Is nationalism a social movement?

IMPORTANT NOTE: DON'T CHEAT. DON'T PLAGIARIZE. Notes and Papers are shared here for reference and for studying. Footnote as appropriate.

My complete collection of Grad School Notes can be found here (Africa, IR, Ethnic Conflict, Economics, Writing, Islam, Comparative Politics).

To address whether or not nationalism is a social movement requires the examination of both terms’ definition in detail.  In this essay I argue that while nationalism generally meets many of the tenets of a social movement, its categorization as one depends on which theory of the origins of nationalism to which one ascribes.

Connor notes that most scholars define a nation as a group of people that share a common language, geographic territory or religion.  A primordialist would expand upon this definition and assert that nations are defined by groups of people that have the perception (if not the genetic reality) of “shared blood.”  In the majority of cases, these groups of similar people can also be called ethnicities.  When formal boundaries are drawn for a given ethnicity—this is effectively politics—a nation is created.  This process of creating a border and seeking self-determination by a mobilized common group of people is nationalism.  It nearly always involves conflict with another group.  Muller notes that most Americans are far more familiar with civic nationalism (i.e., a common geographic territorial identity as the definition of a nation) despite the fact that ethnic nationalism has been a far more prevalent occurrence globally, as well as throughout most of the United States’ own history.

A social movement is a group of people that band together with a specific goal (e.g., autonomy, equal rights) and a collective identity (e.g., Mormon, Black, Gay).  They occur most often when there is not a political or institutional means by which they can solve their grievances.  A group’s collective identity is important because one of the primary goals of a social movement is to push that identity to the forefront of the political establishment.   In parallel with their efforts for recognition and a public platform, their overall goals emerge as an organic product of their identity.  The process of mobilization itself is paramount as it is typically characterized by initial steps to raise public awareness of the problem (e.g., media, letter-writing campaigns, social media) and then by steps intended to provoke corrective action by a government (e.g., public demonstrations, strikes, marches, boycotts).  Typically successful social movements are nonviolent, especially when they aim to effect regime change.  Efforts to topple a regime qualify as social movements when there are no established mechanisms to change a state’s leadership (i.e., under a dictatorship or authoritarian regime).  Sharp successfully argues for a nonviolent strategy to overthrow a recalcitrant regime in his seminal work From Dictatorship to Democracy, a book that has become a playbook for social movements globally.  By espousing nonviolence, social movements avoid playing to a government’s strength—its monopoly on force.  Through defiance and disobedience—coupled with an overarching grand strategy—movements can provide the necessary pressure to achieve their goals.

The process of an ethnic group mobilizing for the common goal of their own nation certainly meets the cursory definitions of a social movement.  It often stands a separate, however, for several reasons.  Namely, the gap occurs because of the many competing theories for why nationalism occurs.  The primordialist explanation asserts nationalism occurs in an ancient, timeless plane that emerges out of fixed unchanging identities.  This slow and organic process does not match the mobilization elements and speed of a social movement.  The structuralist believes that the state makes the nation and that nationalism emerges as a product of modernity.  This idea of nationalism as a product of an environment ignores the role of people so crucial to a social movement.  Only the instrumentalist explanation matches the categorization of nationalism as a social movement.  Instrumentalists believe that the choices of people matter and that nationalism is a dynamic process that can occur quickly.  Ultimately, all three theories on the origins of nationalism have merit and can be substantiated empirically at various points in history.  The process of identifying the instances when nationalism was a social movement proves useful as it highlights the cases where a group did affect, promote and establish their own identity and nation.

What role does ideology play in the establishment of a welfare regime?

IMPORTANT NOTE: DON'T CHEAT. DON'T PLAGIARIZE. Notes and Papers are shared here for reference and for studying. Footnote as appropriate.

My complete collection of Grad School Notes can be found here (Africa, IR, Ethnic Conflict, Economics, Writing, Islam, Comparative Politics).

In this essay I argue that ideology plays a critical role in the establishment of a welfare regime.  The modern welfare regime is inexorably tied to the ideology of liberalism, in stark contrast to its Marxist roots.  

In addressing the role of ideology within the creation of a welfare regime it is useful to define these terms.  An ideology usually develops when someone makes an observation about a phenomenon in society or history and creates a theory to explain it.  When this theory is transformed and becomes an explanation for everything—usually as a normative mindset—it becomes an ideology.  An ideology asserts that its worldview can explain any problem, conflict  or occurrence.   In its comprehensiveness then it is very useful but logically it can be very circular and unsatisfying.  Ideologies are most often characterized by an -ism (e.g., communism, marxism, objectivism, liberalism, fascism, feminism).  

A welfare regime is a government whose laws and policies seek to provide for some measure of the wealth (in the holistic sense) of the entire people.   Typically the elements of this welfare include shelter, security, education, health care and subsistence.  This idea’s ideological roots harken back to Hobbes’ conception of the social contract—the agreement by which people cede elements of their individual freedom for the good of the whole.  The abdication of rights transforms a person’s natural state from one that is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” to one that emerges in concert with a state’s creation.  With only the church and private charities to provide for a population’s welfare prior to the emergence of the welfare state, Hobbes’ description of most people’s lives was an apt one.

The specific ideology that a state embraces plays a pivotal role in the development of its welfare regime.  Today this development is a foregone conclusion as nearly every state is a welfare one in some measure.  There are a plethora of catalysts for this progression but the most fundamental one is that of risk mitigation.  Failing to provide at least a modicum of welfare puts a state at risk for social instability and upheaval (from revolution), international economic decline (from competition) and strategic political decline (from global competitors).  If risk management is the primary influence on a welfare regime, then a state’s interpretation of social justice is an important secondary factor.  

While the modern (post World War II) welfare state is a product of liberalism’s influence on the tension between democracy’s conception of political equality and capitalism’s conception of economic inequality, its true roots are in Marxism.  The normative concept of class equality is a central underlying principle of a welfare regime.  Few states espouse the severe notion of class conflict as a sole driving force anymore but nearly all now recognize the insidious destabilizing effect of chasmic economic and political inequality.  When an ideology eventually disappears (and all do), it does so either because it failed or because everyone ended up believing it.  Whereas an idea like fascism failed, echoes of Marxism live on today.  

The liberalist notion that individual freedoms must be protected is the balancing factor that tempers the excesses of the capitalist market.  As Crepaz points out, this balance manifests uniquely in different states.  Sweden, Germany and the United States all place their baseline level of economic equality at different marks.  The width of an acceptable gap determines the level of welfare provisions by the state.  In these examples the aforementioned circular nature of ideology is instructive as Crepaz shows that even the liberal belief in individual freedom for all becomes tempered when the all includes people deemed to be outsiders.  The evolving notion of liberalism will continue to affect the level of welfare provided as states continue to embrace liberal democracy.