Perspectives on Nationalism and War 288449166X, 9782884491655, 9782884491662, 9781315075808

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Perspectives on Nationalism and War

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN GLOBAL CHANGE Edited by Tom R. Bums, Uppsala University, Sweden Thomas Dietz, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA This book series is devoted to investigations of human ecology, technology and management and their interrelations. It will include theoretical and methodological contributions to the analysis of social systems and their transformation, technology, risk, environmental problems, energy and natural resources, population growth, public health, and global economic and societal developments. Volume 1 WOMEN, SEXUALITY, AND THE CHANGING SOCIAL ORDER The Impact of Govemment Polides on Reproductive Behavior in Kenya Beth Maina Ahlberg Volume2 MANAGING NETWORKS IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS Edited by Mats Forsgren and Jan Johanson Volume3 MUNICIPAL ENTREPRENEURS HIP AND ENERGY POLICY A Five Nation Study of Politics, Innovation and Sodal Change Alison E. Woodward, Jerry EIlig and Tom R Bums Volume4 AGENCY AND STRUCTURE Reorienting Sodal Theory Edited by Piotr Sztompka VolumeS TAMING THE DRAGON Transforming Economic Institutions in the Face of Global Change Carlo C. Jaeger Volume6 UNNATURAL SELECTION Technology, Politics, and Plant Evolution Cary Fowler Volume7 PERSPECTIVES ON NATIONALISM AND WAR Edited by John 1. Comaroff and Paul C. Stern

ThiS'book is part of aseries. The publisher will aeeept eontinuation orders whieh may be eaneelled at any time and whieh provide for automatie billing and shipping of eaeh tille in the series upon publication. Please write for details.

Perspectives on Nationalism and War

Edited by

John L. Comaroff University of Chicago and

Paul C. Stern U.S. National Research Council

~l

~~

Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

Copyright © 1995 OPA (Overseas Publishers Association) N.Y. Published by license under the Gordon and Breach Science Publishers imprint. All rights reserved. First published 1995 Second printing 2000 first published 1995 by Gordon and Breach Science Publishers This edition published 2012 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OXI4 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Rautledge is an imprint arthe Taylar & Francis Group. an infarma business

No part ofthis book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieva1 system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Amsteldijk 166 1st Floor 1079 LH Amsterdam The N etherlands

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Perspectives on Nationalism and War.(International Studies in Global Change Series, ISSN 1055-7180; Vol. 7) I. Comarof( John L. It Stern, Paul C. III. Series 320.54

ISBN 2-88449-166-X (softcover)

CONTENTS

Introduction to the Series Acknowledgments

vii ix

1

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON NATIONALISM ANDWAR lohn L. Comaroff and Paul C. Stern

2

SELF-INTEREST, GROUP IDENTIFICATION Russell Hardin

3

SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF NATIONALISM

47

WHY DO PEOPLE SACRIFICE FOR THEIR NATIONS?

99

Daniel Druckman

4

Paul C. Stern 5

RATIONAL NATIONALISM: THE PASSIONATE NATIONALISM OF RATIONAL CHOICE

1 15

123

Fernando Coronil 6

NATIONALISM, THE MASS ARMY, AND MILITARY POWER

Barry R. Posen 7

135

STATES AND NATIONALISM IN EUROPE

1492-1992 Charles Tilly

187

vi

CONTENTS

8

NATIONALISM AND MODERNITY: A METHOOOLOGICAL APPRAISAL Edward A. Tiryakian

9

COMMENTS ON EDWARD TIRYAKIAN'S PAPER 237

10

205

Vincente Rafael

ETHNICITY, NATIONALISM AND THE POLITICS OF DIFFERENCE IN AN AGE OF REVOLUTION lohn L. Comaroff

About the Contributors Index

243 277 279

INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES

This series brings together under one banner works by scholars of many disciplines. All of these researchers have distinguished themselves in their specialties. But here they have ventured beyond the frontiers of traditional disciplines and have developed new, innovative approaches to the study of sodal systems and sodal change. Why? What has prompted this foray into unchartered territory? What is the reason for broadening theoretical perspectives and developing new methodologies? The impetus comes from the world we seek to understand. Scholars have traditionally made "boundary" assumptions that limited their scope of inquiry to the concerns of a disdpline. Such limitations facilitate concentration, though they have always been artifidal. The interpenetration of sodal, economic and environmental phenomena, and the predpitous pace of change in the late twentieth century make it dear that such convenierit intellectual boundaries are not only unrealistic, they are untenable. How complex waves of change sweep through the contemporary world, altering the natural environment, technology, the economy and sodal systems; the interaction of these forces, their impact on nations, communities, families and individuals; and the response to them by individuals and collectivities-this is the focus of the research to be presented in this series. The scholars writing in the series are themselves engaged in sodal change-the restructuring of our way of thinking about the world. As we move toward the twenty-first century, it is easy to hope that the link between nationalism and war can be broken and humanity spared thetragediesthathavehauntedsomuchofhumanhistory. But horrible stories in the news demonstrate that the link is impervious to our hopes. Deeper understandings of nationalism and war are essential if the twenty-first century is to be more peaceful than the recent past. No problem on the intellectual agenda is more urgent.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES

Under the aegis of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, an extraordinary group of scholars from diverse disciplines have come together to wrestle with these issues. These papers have emerged from this effort to challenge and advance our understanding of nationalism and war. As they demonstrate, the theoretical and conceptual problems that arise from careful thought about nationalism and war are profound and resonate with core issues in the social sciences. We are very pleased to have this volume as the seventh in our series.

Tom R. Burns Thomas Dietz

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The editors wish to thank a11 those associated with the Committee on International Conflict and Cooperation of the U.S. National Research Council, which sponsored the November 1991 workshop that stimulated these papers. We would also like to thank, by name, several members of the committee and its staff who worked with us to turn an interest in the problem of nationalism into aseries of events for the exchange of ideas: Daniel Druckman, Clifford Geertz, Alexander George, Jo Husbands, Robert Jervis, Gail Lapidus, Jack Snyder, Mary Thomas, Charles Tilly, and Lee Walker. Several participants in the 1991 workshop are not represented by contributions to this volume, but their comments informed our thinking and those of other authors. Our appreciation goes to: Daniel Chirot, Richard Cottam, Leokadiya Drobizheva, Liah Greenfeld, David Kaiser, Charles Kupchan, Louis Kriesberg, Jack Levy, Thomas Milburn, Andrus Park, and Katherine Verdery. Fina11y, we wish to express our gratitude to the sponsor of the workshop, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

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Chapter ONE

New Perspectives on Nationalism and War* John L. Comaroff and Paul C. Stern

"Wha t is History?" asked E.H. Carr some thirty years ago.} The ans wer now seems obvious. "History," with apologies to the venerable Carr, "is the conceptual space, the time ofhuman experience, in wh ich sodal sdentific knowledge-and, most of all, prediction-is proven wrong." Or, if you prefer, "any succession of rupturing events which together bring to light our misunderstandings and misrecognitions of the present."2 In the past few years, pace Francis Fukuyama's3 pro gnosis of the "end of his tory," there has been an awfullot of it about. Indeed, ifHistory is Dead, its rigor mortis appears unusually vigorous. Nowhere have the signs of the quickening of contemporary history, of our misunderstanding and misprediction of the present, been more clearly expressed than in the turbulent (post?) modern politics of identity; to wit, in the assertive renaissance of nationalisms. Dirks 4 , who reminds us that History has long been linked to 'Most of this artide appeared previously in Tlleory alld Society, 23:35-45 (Winter 1994). It is reprinted with the permission of Kluwer Acaademic Publishers.

1

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lOHN L. COMAROFF AND PAUL C. STERN

modernity and nationality, concludes arecent essay on the subject by adding, dismally, that "Danger is what [it] is really all about." Whether or not he is correct, world events over the past few years have thrown a particularly sharp light on the darker, more dangerous sides of nationalism and claims to sovereign identity. And, in so doing, they have revealed how tenuous is our grasp of the phenomenon. Not only have these events confounded the unsuspecting world of scholarship. They have also shown a long heritage of social theory and prognostication to be flatly wrong. It has become commonplace to note that the most surprising thing about nationalism-read, that is, from the dominant perspectives of Western social thought-is the fact that it is still with us at all. For Marxisms of most kinds, the contradictions of "First World" capitalism, helped along by the efforts of organic intellectuals, should ha ve ensured tha t class would become the primary focus of modern collective consciousness; in the "Second World," nationalism ought to have withered away in the face of scientific sodalism. With hindsight, these scenarios seem quixotic; but then it has often been said that "classical" Marxism never really comprehended the complexities of nationalityS (or, for thatmatter, race and gender) as the basis of sodal identity für sich. Not that natsional'nost' was ignored in the master narratives oE modern Soviet and East European history. For Stalin, after all, the "high mission" of "Sodal-Democracy" was "to resist nationalism"-likened here to a diseasethrough "the unity and individuality oE class struggle." Its natural antidote, he declaimed, was the "tried weapon of internationalism," itself a Soviet synonym for ideological universalism. 6 In practice, however, the iron fist of the state was charged with the task of erasure, of removing difference from the ethnoscapes of Eastern Europe and beyond. As we all know, its apparatuses succeeded in destroying vast populations. But, as history has insisted on proving, they were al together less successful in killing off collective cultural identities. The liberal tradition of sodal theory, as embodied in various versions of modernization theory, also has it that sodal and economic development should render obsolete all modes of particularistic identity. According to this narrative, the West, dragging along an insufficiently grateful "Third World" as its burden, has long been advancing on the high road to an ever more rationalized, uniform, disenchanted society; one populated by Universal Citizens rather than people of diverse, heterogeneous cultures. This claim cannot

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3

be dismissed as trivial, of course, eertainlynot in the early 1990's, a time when an end is envisaged to the tight sovereignties and boundaries of Europe; when the establishment of supranational institu tions is the trajeetory of the epoeh; when there has been an explosion of transnational discourses, planetary eommunications, and eultural forms; when the remotest of eommunities throb to a supposedly homogenizing "worldbeat" and gawp at the emphatieally monolingual, monolithie, monopolistie, monotonous CNN; when nation-states, many of them besieged and weakened, affeet indifferenee to the polities of differenee. H, as Benedict Anderson 7 has suggested, the rise of the modern nation entailed the denial of diversity in the name of eommon eitizenship, how mueh more should this be the anticipated destiny of a hypermodern, transnational eapitalist world? But hark. We have passed through the Age of Modernity, the era of the narrow ly sovereign state; we have made it intaet, aeeording to the lights of some, to the Age of Postmodernity; perhaps we have even stumbled unwittingly into a seeond Age of Revolution, akin to 1789-1848,8 in whieh we are witnessing the reeonstruction of many of our dominant sodal and politieal forms-as weIl as the eoneeptual apparatus through whieh we grasp them. And yetnational eonseiousness and eultural identity are still very mueh alive. If anything, the polities of partieularism, of loeal differenee within global uniformity, has been revi ta lized wi th (li terall y) a vengeanee. The signs and eommodities of the new order are everywhere domesticated: Worldbeat has a hundred loeal sounds and CNN is everywhere deeoded into the loeal idiom; universalizing messages are reeeived through eyes and ears eonditioned by eultures that-like Stalin's nationalitiesmay be repeatedly invaded, viola ted, and transformed, but still refuse to go away. In short, nationalism, like history, is anything but dead; and this in spite of eonfident predietions of its demise ever sinee the dawn of modernity. One day, who knows, perhaps both will die. Atpresent, however, it is very mueh alive. Transformed, multiple, and fragmentary in the faees it presents to the world, but very mueh alive. Indeed, the fact that it takes such diverse forms raises a fundamental problem for many observers: to what extent is "it" a "thing" at all? Could it not be a polythetie eategory, a ragbag of quite different modes of eolleeti ve assertion, eolleetive being-in-the-world? These questions beeome a11 the more acute when we consider nationalism alongside other forms of identity-in particular, ethnidty and

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lOHN L. COMAROFF AND PAUL C. STERN

race-and interrogate the relations among them. In this ensemble of essays and commentaries, the term is used to embrace a double connotation: 9 (i) the authoritative claim of a nation-state to expressions of common sentiment and exclusive commitment, of loyal attachment and joint responsibility, on the part of its citizens; and (ii) the assertion of a right to sovereignty, autonomy, and territory by any group that defines itselfby virtue of an affective connection to a shared his tory and culture. But definitions of this kind are merely descriptive outlines, heuristic artifacts that tell us very little in themselves. For all the thousands of books and papers written ab out nationalism, few of us can feel easy in claiming that we can "explain" it, or, more broadly, account for the recent renaissance of the politics of cultural identity. To be sure, we have, on our hands a crisis of conceptualization. Where do national identities have their roots? In primordial affinities or particular historical conditions? If the latter, precisely what conditions? And precisely how do collective attachments and sentiments take root in the histories people imagine they share? Why, in some circumstances, do appeals to nationalism evoke apathy, even antipathy, while in others citizens are prepared to risk life and limb-sometimes for countries in wh ich they are obviously oppressed? When and why do leaders of states and social movements look to nationhood and endangered sovereignty as a rallying cry for war? And why do subjects respond, especially H, as is often the case, it seems in their mortal interest not to do so? When and why does nationality take priority over other forms of identity; specifically, social class, ethnicity, gender, race? Why should some nationalisms be more actively hostile, indeed beIligerent, than others? And what is the role of political/social elites in fanning their flames, of war and military leaders in their historical development? Is there any difference-or connection-between the inward-directed sentiments that hold a nation together and the outward-directed emotions that heap hostility upon others? And so on, and on, and on. I t goes wi thout sa ying tha t the answers given to such questions in the discourses of Western scholarship have va ried along the great theoretical axes of post-enlightenment thought. While it is neither necessary nor desirable to review these positions here-we are concerned more with the present and the future than with the past-a few basic points are worth making.

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5

For a long time, the most basic axis of difference in the explanation of cultural identities-ethnicity, nationalism, and the likeopposed "primordialism" to "constructionism." It was as if these were two irreconcilable genera of theory, as if they were the only two possible orientations in the theoretical universe. Both of these positions are by now very familiar. Primordialism, which owes a good deal to Weber' s characterization of stande (" status groups"), is founded on three broad axioms: that people who share a culture also share an intrinsic awareness of their collective being-in-theworld-i.e., an identity; that the "traditional" loyalties vested in this identity give rise to very strong common sentiments; that such sentiments are the irreducible bedrock on wh ich group (material and political) interests and claims tend to be based. By contrast, constructionism treats collective consciousness-and, by extension, the emergence of any politically salient identity-as a response to (historically specific) practical circumstances on the part of a given population. From this standpoint, nationalist (and/or ethnic) consciousness is an entirely situational matter-and often an analytically elusive, empirically ambiguous phenomenon. 10 At face value, these theoretical orientations would seem irreconcilable. However, as Comaroff has explained elsewhere,11 the received opposition between them, at least in the social science literature, is misleading. For, while extreme primordialism is ahistorical and anti-constructionist, and persists in locating collective consciousness in human nature, few would defend it in this form today. But a more sophisticated alternative has arisen in its place: a neo-Weberian hybrid that tempers primordialism with a careful measure of constructionism.1t treats ethnic consciousness as a universal potentiality which is realized-objectified, thatis, as an active political identity-when a population recognizes common interests, usuallywhen it finds its existence, interests, orintegrityunder threat. From this neoprimordialistperspective, collective identities are not "things" in or for themselves, but an imminent capacity that takes on manifest form in response to external forces. 12 This view presumes a prior cultural sensibility, a weIl of latent sentiments, a shared heritage; a primordial infrastructure, as it were, from which appropriate signs and symbols, political practices and ethnic emotions, may be extracted when the situation demands it. This apparent convergence between once (ostensibly) irreconcilable positions is not merely worthy of remark for its own sake. However we regard it in its own terms (see, for example, Comaroff,

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lOHN L. COMAROFF AND FAUL C. STERN

Chapter 10), it is also symptomatic of something else; namely, that efforts are being made to rethink the theoretical and methodological bases of the study of cultural identity in general, and nationalism in particular; we are witnessing a sea-change in which new or transformed discourses are struggling to take shape. Among these, one species of theory addresses itself not exactly to the primordial infrastructure of national consciousness, but to many of the same questions to which primordialism was meant as an answer; in theoretical chic-speak, it has come to occupy the discursive space vacated by early Weberianism. This spedes of analysis may, broadly speaking, be dubbed the social psychological study of national identity. It seeks to und erstand how, when, and why collective sentiments embed themselves in individuals and groups as they do, and emphasizes the apparent "need" of persons to define themselves as members of collectivities in various sodal contexts. In trying to explain a11 this, it tends to focus on issues and processes of identification, sodalization, and the perception of self and other. Like orthodox primordialism, the soda I psychological perspective is often ahistorical; treats the sociopolitical context and the content of particular cultures as just so much background; is concerned with putatively universal, essential human characteristics; and concentrates on emotion, sentiment, and cognition (see Stern, Chapter 4, for a social-psychological analysis that breaks with some of these generalities). Unlike primordialism, however, it does not presume tha t the human need to identify necessarily a ttaches to ethnic or national groups. As primordialism has either been hybridized or has given way to soda I psychology,13 sodal constructionism has become demonstrably fragmented (see Comaroff, Chapter 10). This is hardly surprising: in its early form it never did any more than state aseries of broad assumptions about the genesis of political and cultural identities. The rest went largely unsaid,left open to analytic elaboration. Thus a large number of positions cluster under its broad penumbra, each identifiable but none as discrete or substantively autonomous as their protagonists sometimes suggest. Hence the so-called realist perspective, not infrequently relying on the methods of game theory, argues that common (" objective") interests underlie the emergence and continuity of national identities. It tends to be less concerned with the questions ofwhy culture, in itself, is or is not significan tin this process; w hether or not cul ture determines what a group of people perceives as an "interest" in the first pi ace;

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or why it is that some populations appear to eschew "objective"-that is, brute material-interests in favor of other, highly particularistic values. The stress, instead, is on the capadty of instrumentalities and utilities, of competition for power and resources among groups, to forge nations and to persuade people to act in their name. For most constructionists, national identities are as much relations as they are things: being the historical product of the making of human groups, their content and boundaries are seen to be wrought in interaction with one another, in processes of collective self-definition. If the realist position emphasizes material interests-identity economics, as it were-other variants stress other things. Thus, for example, cultural constructionism sees the basis of the formation of groups, as weIl as the particular substance of their identities, as a function of their shared symbols and signifying practices, of the way in which they make the world meaningful to themselves and others. 14 By contrast, political constructionism tends to focus on the manner in which power elites (perhaps even ruling classes) fashion ideologies, images, and sodal knowledge, and then seek to impose them on the rest of the population as the collective culture of the nation-state, a process which has the effect, much spoken about in the recent literature on nationalism,15 of removing difference within the political community and replacing it with a common, hegemonie order of signs, symbols, and values. Some scholars have tried, with differing degrees of success, to fuse cultural and political constructionism,16 espedally in studies of specific cases. Others, many of them radical historieists with Marxian leanings, have sought to infuse realism with a strong dose of politics and a heavy emphasis on the historical analysis of identity formation. From this vantage, sodal identities are seen as a creation of long-term processes in wh ich collective consciousness becomes a function of the management of an (international) division of labor; a division of labor, goes the argument, that inscribes material inequalities in cultural differences.17 The examples may be multiplied, but the point will be clear. There are many ways in which a constructionist orientation may today be refracted into an "approach" to the study of nationality and national consciousness. Such "approaches," however, often amount to methodological leanings-or merely explanatory tendencies-rather than to mutually exclusive, well-developed theoretical positions. Indeed, this fragmentation and proliferation

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of discourses on nationalism makes it ill-advised even to try to offer a taxonomy of existing perspectives; the product would inevitably be a rank reduction. As we said earlier, the scholarlyconfusion surrounding modern iden tity politics-in all its complex ma terialities and meanings-parallels strikingly the confusion being sown by the phenomenon itself as it implodes on the global stage. In an effort to make some sense of nationality, nationalism, and war in a time of conceptual upheaval, the Committee on International Conflict and Cooperation of the National Academy of Sdences/National Research Council convened two workshops on the topic in December 1988 and November 1991. The participants agreed that simple primordialist theories of collective identity had little value-except for constructing group myths. But they shared little else; there was certainly no consensus over a theoretical approach that might "explain" nationalist assertion in the late twentieth century. Indeed, the participants could not even concur on matters of definition. So me thought of nationalism primarily as an ideology; some, purely as a form of subjective self-definition. Some located nationalism in individual citizens; some, in elites; some, as a project of the modern state. Moreover, in considering the relationship of nationalism to war, some saw the former as a direct cause of the latter; others regarded the latter as a cause of the former; yet others regarded each as a justifica tion, ra ther than a cause, of the other. Itwas also observed that authorities who need or want to raise ar mies invariably find the task much easier if they can call upon an ideology of collective being-in-the-world to legitimize fighting. In the last view, na tionality is inherent not in soda I groupings but in the institution of the state itself: if nationalism did not exist primordially, states would have had to invent it; according to this view, in fact, they did so (see Posen, Chapter 6). The 1991 workshop juxtaposed and brought together two literatures that have been distinct too long. One focuses on issues of collective identity, ethnidty, and nationality per se, and is found mainly in the wri tings of sociologists, sodal psychologists, and cultural anthropologists. The other is concerned more with the practical implications of nationalism, espedally for international conflict; it is found in scholarly work on international relations and foreign policy, and finds voice in the popular press. New thinking in the first literaturepercolates only slowly and imperfectlyintothe second. Consider, for example, how stronglypolicypractitioners in

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this era of resurgentnationalist movements are tempted to fall back on primordialist explanations, despite the scholarly demonstration of their fatal flaws. Thus the dissolution of the Soviet empire is repeatedly said, in popular and policy circles alike, to have taken the lid off a cauldron of fermenting nationalist feelings among groups that had been suppressed-but had remained essentially unchanged-for generations; a corollary being that an ethnically diverse Russia, Georgia, or Bosnia-Hercegovina should be carved into cantons to give political recognition (and power) to groups whose ethnic identities and geographies are presumed to be stable. 18 Echoes, here, of the segregationist rationale of apartheid Sou th Africa. H, however, the iden ti ties of Ossetians or Bosnians are not primordial, if they have instead been created and constantly reshaped by generations ofpolitical interaction and struggle, of interstate conflict and ideological debate, of national policy and local economic processes, different conclusions and recommendations follow. The chapters in this book, all derived from the 1991 workshop, converge somewhat more than did the workshop itself. All the authors, recognizing the limitations of old approaches to nationalism, reopen the question of how national identities are constructed; some explore how the nature of such processes of construction affects thepotential for interethnic and international conflict. Beyond that, they differ palpably in their theoretical horizons and orientations; indeed, there is a genuine creative tension among them. The first several chapters proceed from the lower levels of social organization upward, seeking for the roots of national identity, nationalism, and propensities affecting war in the interests, sentiments, or identifications of individuals. In Chapter 2, Russell Hardin presents a thoroughly realist account of national identity, deriving it from the self-interests of individuals in the tradition of rational choice theory. He argues that collectivities such as ethnic groups form under conditions in which it is rational for individuals to identify with them and that they provide power for members, making it rational for them to maintain that identification. Daniel Druckman in Chapter 3 reviews knowledge developed within a contrasting, social-psychological research tradition that emphasizes feelings of group attachment and the conditions that arouse them, including conditions und er which group identifications can be mobilized for processes of intergroup conflict. In Chapter 4, Paul Stern takes up the challenge of incorporating insights from both the

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social-psychological tradition (that deep human sentiments seem somehow implicated in nationalism) and the realist tradition (that indi vid uals and collecti vi ties see m nevertheless to respond to their "objective" interests). He explores in detail a question that is problematic for both these perspectives: How can national leaders successfully manipulate identifications and emotional attachments to induce people to go to war, if to do so is both against self-interest and destructive to what are usually called primary social groups? Fernando Coronil's comment in Chapter 5 points out that the categories used in the rational choice and other perspectives, rather than being objective analytical ideas apart from his tory, are embedded in cultural assumptions peculiar to Western capitalist social thought. The nextpair of chapters shift the vantage point by looking down on the phenomena of na tionalism and war from the highest levels of social organization and the broad sweeps of his tory, making individuals' sentiments and ideas of interest contingent on larger historical conditions. In Chapter 6, Barry Posen turns on its head the idea that nationalism somehow builds upward from individuals and small groups. He proposes that far from springing from either the interests or the social sentiments of ordinary citizens, nationalism has historically been the creation of elites who needed an ideology that would allow them to raise volunteer armies for combat against "foreign" elites. Charles Tilly offers an even longer historical view in Chapter 7, placing claims for national identities and rights in the context of long-term changes in the international system. He argues that the rise of the nation-state created incentives for the organizers and adherents of major social mobilizations to make claims to nationhood because the state system gave special powers and deference to nations. Tilly goes on to suggest that recent trends toward the weakening of states' abilities to control events within their borders may, in time, reduce the benefits of controlling astate and therefore the prevalence of national claims. The remaining chapters reflect on the his tory and current state of thinking about nationalism and war. In Chapter 8, Edward Tiryakian situates theorizing about nationalism by 20th Century Western historians and sociologists in the context of three waves of nationalism in Europe during the century, showing how understanding of nationalism is itself historically and socially constructed. Vincente Rafael's comment on this paper in Chapter 9 amp lifies on some wa ys the old ques tions abou t the na ture of na tional-

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ity continue to resurface in new historical contexts. lohn Comaroff gets the last word in this collection in Chapter 10. He underlines the insufficiency of theory to account for the politics of difference in the current period-one he sees as an era of revolution that may be reshaping political institutions and social identities as fundamentally as the European Age of Revolution of 1789-1848. Yet, as Comaroff points out using the South African example, insufficient as theory may be for understanding, it is inseparable from the political positions of actors on the stages of nations in transformation, whose contending national myths embody emerging theoretical positions. Comaroff' s chapter shows why there can be no last word yet on nationalism and war: This is an era in which the phenomena reshape themselves faster than social science can keep up; far from being dead, his tory is moving too fast to write. The essays in this collection evoke many arguments and pose many questions; they do not offer simple or uniform answers. But they give ample cause for scholars and practitioners of international relations to question prevailing (neo)primordial, essentialist notions of national identity and to search for other ways of understanding the phenomenon. We believe that analyses rooted in the historical particulars of nationhood will lead to more enlightened thinking about nationalism and war; certainly, they are more promising than those that fail to distinguish the historical reality of identity politics from the mythologies created by national leaders or their foreign opponents. By calling into question simplistic theories and proposing some answers-conflicting though they may be-we hope to provoke a debate, thereby to provide the basis for more perceptive understandings of nationalism. Only in this way may we enlighten the decision makers who face the challenge of dealing with international relations over the next decades.

Notes 1. Wlmt is History? is the title of a famous series of lectures delivered by Carr at Cambridge (England) in 1961. Also published as a book (London: Macmillan, 1961), it is still taught in many university history courses. 2. These quotations come from a keynote lecture delivered by Comaroff on 11 April 1992 to the Annual Spring Symposium of the African Studies Program at the Univcrsity of Wisconsin, Madison. The lec-

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3.

4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12.

13.

lOHN L. COMAROFF AND PAUL C. STERN ture was titled "Ethnicity, Identity, Modernity: Theoretieal Themes, South Afriean Seenes. "They are also to bepublished ina fortheoming essay, "Ethnieity, Nationality and the Polities ofIndifferenee: Inseription and Deseription in an Age of Revolution." We refer to Franeis Fukuyama's eontroversial essay, "The End of History?" in The National Interest, 16:3-18 (Summer 1989). See also his "Are We at the End ofHistory?" in Fortune, 121(2): 75-78 (15 January 1990) and The End of His tory and the Last Man (New York: The Free Press, 1992). For diseussion of the topie from interestingly different perspeetives, see Dipesh Chakrabarty, "The Death of History? Historical Consciousness and the Culture of Late Capitalism" in Public Culture, 4(2): 47-65 (Spring 1992) and David Bennett, "Postmodernism and Vision: Ways of Seeing (at) the End of History" in Postmodern Studies 3: History and Post-War Writing, eds. Theo D'haen and Hans Bertens (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1991); Bennett eehoes our own sentiments in asserting (p. 261) that "His tory ean be eounted on to prove Fukuyama's obituary premature." Nicholas B. Dirks, "History as a Sign of the Modern" in Public Culture, 2(2):25-32 (Spring 1990), pp. 25,31. See, for exampIe, Tom Nairn Tile Break-Up ofBritain: Crisis and Neonatiollnlism (London: New Left Books, 1977), Chapter 9; cf. also Erie J. Hobsbawm, "Some Reflections on Nationalism" in Imagination and Precision in Social Science, eds. T. Nositer et al (London: Faber and Faber, 1972), pp. 389f. See the title essay (originally written in 1912-13) in Joseph Stalin, Marxism nnd the National-Colonial Question: A Collection ofArticles and Speeches (San Franeiseo: Proletarian Publishers, 1975), pp. 16-17. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Refleet ions on the Origin nnd Spread ofNationalism (London: Verso, 1983). See Erie J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848 (New York: New Ameriean Library, 1962). Cf. Charles Tilly, infra. See, for example, Anthony Smith, The Etlmic Origins ofNations (Oxford: Basil Blaekwell, 1986), pp. 2-3. John L. Comaroff, "Humanity, Ethnieity, Nationality: Coneeptual and Comparative Perspeetives on the U.S.S.R." in Theory and Society, 20:661-87 (1991); also "Of Totemism and Ethnieity: Conseiousness, Praetiee and the Signs ofInequality" in Ethnos, 52(2/3):303-23 (1987). A good example of this position, addressed to the particular problem of ethnicity but applicable more generally to the phenomenon of eultural identities, is to be found in Immanuel Wallerstein, The Capitalist WorldEcollomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 183f. There have been a few attempts, either explieit or implieit, to sustain the intelleetual genealogy of orthodox primordialism, typieally by elaborating some or other aspeet of its theoretical seaffolding. For a

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON NATIONALISM AND WAR

14.

15.

16.

17. 18.

13

notable (if early) example, see Milton Gordon, Human Nature, Class, and Ethnicity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978). Clifford Geertz is typically associated with this position; see his Interpretation ofCultures: Se/eeted Essays (NewYork: Basic Books, 1973); see also Richard Handler, Nationalism and the Polities of Culture in Quebee (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988). See, especially, Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983). An especially interesting study of political constructionism in Britain, written from a cultural marxist perspective, is to be found in Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer, The Great Areh: English State Formation as Cultural Revolution (Oxford: Biackwell, 1986). This is true of, among others, the volumes by Handler and by Corrigan and Sayer, cited in notes 14 and 15 above, as weil as of three other interesting studies of the politics of identity in the (post) colonial world, Richard Fox's Lions ofthe Punjab: Culture in the Making (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), Partha Chatterjee's Nationalist TllOUght and tJze Colonial World: A Derivative Diseourse? (London: Zed Books, 1986), and Bruce Kapferer's Legends of People, Myths of Statc: Violenee, Intolcranee, and Politieal Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988). For furt her discussion of this position, see the two essays cited in n.11 above. See Comaroff, "Humanity, Ethnicity, Nationality," op. eit. Post-Soviet ethnographers are beginning to see the constructedness of nationhood and to recognize the need to consider alternatives to the one nationality-one state formula. See Lee Walkerand Paute. Stern, eds., Balancing and Sharing Power in Multiethnie Societies (Washington: National Academy Press, 1993) and the related collection of essays of the same title edited by Valery Tishkov (Moscow: Nauka, 1995).

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Chapter TWO

Self Interest, Group Identification * Russell Hardin

SELF INTEREST How far can ethnic and nationalist identification in politics be understood to result from essentially self-interested behavior? At first thought, plausibly not very far. Nationalism and ethnic loyalty are commonly viewed as inherently irrational or extra-rational in the sense that they supposedly viola te or transcend considerations of self in te rest. Surely this common view is correct to some extent. Still, it is useful to draw out the self-interest incentives for such commitments and behaviors. There is yet another category of motivations-those that are a-rational. For example, you want only to sit on the beach and watch seagulls. This is not strictly a matter of your interest but of your pleasure or whatever in consuming your time and energy that way. Similarly, we all have a-rational drives This chapter draws on chapters 3 and 6 of the author's book One for All: The Logic of Group Conflicl, copyright by Princeton University Press, 1995.

15

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RUSSELL HARDIN

that make us want things. When we act from those drives, we may lack reasons that could define our actions as rational. These four terms-rational, irrational, extra-rational, and a-rational-are not strictly parallel. Throughout this paper I use the term "rational" to mean to have narrowly self-interested intentions and I do not constantly restate this qualification. Rationality is, of course, typically a subjective or intentional not ion, not a purely objective notion. You act rationally if you do what you believe serves your interest. Self interest might better be seen as an objecti ve notion.lts service is the object of ra tional action, although one may fail to und erstand what is in one's interest. George Washington presumably acted rationally, but mistakenly, when he allowed hirnself to be bled, perhaps with fatal consequences. I will refer to primordial, atavistic, inconsistent, and other motivations not intended to serve either the individual or the group interest as "irrational"; and I will refer to indi vid ual motivations to serve the group- or national-level interestmore or less independently of immediate individual costs and benefits as extrarational. It is possible, of course, that rational and extra-rational motivations will lead to similar actions in some contexts. The rational choice account of ethnic, na tionalist, or other group loyalty will be compelling if (1) it often happens that self interest and group identifiration are congruent and if (2) actions that are costly to the individual but beneficial to the group or nation are increasingly less likely the higher the individual costs. In some ways, it would be more assertively clear to speak of self interest rather than of rationality. But there is no simple equivalent of the range of terms we want here: rational, irrational, and extrarational. Moreover, we may often accommodate extra-rational concern for the well-being of others by speaking of it as a concern for others' interests, and we can then rationally choose best means to fulfill those interests. You may be an altruist or an ethnic loyalist who has a group interest as weIl as a self interest. FinaIly, and most important, self interest is not generally treated as a subjective notion-even if I like the taste of some poison, it may not be in my interestto eatit and, ifl knew enough about it, I would activelyprefer not to eat it. Limits to knowledge lead all of us to mistaken beliefs about our interests even when it would be silly to say we had mistaken intentions. George Washington had mistaken beliefs about the benefits ofbleeding to treat a bad cold. This fundamental prob-

SELF INTEREST, GROUP IDENTIFICATION

17

lern of subjectivity often complicates any account of intentional action, as it will complicate our account of group identification. Much of the work on nationalism is primarily concerned with will, interests, and identity. It is about the cognitive aspects of actors' being nationalist. Writings on ethnicity may more commonly invoke primordial and other emotional motivations. There are many other identities that might underlie conflict as nationalism and ethnicity seem to do. Many of these, however, do not seem to be of much concern to us in explaining major conflicts up to and induding war and internal war. Indeed, many of them seem to be trumped by nationalism in times of war, as identification with dass in the Socialist International was, to Lenin's disgust, widely trumped by nationalist identities at the advent of World War I. In a multi-ethnic state, nationalist and ethnic identities may dash even while the state goes to war. Often it is daimed that there is something natural about ethnic identification. As there are arguably genetic grounds for physical identification of a particular ethnic group, so there might be genetic grounds for psychological identification with the group by those who have the relevant physical characteristics. 1 I will take more or less for granted that this presumptive genetic basis of the psychological identification with one's partinllar group is most likely false. Surely it is not merely false but also preposterous for, say, the nationalist identification with the Uni ted States, such as was displayed at impressive levels du ring the Gulf crisis and war against Iraq. Whatever genetic basis we might find for ethnic and nationalist iden tifica ti on is at most a genetic basis for the propensi ty to iden tify with some larger group.2 How we might select a group for identification or how identification may just grow up for some group of which we are part is likely still to be a cognitive problem of making choices. Those choices may be about matters other than direct identification with the particular group or nation. But they will have implications for such identification, which may be an unintended by-product. It is such choices and their grounding in seH interest that are of concern here. One might go further than I wish to go to say that even the basic urge to identify is itself a cognitive result. At the very least, the da ta on such identifica tion may not readily differentiate biological from cognitive explanations. Throughout the discussion, there will be two partly separable issues: the role of interest in an individual's coming to identify with a

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RUSSELL HARDIN

particular group, and the interest an individual has in supporting that group as a beneficiary of the group's successes. The second issue may seem more readily than the first to be about deliberate action. Of course, one could see that membership in a particular group would be beneficial and could therefore develop an apparent or even real identification with it. But for very many identifications, it would be odd to suppose the individuals had deliberately set out to develop or adopt the relevant identity. Hence, the explanatory concern must be with the rationality of various choices they make that eventually lead them to identification with a particular group, identification that, again, may be an unintended consequence of many rational actions. There are two main moves in the arguments that follow. First, I consider the rationality of an action given one's available knowledge, theory, and so forth at the time of choosing. Second, I consider the rationality of coming to have the knowledge and theory one now has. These two moves are independent and one may reject one while accepting the other. They seem too sensible to be objectionable, but they are also commonly not overtly made by rational choice theorists or their critics. Both moves enormously increase the demand for data in trying to assess the rationality of actions. GROUP IDENTIFICATION FROM CO ORDINATION

How can we plausibly associate nationalist, ethnic, or other strong group identification with self interest? Surely, it seems, such commitment is beyond the self, it is a commitment to a community of some kind. To get beneath this superficial appearance, first note that many national and ethnic group conflicts are likely to have outcomes that will favor or disfavor members of the relevant group. Contributing to the potential success of the group to which one belongs therefore benefits oneself. Unfortunately, as we weIl know from the logic of collective action, such considerations are typically outweighed by the costs of contributing. 3 For example, by voting in an election, I ma y help my candida te win. Bu t to do so, I have to go to the trouble of voting, trouble that can be substantial in many locations. Unless the probability that my vote will make areal difference in the outcome is extremely high, I cannot justify, from my own interest alone, taking the trouble to vote. Then how can I justify contributing to the collective purpose of my nation or ethnic group?

SELF INTEREST, GROUP IDENTIFICATION

19

The first answer is that there may be no costs of my joining in the relevant activities of my group. The second answer is that, even if there are costs, I mayaiso expect specific rewards or punishments that will be tailored to whether I contribute. The first answer will apply to many contexts that essentially involve coordination butno expenditure of resources by many of uso The second answer will apply to many contexts in wh ich there are real costs of contributingso that theproblem is not simply one of coordination-but in which rewards of leadership or spontaneous punishments by one' speers are possible. Of course, a nationalist or ethnic commitment might be purely idea 1or norma ti ve in tha ti t might in vol ve onl y ideal-regarding and other-regarding motivations. But it might also be strongly correla ted with individual interests. Suppose the commitment is to a nation or ethnic group in conflict with others and with a prospect of success in that conflict. Then it is likely that the nationals or the ethnic grou p members will jointl y benefi t from tha t success. The benefit is often likely to be collectively provided but individually distributed. The group wins or loses together, but winning means that each member or many members of the group benefit individually. Indeed, one need not be committed to the group in any normative or additional psychological sense to see one's interests served by its success. There are generall y two forms tha t collecti ve, m u tuall y beneficial endeavors may take. These may be represented game theoretically by the prisoner's dilemma and coordination games, as shown in games 1 and 2. The prisoner's dilemma is perhaps the best known game in all of the massive game theory literature, especially in the discursive applied literature in the soda I sciences. In this game, I as the Row player face a choice between two strategies, didactically labeled cooperate and defect. You as the Column player face a similar choice. In the end, we will each receive the payoff determined by our simultaneous choice of joint strategies. Our payoffs in the various ou tcomes are listed ordinally, wi th 1 as the most preferred and 4 the least preferred outcome; and the first payoff in each ceU goes to the Row player, the second to Column. If we both defect, we each receive our third best payoff. If we both cooperate, we each receive our second best payoff. If I cooperate while you defect, I receive my worst payoff while you receive your best; and vice versa. Hence, there is incentive for both of us to try to cheat the other by defecting while the other cooperates.

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RUSSELL HARDIN Column Cooperate Defect

Cooperate Row

2,2

4,1

Defect 1,4 3,3 Game 1: Prisoner's Dilemma or Exchange

Column I 11

1

1,1

2,2

Row

11 1,1 2,2 Game 2: Coordination

In the coordination game of game 2, you and I have harmonious interests. We wish either to coordinate on both choosing our strategy I or on both choosing our strategy 11. There is no conflict. In the prisoner's dilemma there is both a coordination interest in choosing the (2,2) over the (3,3) outcome and a conflict of interests in whieh I prefer the outcome (1,4) while you prefer (4,1). Many of the standard problems of politieal mobilization are generalizations of the prisoner's dilemma strategie structure. Each of us has an interest in not contributing a personal share to, say, a politieal campaign, because each of us will benefit from a11 others' contributions while our own contribution may cost us more than it is worth to us alone. Hence, each of us has incentive to try to be a freerider. (This is what Mancur Olson ca11s the logie of co11ective action. 4 ) Many other problems of political mobilization are more nearly generalizations of the structure of the simple two-person coordination game represented here. In such problems, a11 that is needed to achieve successful mobiliza ti on is relevant communica tion to coor-