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Leonhardt van Efferink is a PhD student at Royal Holloway, University of London. For more information about his PhD, please check:
Leonhardt van Efferink: Geopolitical scripts and the (de)legitimisation of ISAF
He holds Master’s degrees in Geopolitics, Territory and Security (King’s College London) and Financial Economics (Erasmus University Rotterdam).
This article attempts to answer the question 'Which came first: nations, nationalism or states?' Each concept is explored by elaborating on several definitions, in line with the view of Armstrong (2004) that "any social science approach to a historical problem demands careful development of definitions."[1]
I further address the actual manifestation of the state, nationalism and nation. In addition, the three dominant academic approaches to nations and nationalism are discussed: modernism, ethno-symbolism and primordialism. In the conclusion, I explain why putting the emergence of the state, nation and nationalism in a chronological order is such a difficult endeavour.
This is the first part of the article. It addresses definitions of the state, important political entities from the past and the emergence of the modern state.
Many academic discussions of the state commence with the interpretation of Max Weber[2]. Gellner phrases Weber’s definition of the state as "that agency within society that possesses the monopoly of legitimate violence." [3] The agency has a clear position in terms of identity, centralisation and discipline and should be principally engaged in maintaining order.
According to Elden (2009), four factors play a crucial role in Weber’s view on the state: "community; legitimacy; violence; and territory."[4] Weber considered the state as a specific group of people that asserts its right to rule over a bounded territory. In this area, the state possesses full authority in an undivided and unlimited fashion. This means that the state is the only power on its territory and does not bear any responsibility for its actions towards any other entity.
The full authority of a state is a key factor in the notion of sovereignty. The meaning of this concept has been actively discussed among intellectuals for centuries[5]. The debate on sovereignty has predominantly focused on its legal foundations and the sort of activities it should actually apply to.
According to Krasner (2001), four concepts dominate the contemporary debate on sovereignty. First, ‘domestic sovereignty’ reflects the control of the state over activity on its territory. Second, ‘Vatellian’ sovereignty’[6] indicates to what extent the state’s territory is subject to influence from other states. Third, ‘interdependence sovereignty’ points to the state’s control over cross-border activities. Fourth, ’international legal sovereignty’ relates to the recognition of the state by other states.
The United Nations Charter broadly endorses the sovereignty concept[7]. The notion of the sovereign state has become commonplace on a global scale as states rule over virtually all territories[8]. Anderson (2006) offers a thought-provoking, historical insight into sovereignty:
To illustrate the difficulty in defining the notion of a state, I conclude this section with the most extensive definition that I have come across. O’Leary (2001) comments that a modern state is:
This definition derives its strength from its relative approach towards the power of a state by taking into account that most states do not have absolute powers regarding the use of organised violence or enjoy support of all of its residents. However, this interpretation of a state painfully reveals that extending a definition does not automatically make a concept easier to grasp. What is meant by ‘generally’ in the third line, and how to interpret ‘sufficiently’ in the fifth and sixth line? These adverbs are hard to interpret while analysing contemporary states. More importantly for this paper, this definition makes it very hard to determine when the first state was founded.
Elden (2009) comments that in the eighth century BC, city-states started to play a crucial role in Greek areas. The states included both a metropolitan centre, where power was concentrated, and rural areas where crops were grown.
East and Prescott (1975) note that Europe comprised many feudal states in the Middle Ages. These states were very unstable in terms of territory, power division and centralisation. The feudal states were based on a hierarchy of political and social entities, with contracts stipulating how the land was divided.
East and Prescott (1975) further mention that the Tudors ruled over the first absolutist state in England. In this state, the royal family shared political power with the Church and the aristocracy. By the end of sixteenth century, Queen Elisabeth I had managed to form an effective government in England.
Elden (2009) notes that the Peace of Westphalia (1648) marks the beginning of the ascendance of the modern state. The two related treaties[11] introduced formal sovereignty to the state by permitting the participating states the right to independently implement policies in fields such as defence, legislation and taxes. The treaties further formalised the relation between political authority and territory. Accordingly, statehood as we know it nowadays came to fruition in the seventeenth century if we assume that the establishment of formal sovereignty was the critical development.
Elden further comments that the European idea of linking state to territory was gradually spread across the world when some European countries colonised many non-European areas from the fifteenth until the twentieth century. When non-European areas became independent countries, they gained sovereignty and became modern states.
Part 2 of the article continues with definitions and a historical introduction to the nation, while part 3 does the same for nationalism. The last part also contains the conclusion, bibliography and endnotes.
Leonhardt van Efferink: Nation, nationalism and state 2 - Modernism, Ethno-Symbolism, Primordialism
