular way of looking at these issues. and one that did not necessarily exist at other periods of the past.
Speaker: Being a modern individual, In other words, a modern subject. is to be whether we like it or not. a nationalised one as well. However,
Speaker: We don't know much about why this… is the case. As a historian I know that people in previous centuries did not necessarily answer From Italy. when asked where they were from.
Speaker: But I also know... that from a certain point in time this started to do so more and more. Why? I have no idea. I got some guesses, of course, but No certainties.
Speaker: We are far from being able to understand with precision the mechanisms and processes that make the national such a crucial category, be them in material, psychological or cultural.
Speaker: And this is why I wanted to invite Professor Sinisa Malasevic from the University College in Dublin as the guest for the first episode of this podcast. Malasevich, after all, is one of the most important contemporary scholars dealing with this issue,
Speaker: And he has authored absolute masterpieces of the field such as Grounded Nationalisms, and the very recent Nationalism as a way of life. but rather than talking only about his own research I wanted to hear also his opinion about the field of nationalism studies as a whole.
Speaker: and ask him to provide an overview of how he sees the state of our knowledge about this phenomenon. And what future challenges and questions do we still... have to face in the following years.
Speaker: This being the first episode of course. Any feedback or suggestions US listeners could give would be much appreciated. you will find the means of contracting me. in the description of the episode.
Speaker: And now, without further ado... Here's the episode. I hope you will like it.
Speaker: Hello everyone and Of course. Hello to my guest today, our guest today, Professor Sinisa Maleshevich. um Thank you very much for being here today with with us.
Speaker: Thank you for the invitation. So. I invited you, first of all, because you're ah one of the most brilliant minds currently working on a nationalism studies. I think that everyone would would agree with that.
Speaker: And also because I wanted to know your opinion about ah some questions related to the field itself and how it's been. um kind of been developing over the ah past few decades.
Speaker: And of course, you've met so many people throughout your career and you have so... such contacts with these people i think it's very interesting for for the for the audience. kind of hearing your opinions and on these topics. So I will go straight to the point.
Speaker: And I would like to ask you what. It's nationalism studies, really. because We have attended these conferences and all that, and you meet all these people working on on very different things. You get in there and there are people working on early modern period, on contemporary history. There's people doing social media. There's people doing literary studies.
Speaker: sociology as historians so it's a very uh Diverse. field. And. What's your opinion on that? Do you think there's any coherence in... in in the the field itself in the discipline itself or it's just a mishmash of different kind of ah of approaches and and methods.
Speaker: yeah thanks very much i think that's a good good question in a way because When we talk about the origins of this field, we can see perhaps some individuals writing on nationalism in general, I mean, all the way to Lord Acton and ah you know Renan and all of the kind of individual studies and later on Kohn and Cadury, but they were still not recognized as nationalism scholars. they were
Speaker: either political theorists or philosophers or historians or something like that so it's really i think in 1980s that we see this kind of shift towards a kind of more systematic study of nationalism nationalism as a phenomenon itself rather than you know kind of some element to everything else so the kind of all the foundational books you know gellner and and hobsbawm
Speaker: and and and john brulee and anderson they were all published mostly in in the 80s uh uh and so so i think this is really the beginning of of the whole discipline but we we can say that ultimately it's probably due to anthony smith's work as as as an institution builder uh and as a scholar that that he kind of i think uh provided this institutional
Speaker: a context for development of nationalism studies and the ASIN and conferences and general nations and nationalism and everything that came with it. and And I think he was really he was very good in in building these networks of people who work on nationalism, bringing them to LSC, and LSC became a hub. i mean There were scholars, obviously, of nationalism before him in LSC, including Gellner, who was his supervisor.
Speaker: But it I think since 1980s onwards, we can see this like as a merging field. And then then it became more like a pan -European and also... in the United States with association with the study of nationalism becoming more institutionalized.
Speaker: i think until that time it was more like a cold war studies you know focusing mostly on soviet and post -soviet world but now i think also association for the study nationalism has become part of the nationalism studies world.
Speaker: so So I think 80s are the beginning. And in the 90s, we have more of this, obviously, with with the collapse collapses of Soviet Union and collapse of Yugoslavia. These were big, big topics, you know, and I think nationalism became kind of much more mainstream until then. You know, it was not mainstream. And then, you know, I think in the last now 20, 30 years, it it has become much more institutional. So it is it is very...
Speaker: diverse field there's as you said rightly there are people from so many different disciplines from you know, for literary studies, history, sociology, anthropology, political theory, and anything, international relations. there There are many different fields and there are many different perspectives. The focus is different as well.
Speaker: ah So so it's it's hard to... a but I think that's not unique to to a field of such as you know kind of a huge... pretensions in way in terms both historically you know and and geographically all over the world.
Speaker: so So probably it's not coherent, you know, and it's really these few associations that hold try to hold coherence in conferences and, you know. So so it it is ongoing development in many respects, but it is much more of a field than it used to be, so so I think.
Speaker: Okay. Well, thank you. So you've mentioned these authors. andkener for example. And I think that's a good segue to get into the second question, which is like, Of course.
Speaker: when talking about nationalism studies as a field we oftentimes talk about certain classics. Like it's hard not to read the ah study any study of of about nationalism and not to find Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson, Anthony Smith. These people. like writing in the 80s for the most part.
Speaker: And of course, you've met most of them, which is kind of For people from a younger generation, these people are kind of like our Aristotle or Caesar or these these people that we heard constantly about, but we've never met them. so I would like to ask you about What do you think the impact of these studies? Anas Gondar's Nationals and Nationals and Benedict Anderson's Imagine Communities. and Eric Habsburg was, of course, an invention of tradition as well. um
Speaker: What would you say was the impact of these works on the field of nationalism studies? And in what sense do you think we have overcome some of some of the debates or the questions that they that they raised?
Speaker: Yes, I mean... In in many respects, they are you're completely right. They are classics now. So we always you know revert to them. Like in sociology, we we do the same with Marx, Durkheim, and Weber. So here in nationalism studies, it's exactly Gellner and Hobsbawm and Anderson and and now Smith perhaps.
Speaker: uh and and these are these were kind of the foundation foundational works and i i was lucky to be a student of gelner so i got to know him a bit more i i i knew ah anderson
Speaker: perhaps not as well but but he did come i brought him to give a few lectures in in ireland and we spent some time in brazil at some conference so i was i was lucky and i knew smith as well as well you know because i you know that was the ls lsc link and i was there all of them so yes i was lucky to meet them all of them really and uh you know kind of they they were very traditional scholars in terms of having encyclopedic knowledge particularly gellner gellner was you know so
Speaker: many fields that he could cover from philosophy to anthropology and you know sociology and social political theory everything so these were people who would you know speak many languages and you know were educated in a very different world to to the world that we live in ah today
Speaker: uh so that that's i think important for they got that sense because nationalism is something it's not very difficult to capture if you come from a very narrow disciplinary you know a background and i think the fact that they did come from soviet diverse backgrounds did help them to come up with these really interesting and powerful and still very influential studies so we still you know kind of engage with them.
Speaker: uh and and i think what' what's what's also important uh to to look you know is is how classics what were the main issues that classics addressed and i think two were the main one the kind of how old are nations and and nationalism so that was the kind of the big debate. I think particularly in the 80s and 90s, it's still out there, but perhaps not as as strongly as it as it was.
Speaker: ah Modernist versus, you know, non -modernist, let's call them. A primordialist net. and everything else. And then the second question was, what you know ah what are the sources? you know crucial kind of ah structural sources that give
Speaker: a birth to nationalism in nation states in terms of whether this is ah a political phenomenon or economic phenomenon or a cultural phenomenon. So here we have differences, you know, Gellner being much more economistic in his interpretation and modernist, ah Smith being the opposite in a way, more culturalist and and and more kind of pre focusing on pre -modern origins.
Speaker: And then you have Anderson, who is really in between. He's a modernist, but he's also very culturalist. and he you know He's more interested in cultural nationalism and all of that. ah So these were, I think, the key ah points of of the divergence between the classics, but they were not really interested in some other questions that we we raise now. For example, that what I'm interested in is not just that nationalism is modern, it's why modernity is nationalist. you know so In a sense, we don't we don't study other aspects of you know the world that we live in. so so And there's obviously, they were not interested in everyday nationalism. they were not you know doing some stuff that we do now and uh also i think these links with history were not as strong as they are today
Speaker: Uh, so yeah, I mean. again these these studies are are classics, they will remain so. uh but but we we also have opened so many other questions i think since so Okay. Yeah, thank you. so um I was in the midst of reading your book. i still I still haven't finished, but... First of all, I would like to congratulate you for it. It's a very good tweet. And. ah You come up in the book as a defender of theorization.
Speaker: ah there's like this. probably this push against theorization in general in in most social sciences right now. Everything is very diverse. Everything is very complex, very historically.
Speaker: contextual and it's hard to make abstractions that simplify reality, or or so to speak. so Ah. What's your position regarding theory in in this sense? Do you think that it's possible to make a theory of nationalism or it's just...
Speaker: And that's a utopia in a sense. Yeah, that's also a good question because, you know, for many years we had... ah this push, particularly coming from historians, that we have too much theory in nationalism studies. I really would often say that, and I would always disagree with him, coming from sociology and having more theoretical background.
Speaker: And I will keep saying, you know, obviously we need the historical data. We need information, but you need the theoretical framework. we We are all theorists. We we can just be poor theorists or better theorists in a sense, because we already have certain pre preconceived notions of the world. You know, so in a sense, we are all situated in in particular.
Speaker: world that that we inhabit so we can just reproduce every day.
Speaker: ah you know, common sense and think that we have no theory. We always have theory. If you try to make sense of something, you're always theorizing. It's just that this theory has to be more explicit, more more developed, you know, more more kind of linked with with the existing theoretical ah frameworks that are out there in different disciplines. So that's why I argue we need more more theories of nationalism. so So that's particularly going beyond these two questions that depth dominated for so long, you know, just ah whether nations are modern or not. And, and you know, what what... what is the source of of nationalism you know what are the kind of causes of nationalism
Speaker: ah so So even these two theories, these two questions cannot be addressed without theory. And that's why we ended up with different theories of nationalism, different attempts to explain you know origins. so So this requires theoretical thinking. But I think all these other links that we have, nationalism and...
Speaker: gender and class and you know ah rural urban whatever everything needs theory because it needs to be explained if you want to to explain something you you are already using some theoretical framework so that's what i do in in this new book thanks very much for your i'm glad that you're reading it finding it useful i try to do that i mean i i have a theoretical chapter with kind of sets these debates and trying to say that some theories are ah classical theories and contemporary theories are too.
Speaker: Structuralist ah structures has been dominant, I think, in in in nationalism studies for many years, where more recent theories have become overly agency centered. So I'm trying to kind of balance the two.
Speaker: ah in in a way to say how what we can you know keep from these two perspectives to to develop. So so i I disagree with people like Craig Calhoun, who said we cannot have a a theory of nationalism. I think we can have a theory of nationalism, not perhaps one. There will probably always be more than one because this is not a religion. We say this is it. and So we develop different theoretical frameworks. But in the same way as we we have different theories of class and we have different theories of gender and different theory theories of that and, you know, in any social science. so So we need theories and we will be developing other theories as, as you know, world changes.
Speaker: because we try to make sense of this world. so nationalism studies have to be more theoretical and that's not that's that's a good thing One thing that I liked a lot about your book is that Usually when you read lots of books on narcissism, one of the main discussions, as you've mentioned in one of the previous questions, was... ah
Speaker: Are nations modern? Are nations old? What's the relationship between both? its And there's also this ongoing debate between the so -called modernists, who believe that nations are a very modern modern phenomenon and their rivals either are called perennialists or ethno -symbolists or whatever, but always kind of an interrogatory term in a sense, because they're not very fondly looked at by the field in ah in a way.
Speaker: And I like that in your book, you go beyond this kind of discussion and focus, as you mentioned, on this idea of structuralism. versus agency -based theories on and nationalism. And I'd like you to...
Speaker: ask why is this a better way to look at the phenomenon do you think it's It's a way to overcome the previous questions to provide new answers.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, in a way, so I grew up as a modernist, you know, being being ah taught by by, you know, Gellner and and other modernists. and And in some respects, I am a modernist in many ways, but I find modernism is insufficient to to deal with, you know, kind of, because I also study war. And, you know, and and and then i I can see this is a phenomenon that has been around for thousands of years. so how you know how can we explain these links and what's what's here to to be explained so i mean in the same way as you do with your book on basques you know you you trace that there is a something there you know it's not necessarily modern but there something exists you know and so so i'm not I don't want to subscribe to Smith's view, which is overly culturalist and, you know, tries to make this. It is the cultural a thing that matters, the the ethnic course and the nations are built around ethnic course, I don't think that's
Speaker: that's very important because culture is so diverse and you could pick on anything and you know and and history could have gone in so many different directions so there's nothing in that way so so what i'm really interested is is on organizational uh course you know in a sense because it is really organizational capacity that that
Speaker: that preserves you know so sometimes this is elements of statehood but it could be religious institutions it could be you know some uh uh economic networks like you know hanseatic league or something so there has to be some structure around which a group
Speaker: groups can be built and and and elements of that can go into the modern world and then nation nationhood can emerge. so So I'm interested in continuities and in discontinuities. So modernists are all about discontinuities. Gellner is very explicit about that. He's probably the most ah fundamentalist among modernists in a sense. Anything that has happened before the French Revolution doesn't matter. This is a different world and we don't care about it. And, and and you know, I argue that's not really, we we do, past does matter you know in a sense, you know, but it's organizational past that matters. So we need to look at the, you know, kind of elements of continuity in know organizational terms, you know, from
Speaker: uh teutonic knights to to you know prussia to contemporary germany there is something interesting there but it's organizational it's not necessarily cultural it becomes cultural later but it's not you know so that's what i'm interested i'm really interested in elements of continuity but i'm also interested in discontinuity you know i obviously emphasize that in the world in which we live nationalism becomes important you know it's not something marginal that has existed in some form. Now it's...
Speaker: everything. everything we do uh so so this is you know, why I think looking by agency at agency and and structure helps us more to understand, you know, these long -term dynamics of of change.
Speaker: Yeah, so going more in depth to on your book, ah Nationalism as a Way of Life, that's your last your last book. This one's part of a series, isn't it? Because the theory that you present in it... has also been kind of...
Speaker: presented before, perhaps not in a full -fledged form, but aspects of it have been present in grounded nationalism, for example. so why did you feel that what What did you feel was left unsaid in this? in this topic that pushed you to writing this this new book.
Speaker: Yeah, okay. so So, I mean, I think we can start from my 2006 book, Identity as Ideology. so So, here I have a kind of critical chapters on on on gellner and on smith you know i was trying to write the you know kind of to see what's missing in these approaches. and and I was trying to position myself.
Speaker: ah mostly critiquing the idea of identity in the way it was formulated and used and applied and so on. And then early 2013 book, Nation, States, and Nationalism, it's a short book, is the one that where I really actually try to develop this this perspective that will eventually become a ground grounding you know perspective. But there, i know i talk I don't talk about grounding as such, but I do talk about these elements of organizational continuity because I look at the transformations from kind of world of hunter -gatherers.
Speaker: that we lived in, you know, for 99 % of our existence on this planet. so So in a sense, you know, territory didn't matter. We lived in small nomadic... uh bands of you know 50 100 people so so it is interesting you know because we we were born to live in in in a very small community so so so
Speaker: how we ended up in these ah groups of millions or billions in case of China and India. So that it is an interesting that shift, you know, how human beings have moved away from that once we become sedentary. So then I look a little bit at the, you know, kind of a first sedentary organization, city -states. I look at the ah kinship ah structures and, you know, kind of tribal confederacies and empires, most of all, because they've dominated for thousands of years. And then how we move to nation -state. so so that I was already looking a little bit at this organizational continuity and then also the importance of ideology.
Speaker: ah and a little bit on on on solidarity, you know but it wasn't fully developed. So it's really in the Grounded Nationalism book that that you mentioned that I try to articulate this whole idea of grounding, looking at these three processes, the the organizational grounding, ideological grounding, and micro -interactional grounding. uh and then looking some some case studies but not that many well this book has more case studies it has a wider scope in in terms it looks at you know and in both in time since and and place but and i think it has more theoretical elaboration So so that's the kind of the the ultimate version. I don't think I'll be but working on this you know now because I more or less said what I had to say for time being.
Speaker: Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. So yeah. And and and in your books. rather national sense but also in this one you mention You frame nationalism as a kind of subjectivity. You even say it's the dominant modern subjectivity.
Speaker: And. Of course, this is very different from... imagines of nations, for example, as communities. so what What did you... mean by by saying that nationalism is subjectivity? what What does it imply and in what way does it frame our research as nationalism scholars?
Speaker: So in in in a way, I mean, Much of kind of previous studies on nationalism tend to look at nationalism either as as an ideology you you know kind of or or as a form of social movement and And they are both, you know, so you have a lot of, if you look at Gellar, I mean, Gellar is really mostly, when he talks about nationalism, he really thinks about, you know, kind of minority groups succeeding from.
Speaker: larger state. So, this this is the Megalomania versus Ruritania, and Ruritania, obviously, is mostly an East European experience. so so So for him, nationalism, there was no nationalism of the large. You know, there is no Spanish nationalism. There's no English nationalism. There's only Scottish nationalism and Basque and, you know, sort of minorities nationalisms. So that's not really, I mean, it's really majority nationalism that are are interesting. they They dominate them. they're kind of but they they're they're normalized, they're naturalized, they're taken for granted. So I think ah focus just on on on these kind of so social movements bringing about change of of kind of imperial structures and ideologies where nationalism is treated almost the same as other ideologies like liberalism and conservatism, socialism.
Speaker: ah So that that would be kind of very a traditional take. I think Benedict Anderson has challenged that already in Imagine Communities. He he said that nationalism is much more than you know liberalism, conservatism. It's closer to religion. uh you know in terms how it operates how it appeals and
Speaker: I remember your paper on whether Catholics are a nation. That sort that was a really good good kind of a provocation, you know ah challenging challenging, you know, because it's exactly along these lines of how how Anderson was trying to understand nationalism. You know, what what is distinct about nationalism? and And I think he made a really good...
Speaker: good shift in that way because he already understood nationalism in a broader sense that this is much has much larger and much more powerful appeal than any of the kind of other uh secular ideologies so so i'm i'm i'm sort of building on that in that respect so when when i say you know nationalism is a form of dominant subjectivities i'm really interested and not only in in the way how we reproduce nation -centric uh practices you know that everyday nationalism literature does you know because everyday nationalism is really good and important way of picking on something that we normalize and naturalize in sporting events. and
Speaker: a cuisine and you know all the beauty pageants and everything, the small things.
Speaker: But I think banal nationalism is also important and it's different, you know, Billig and others who look more in the way how structures reproduce themselves, you know, in a way, you know, how we don't see that, you know, and this is more sense kind of psychological take. So this is one element that kind of reflects on on on how subjectivities are shaped in everyday life. But what I'm saying is really that's not enough. You know, everyday nationalism is not there just because, you know, we we go to the sporting events it it has to have some
Speaker: you know much much more uh organizational and ideological grounding you know so so it it is something that's been operating developing uh for you know, quite some time. So that the problem with everyday nationalism perspective, it's not historical. You know, it's all about here and now, but you cannot understand here and now without looking historically. I mean, it you know, it makes no sense. so Some ah scholars of everyday nationalism, like Elie Notte,
Speaker: argues that she agrees that you know there is no historical perspective in nationalisms everyday nationalism studies but she thinks that's that's beneficial because you can do qualitative research in everyday context and it's easier you know it's more more doable than you know kind of digging it through archives although i think there are scholars who who have done more historical uh take on everyday nationalism like Alex Maxwell, you know from New Zealand. He he's done really good stuff on
Speaker: uh hungarian and and and and a czech and slovak nationalisms in 19th century you know how uh people would middle class obviously people would you know you you would wear mustache that would indicate that you are hungarian in a particular way or you would drink particular wine uh you know to to to symbolize who you are so there were elements of that among the middle classes very early and so that's interesting and that's one of the few attempts
Speaker: for everyday nationalism ah to to historicize this phenomenon phenomenon so that's what i'm arguing you know subjectivities are there because they they they are developed they're reproduced they're So so it it it is ah it is a phenomenon very much linked with modernity. you know So we become...
Speaker: um um ah modern subjects through so many processes, you know,
Speaker: high literacy rates uh transformation of the of the state going everybody going to educational system that is compulsory. So as the citizens of of modern nation states, we cannot escape nationalism because nationalism is a backbone of of every modern nation state. So this is how nation states legitimize their existence through some form of nationalism. It can be any kind of nationalism. It has to be there because it is about popular sovereignty. You know, once you give up the idea that kings have to rule through divine origins,
Speaker: ah you know and the power resides with people, you already have some form of nationalism. So ultimately, democracy and nationalism are very much linked. I mean, in in a way, it's it is about people.
Speaker: But obviously people do not necessarily have to rule as they do not rule in in reality. so So that kind of element of the state is important in which we live. it It contributes to how we see the world, how we are socialized. Ideology of kind of this naturalization of of nationhood that, you know, we we don't question. Like now we have all these studies on... decolonizing this and decolonizing that. But we don't have studies on denationalizing this and that. you know we We assume that nationhood is great you know the only ah normal and natural way of of understanding the world. And and and often decolonizing ah approaches, which which are sometimes very good in deconstructing kind of really imperial legacies, but they can also rain reinforce nationalism. And they often do that in in a sense. Oh, this is authentic. This is ours. you know i not
Speaker: from foreigners who, you know, settler colonialists and everybody else. Yes, so so that tells us how how powerful. and and nationalism is in everyday life.
Speaker: ah Maybe nationalism is a strong word because people have strong associations with nationalism, but it's a nation -centric world in which we live. you know and that that's the It reflects and influences how we ah function as human beings and ah members of groups and how our subjectivities are formed.
Speaker: Ta -ra. I was listening to you and I was thinking... Is nationalism in this context? the same as statalism. the identification between a person, an individual and...
Speaker: the sovereign state. the widgets. subjected in in a sense? so or Or is there nationalism outside the state? because Of course, you put an emphasis on on the organizational capacities of the state, of course, but yeah I would like to to know your opinion. That's also a good good question in a way. So, I mean, for me, organizational capacity is important. And and if you remember in in grounded nationalism, I look at the at the development of nationalism.
Speaker: through different organizational channels before it becomes kind of dominant ideology. you know so so before you have you start from these smaller groups you know intellectuals and you know coffee saloons and shops where they you know exchange some ideas and and then ah you have larger social movements uh you know that promote certain idea and you have political parties and you might have sporting clubs and and so many so there are so many organizations that kind of can
Speaker: generate nation -centric ideas and practices. Religious institutions definitely, you know, and also private corporations can do that in some way. So state is not the only one. You know, we had so many before the nation state. But once nationalism becomes a state, owned ideology, it operates differently because then the state has hegemonic role and has institutions and has coercive power and has everything at its disposal. But you're right. Obviously, this raises questions. What about alternative national projects? Because, I mean, again, British nationalism is not the same as Scottish and Welsh and Castilian nationalism is not the same as Catalan and Basque. And, you know, so that's true. So in a sense, we don't have... So these are competing nationalist narratives.
Speaker: ah they They can sometimes overlap. and accept you know so so you could have like yugoslav nationalism was a
Speaker: a project that uh you will see in in the book i have a comparison on one of chapters why Yugoslav nationalism failed in two different states. The the monarchist one in nineteen you know from until 1941, and the the communist one. And they were very different. They failed for two completely different reasons. One was unitarian, you know in in a sense it was a simulationist, but it had no organizational capacity to impose itself on on on Croatian and Slovenian and and other nationalisms. While the other one was very much kind of... ah
Speaker: It never attempted to create idea of Yugoslav nation because it it thought this is too late. It could not cannot happen. And it's not a priority. Priority of the state is the, you know, self -managing socialism. That's the, you know, in the state wither away and all of that. So so so you you have that. You you you do have, in and I argue that Yugoslav nationalism during the socialist period was crucial in developing organizational capacity for Croatia national, for Slovenia national, for Serbia nationalism. So so so that's in in a way because, you know, literacy rates have increased and, you know, economic foundations have increased. So I would say, I mean, you know much more than me about Spanish case, but I'm i'm pretty sure that... elements of this modernization which have taken place very early in past country in catalonia and you know have continued and expanded you know during the spanish state so so there is there there I mean, I always every time I go from
Speaker: Basque country in France and Basque country in Spain, these are two different worlds. I mean, you can see this is a very lively nationalism. And and in France, there's no symbols, nothing. I mean, it's just like a simulation state has a very different take.
Speaker: ah so So, yeah, that's the thing. you know Nationalisms can coexist. you know Sometimes they can rely on the state. The majority nationalism will always rely on the state. But minority nationalisms can also rely on their own regional institutions, political parties, social movements. So there's always some kind of structure.
Speaker: It doesn't have to be the state. Yeah, I think that that's one of the main appeals of your approach to nationalism and for the past case. I think that that dichotomy that you point out between the... from the french territories and the spanish ones is that of course there was an organizational as you put it an organizational continuity between late medieval early modern institutions up until the 19th century.
Speaker: in the Spanish side that was not present in the in the french state and probably elites were socialized in that milieu and and and that would create the sort of identification with certain territories and and and regions that was not present in the in the French case. So, yeah, I think I agree with that. And I would like to also to ask, what what do you think?
Speaker: makes nationalism so successful in in comparison because of course there were other possibilities there were were religious just identifications or class -based identifications.
Speaker: and from time to time and one only has to read for example communist early communist propaganda stuff like that and and you notice well this is the end of nations is this new solidarity between all workers of the world And. Why did you think?
Speaker: ultimately it's nationalism time and again that comes up on top of all these kind of alternatives. What makes nationalism so powerful as a force? Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, so we can we can start from this example of the French state, you know, because, you know, as you mentioned rightly, that the Basque country, so we do have these kind of elites and we have... very long.
Speaker: tradition of of certain practices cultural practices and everything else but we do have two very different states you know so we have a french state particularly after the French Revolution, is is is a profoundly a simulationist project. so So, you know, the the various ministries after the French Revolution... revolution had a
Speaker: you know a program to annihilate all Patois. All pattois you know so i' not only all minority minorities were threats. They they were you know associated with with the feudal order. They were associated with with clergy. and you know kind of
Speaker: backwardness so freedom has to speak french and everybody has to speak exactly in the same way so yeah so that's that's the kind of paradox paradox of the enlightenment project but enlightenment project is about kind of liberation and autonomy and freedom and discussion but it's also curse cursively imposed you know in very much a simulationist and that has happened i mean in in a sense french state has you know for the last 250 years has been killing off diversity as much as it could
Speaker: But you can never do that, you know, ultimately. And then you end up with migration as in the same way as it was like just after the French Revolution that you had to deal with minorities. Now you have different minorities to to handle. So it's very difficult for assimilationist state. And French state is, you know, as as Eugene Weber showed, it
Speaker: It had these really and ah infrastructural mechanisms of assimilating everybody, making them into Frenchmen. in women. So so so I think that that's an interesting and important element because coercive power is important. you know Nationalism wouldn't exist without coercive power. you know in In a sense, that's important. And that's why I say when I say organizational capacity, I add always that coercive element there because that is ultimately, if you don't have you know a power to impose certain...
Speaker: ah programs and and regimes and ways of thinking and who will be ah ah you know doing what and abolishing languages and institutionalized standardizing languages and things like that, it it's very it would be very difficult for nationalism to to to achieve this this hegemonic position. So that's one element. The other element is this ideological grounding, which is again something that happens across different ah ah social organizations. it is It is state always does that.
Speaker: ah But it's not just the state. There are so many ways of you know, how civil society we often forget how important civil society is in you know maintaining you know how would Catalan and Basque language survive during Franco franco era if it wasn't for huge you know groups outside of the state. you know, people who did preserve the language you kept it then and that's the third element so the ideal ideology operates in so many different layers not just the states
Speaker: And then the third is the link, you know, this is why I talk about micro -interactional grounding. It's is the kind of micro -groups, the family, the friendships, you know, the community local communities where where, you know, all of this is is kind of maintained, preserved. ah Sometimes states are able in in penetrating this micro -world when they're successful.
Speaker: Sometimes they are not. And and and I show in in ah in a kind of monarchist Yugoslavia in 1920s during the dictatorship, this is this is where the state was the weakest. It simply couldn't do anything. it you know
Speaker: it was you know It operated completely outside of everyday life. you know people you know continue with their own traditions and everything else so All these elements are important, I think, in the way that the kind of convergence of these processes have given nationalism so much power.
Speaker: So it was not inevitable that nationalism would be that thing. It could have been something else. But for me, the key issue ultimately is that we live in a world.
Speaker: which is dominated by nation states. so So that's important. I mean, it's not a world of, you know, a worker state, you know, where the class would be this and that. Even communist states couldn't do men manage that. Nominally, they were, you know, proletarian, but in reality, they also nationalists. That's the only way how they could legitimize themselves. It was a kind of different kind of nationalism and so on. So that that's important. And and in in in a way, kind of true modernization. nationalism has also
Speaker: was was very successful in in kind of melting competing ideologies on on that level. You know, it's like communal, the kinship, the clan. Clan was very important for many groups, you know. And and nationalism has killed off clan attachments. You can see that, let's say, in Albanian nationalism.
Speaker: you know where where you have a ah very strong in montenegro very strong clan ah networks where people would marry, you know, ah where where ethnic differences didn't matter. So you have have a Albanian and Montenegrin
Speaker: part of the same clan. in a kind of pre -modern context, that's today unthinkable. You know, that couldn't work because, you know, so that type of identification has is disintegrated and nation just took it over. So nationalism was much more powerful then than these, even though they are very kind of...
Speaker: communal and and family -based networks of attachment. and Other competing ideologies simply didn't have all of these you know structures and ideology and and and micro -solidarity. They couldn't compete. It doesn't mean ultimately that nationalism will always prevail. you know and i
Speaker: In the book, I do look at the future, and since nationalism has been around for a fairly short period of time, historically speaking, it you know it's it's not Inevitably. be there in the future. but but this constellation of different factors has brought us into that position where nationalism has become so powerful.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's... Also, like the the way in which nationalism projects are carried out, I think it's important. Because, of course, there's... French example, assimilation example that you that you mentioned.
Speaker: by eliminating the patois or the minority languages. fertilize the ground in a sense for
Speaker: revindications of linguistic difference. Like we would want to defend our language. which is, of course, in the case of the Basques in in Spain. It did not happen until much later when, for example, Franco banned Euskera and all of that. So, yeah, it's it's it's curious how the ideology the ideology behind these projects can also, in a sense, produce the reaction. Like...
Speaker: for if it's a political project, to erase political differences. political laws. and Sorry. um ah law systems or ah privileges or whatever it may take a more political Uh,
Speaker: shape But if it's a more cultural attack, then it might also foster a more cultural reaction. so there's a a conversation, so to speak, between Well, those trying to impose themselves and those, in a sense,
Speaker: not resisting but well enduring. this process of cohesion and grounding that you that you mentioned.
Speaker: Yes, yes. No, no, I completely agree. I think that's, I mean, we we have we have elements of that with globalization. You know, globalization was seen initially, particularly in the 90s, as ah this phenomenon of the obliterate all cultural differences and borders wouldn't matter and blah, blah, blah. Obviously, this was mostly written by economic economists and people who don't see the world. It's a much more complex place. And and and and actually what happened is a backlash. So you had clear had more of the kind of ethno -nationalists, particularly versions of you know of reaction to to this. And exactly on these lines that you're describing, what was happening before when states tried to do this in in ah in a kind of very coercive way, and particularly when they have tried to do that when it's already late. So Franco was very late.
Speaker: you know This could have been perhaps done in the early 19th century. but it couldn't be have been done in the 20th century it was just too late you know for something like because people were already you know illiterate and you know aware of who they are identified on these lines so either you do genocide which has been happening obviously in different places ethnic cleansing
Speaker: or or you or you just lose so there is no other way you know and that that has been the case a lot of people who you know scholars of i mean michael mann is really good i don't know if you read his the dark side of democracy because he also looks at the way you know how we ended up with this mass scale ethnic cleansings and and and and genocides in 20th century not but not so much before And it has a lot.
Speaker: with this kind of competing nationalist projects that you cannot ah deal with. Because people before, you you know, you you wouldn't be killed if you convert. You know, there's ah one a religious group comes and you convert and you're fine. Now, you know, nobody will say, OK, I will be, you know, Spanish or or French because it's too late. yeah So so either either you remove them, you kill them or you just. you know, have to. to live as they are. I mean, and that that is a problem. you know once because nationalism is a historical phenomenon and and there is a historical moment when people are nationalized and it's just, you cannot...
Speaker: change this. So in a sense, our identities are already... so it entrenched that it's impossible to erase them completely or it's very, very hard. That's the thing. that Exactly. yeah you know it's It's just...
Speaker: i mean that is a problem now when you look let's say states like bosnia which is you know diverse and there were attempts to to uh assimilate you know during the Austro -Hungarian rule to assimilate them into a single Bosnian
Speaker: nation, but there was no organizational capacity for the Austro -Hungarian state to do this properly. So it was done very superficially only in Sarajevo and blah, blah, blah. It just failed. Well, now it's too late because these people now identify Serbs, Bosnian Serbs identify as Serbs and Bosnian Croats as Croats and Bosniaks are the only one attached to the state in that way as, you know.
Speaker: The rest... are not, unfortunately. So... Yeah. Coming back to to more like recent events, because I think that there's this general sense that, well, nationalism is on the rise. and Now there's kind of a second golden age of nationalism studies. We've spoken about, well, Gardner, Anderson, all these people. I think that's...
Speaker: Ah. pretty good case to be made about well a new generation of scholars and a new generation of classics so to speak and I would say your books are are definitely candidates for that.
Speaker: And I think. there's this general sense that well we're experiencing nationalism that was previously hidden or obscured. And yet at the same time... study of nationalism is in institutions is dwindling. so How can we?
Speaker: make sense of this. this kind of disparaging. between, well, the interest, the social interest raised by nationalism and, of course, the academic kind of support for scholars doing that kind of research.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's also very good questions. And there is a paradox. Now we have programs closing down in Edinburgh. and vienna and you know, kind of really very... successful programs and and and and it's not doesn't seem to be question of uh I mean, in the 80s and 90s, we lived in a very different world. Academia was much more secure and stable. and And there was that idea that, you know, there is some value to these different fields of study. Well, now, obviously, after...
Speaker: many years of neoliberalism everything has to be justified in instrumentalist terms and here and now so even this argument doesn't work because if you say look nationalism is everywhere why are you closing down these departments it's still it's not enough to justify these programs and not to mention the intellectual aspect of it nobody is interested you know government offices and private sponsors don't don't listen to this So that that is a problem. That is a paradox. But we we are right in a sense that we we do now see nationalism, you know, so many people pay attention to nationalism before they didn't. So so I always, I was um um in grounded nationalism, was very critical of the idea of new nationalism because, you know, this is what academics always come up with and politicians because they are surprised by the phenomenon that has been around. You just didn't pay attention. And you know people become interested only when it's aggressive and it's visible when it's far right and everything radical in one way or another
Speaker: But, you know, you don't pay attention how this has been developing for 200 years. so So that's why I don't like the term new nationalism. Yes, but but it it is something to, I mean. obviously we live in a quite different world with the digital you know kind of
Speaker: form of expression and and and we are all digital individuals in these day and age. You cannot exist the other way. So so of so there is more opportunities for people to share ideas and different ideological conflicts their rage online. So so I think this this is a completely new environment to what classics were writing about, focusing more on on newspapers. and you maybe a little bit later on radio and television. But even that was not, you know, with Anderson, it was all about newspapers. and
Speaker: Print capitalism and now we we have a completely different world where where you know, these ideas can be spread so quickly everywhere all the time And and it's not just the states obviously, you know states It's it's against civil society, you know better organized groups that can do this and and you know, so you have a uh opportunities and and again with with the these different theories of of
Speaker: you know, competition of different ideological discourses, the more radical you are, you you're more visible. And and obviously algorithm algorithms do that as well for us. Subtly, yeah. So, yeah. did one of the main features of any field of course is like which are the guiding debates in at the given moment and i think that's in a way This moment of...
Speaker: social effervescence. around nationalism, it's it's a good moment to discuss nationalism. And I think that many people, as you've mentioned, it's it's currently paying attention to it. So what do you think are the questions, the guiding debates that would you say will...
Speaker: develop over the few the next few years? What are the main questions that we're trying to address right now? Yeah. so So I think, I mean... um There are some questions like... that the the relationship between nationalism and imperialism and imperial project is something that i think that historians have picked up and also some historical sociologists for the last few
Speaker: uh maybe now two decades uh krishnan kumar and john hall and you know kind of question the city because we assume that we have world of empires that's gone you know in 1950s 60s the colonization took off uh empires are dead uh and now we see very different thing with ukraine and russia you know the the we see that with israel and and in the middle east turkey you know borders are not
Speaker: they They've become more porous than they used to be. so So I think this relationship between empire and nation -state are something that will become more visible, especially with international order, which was built on that idea that...
Speaker: uh borders cannot be changed at will and through war uh and then you obviously with trump in the us have you know We need we need the Greenland and we need whatever we need, we can go to. so So there is that question of what would happen, you know whether nation-ates well theres some states will become more imperial. you know and have some you know features that other nations they do not necessarily have
Speaker: but there is also a problem because obviously previously imperialism was built around different ideology you know the idea that you are superior and that that your civilization everybody else is barbarian now we don't live in that kind of world you know everybody you know nationalism
Speaker: embeds a legitimacy of every state. So even kind of powerful state like US and China and Russia have to legitimize their existence in national terms. So you cannot send soldiers everywhere to die so easily. So so I think that that would be an important topic.
Speaker: The next topic is something you know we already touched upon, you know the the new technologies, you AI and you know digital world that has that's affecting everything, our lives, our jobs, how we write, how we think. So that will have definitely impact on on also nationalism studies in a way.
Speaker: It's, I mean... um ah There are a few papers now written on AI nationalism. Paul Goode, I think, wrote to one. and you know There are so many issues there to address.
Speaker: to see you know how this can influence uh nationalism especially because many of these ai programs are run by powerful private corporations which have their own agendas or their state run like in china you know with deep seek or things like that so so there will be influences there very much present by these entities which which can shape how we do things and how we look at the world they will probably affect and nationalism in one way or another.
Speaker: and you know some some of the digital technologies that will continue to improve and develop further is is is another big topic i think uh also the topic that uh conversi and and and few other people have been working on environmentalism and nationalism is a big one i think that's something that's coming to all of us you know with global warming affecting borders and people mobility of people you know more migrations more forced
Speaker: migrations more war unfortunately you know sort of these things will impact on the actual nationalism whether ah nationalism becomes even more far right and and now it is very far right so's ah so So I don't know. I mean, there are obviously lots of other topics that that will come up that people are interested in.
Speaker: But I see this as something that is really important to study. I think that, for example, in the case of AI, it's... For me, if you if you're right and I think that...
Speaker: You probably are in the sense that nationalism is a main way through which we look at the world. in modern society. regardless of where where we're born. or our social class and all of that.
Speaker: It's... It's hard for me to think of AI challenging the nationalist world. Because, of course, it's Fed. It's fed by with text and media.
Speaker: Which is... national side nationalized by default. And. I don't know how that might change. I don't think... that's going to happen in the short term. Of course, they don't know much about the long term, but that's a curious.
Speaker: If it's going to reinforce... Like...
Speaker: the way people already think or if it's going to challenge that and i think it's probably going to the former rather than the than the latter but yeah I agree with you, nationalism is much more powerful, although we do have attempts on the part of you know private individuals. and corporations to influence that so you know yeah chinese deep seek you know if you ask anything about china politically sensitive, it doesn't provide an answer. So it's like it doesn't, you know, you know so there is a censorship there. And we know, obviously, with Elon Musk and Grok, you know, that he yeah interferes constantly, wants to... change it
Speaker: and And a lot of these kind of ah private corporations, they are not particularly sympathetic to nation states. They have their own agendas. So there might be some tension there. But but I agree that nationalism is much more embedded. they you know than than any of these these projects out there so Okay, so Sinisa, I will not take... um more time from you. I will make just a last question. what's What's next from you? You've already said that you've already...
Speaker: said everything you had to say about nationalism theories. and So what's next for you? i i work you know mostly on on three kind of areas one is nationalism obviously in the one the other one is war and violence so so and then i do also stuff on sociological theory so i i'm now i have a new book coming on war so it's a war and and social order what's happening with war there is also some reference to nationalism there that you cannot escape but that that's also an area because i'm
Speaker: I've been tracking these two, particularly war and nationalism through the kind of historical sociology. vision and and and it's interesting to look at parallels you know focused one area it it does give you some ideas for to understand. this other area.
Speaker: So we we're looking forward to reading that as well. So thank you so much. And see you next time. Take care. Thanks very much, Yasir, for the invitation. and for the nice discussion.
