Master of Arts Thesis Euroculture
University of Groningen, the Netherlands University of Göttingen, Germany
August 2012
The influence of transnationalism on nationalism in contemporary western Europe
Submitted by:
Gerard Jan Ritsema van Eck 1723987 (Groningen)/11134805 (Göttingen) Soephuisstraatje 13 9712 BZ Groningen The Netherlands 0(031)6-10521245 Gerard.rve@gmail.com Supervised by:
Prof. Dr. Frank Vanclay Dr. Tobias Jakobi Groningen, 21st of August 2012
2 MA Programme Euroculture
Declaration
I, Gerard Jan Ritsema van Eck, hereby declare that this thesis, entitled “The influence of transnationalism on nationalism in contemporary western Europe”, submitted as partial requirement for the MA Programme Euroculture, is my own original work and expressed in my own words. Any use made within it of works of other authors in any form (e.g. ideas, figures, texts, tables, etc.) are properly acknowledged in the text as well as in the List of References.
I hereby also acknowledge that I was informed about the regulations pertaining to the assessment of the MA thesis Euroculture and about the general completion rules for the Master of Arts Programme Euroculture.
Signed:
Date: 21st of August 2012
3 Table of Contents
Declaration ... 2
Acknowledgments ... 5
List of abbreviations ... 6
Chapter 1: Introduction ... 7
Key concepts: Nationalism and transnationalism ... 7
Nationalism ... 7
Transnationalism ... 9
Research question ... 12
Delimitations and focus ... 12
Relevance ... 14
Division in chapters ... 15
Chapter 2: Nation-states and identity ... 17
Key characteristics of identities ... 18
Key characteristics of national l-identities ... 19
The role of territories in national l-identities ... 22
The production of territories ... 22
Direct governmental capture ... 23
Language ... 24
Goods and services markets ... 25
Labour markets ... 27
News media... 29
Conclusion of chapter 2... 31
What lies “over there”? ... 34
4
Chapter 3: Transnationalism and territory ... 35
Is “transnationalism” happening?... 35
Direct governmental capture ... 39
Language ... 40
Goods and services markets ... 43
Labour Markets ... 43
News media ... 45
Conclusion of chapter 3... 46
Chapter 4: Conclusion and implications ... 49
Overview of the current work ... 49
Answer to the research question... 50
Policy implication ... 52
Scientific implication ... 53
Limitations and suggestions for further research ... 54
Concluding remarks ... 55
Afterword: the end of the affair? ... 56
Bibliography ... 58
5 Acknowledgments
In no particular order other than slightly alphabetic, I would like to thank the following people for helping me in the long and arduous process of writing my master’s thesis:
First of all my girlfriend Christien who has put up with months of puzzling silence and even more puzzling explanations of what I was trying to accomplish, and who provided invaluable feedback on my confused ramblings and the final draft; The Ethiopians for discovering that the coffee bean could be used as a stimulant and the Yemenites for figuring out how to turn the bitter berries into a delicious drink; The Euroculture teams of Göttingen en Groningen for their academic inspiration and their continued practical support; My mother Heleen for the financial injections – although she would probably prefer me to call them investments – that kept me alive the last few years and her constructive comments on the chapters; The many artists who contributed to the Initial- D soundtrack which kept me awake at more than 180 beats per minute; My two thesis supervisors, Prof. Dr. Frank Vanclay and Dr. Tobias Jakobi, who always had answers to all my questions and ushered me forward in great intellectual freedom; and finally all the friends, family, teachers, lecturers, writers, and others who in some way helped or inspired me to write this thesis.
Of course, none of these people is responsible for anything written down in this work and I claim all mistakes as my own.
Gerard Jan Ritsema van Eck
August 2012 Groningen
6 List of abbreviations
ACTA Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
AP Associated Press
BBC British Broadcasting Company BRD Bundesrepublik Deutschland CEST Central European Summer Time CNN Cable News Network
DDR Deutsche Demokratische Republik ECTS European Credit Transfer System
EU European Union
EU-15 The 15 member states of the European Union between January 1995 and May 2004: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
GDP Gross Domestic Product
MEP Member of European Parliament NGO Non-Governmental Organization TOR The Onion Router
USA United States of America
VISA Visa International Service Association
7 Chapter 1: Introduction
This thesis is about identity, territory, nationalism, and transnationalism; all of which are heavily contested concepts as will be discovered when they are discussed in their respective places throughout this thesis. Of these four disputed ideas, the interpretations of nationalism and transnationalism are not only the most numerous and divergent, but also the most crucial for the research question of this thesis. Therefore, this introduction starts with a consideration of nationalism and transnationalism, before turning to the research question. Then, the relevance of this thesis is discussed and the structure of the thesis that is used to answer the research question is shortly described.
Key concepts: Nationalism and transnationalism
Nationalism
There is an urban myth that Inuit have over forty words to describe snow, depending on the color, density, place (in the clouds, falling, or on the ground), and even age of the substance. Whether true or not, the point of the myth is clear: if we surround ourselves long enough with a certain subject, we begin to see an increasing number of subtle differences.
With nationalism it is not different. Where perhaps passing observers might be able to recognize nationalism when they see it – just as they might when confronted with snow – they would be hard pressed to give a satisfactory definition, and probably wouldn’t even feel the need to do so. In scholarly debate however, there are as many definitions of nationalism as there are writers on the subject. Already in 1973, while the field of nationalism studies was still rather dormant and dominated by Marxists trying to explain decolonization movements1, Anthony Smith recognized not just five major definitions of nationalism, but five major strands of definitions.2
Today, one of the most popular definitions – so popular, in fact, that the author of it has said that what remains is not more than a “pair of words from which the vampires
1 John Breuilly, “Introduction,” in Nations and Nationalism, Ernest Gellner, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), XVIII-XX.
2 Anthony J. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism: A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism (London: Routledge, 1998), 187.
8 of banality have by now sucked almost all the blood”3 – comes from Benedict Anderson: “The nation is an imagined community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign”4. This definition is very elucidating and the “vampires of banality” can hardly be blamed for overusing it; in fact, it will be returned to later for a more thorough consideration. However, for the purpose of this thesis, this definition focuses too much on what the nation is, and lacks a clear focus on what nationalism is.
Two influential definitions that do focus on nationalism rather than on nations come from Kedourie – “The doctrine [of nationalism] holds that humanity is naturally divided into nations, that nations are known by certain characteristics which can be ascertained, and that the only legitimate type of government is national self- government”5 – and from Gellner – “Nationalism is primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and national unit should be congruent”6 –. Both these definitions draw attention to the fact that nationalism tells something about how humanity should be organized. These definitions define the aims of political nationalism that is concerned with the production of nations, but with the focus on identity and the reproduction of nations7 in this thesis, a broader definition is needed. Furthermore, none of these definitions include a spatial element. Although Kedourie seems to allude to sovereign territories when he uses the term “self-government”, it is never specified how national self-government should take form8.
Before the reader wonders why the previously mentioned definitions are even brought up here if they are deemed insufficient for the current project; that is because any definition of nationalism will be in need of an understanding of what a nation is, and will need to bear in mind that nationalism has far-reaching political implications.
3 Quoted in Umut Özkirimli, Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction, 2nd edn. (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010), 106.
4 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd ed. (London: Verso, 2006), 6.
5 Elie Kedourie, Nationalism, 4th, expanded edn. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), 1.
6 Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 1.
7 Since this thesis is concerned with nationalism in contemporary western Europe, where the majority of nations have long since been produced and are being reproduced nowadays.
8 Perhaps non-territorial concepts of national government are also possible. See for an overview of the history and possible applications of such arrangements John Coakley, "Approaches to the Resolution of Etnhic Conflict: The Strategy of Non-Territorial Autonomy," International Political Science Review, IPSR 15 (1994): 297-314.
9 These definitions do point out these things very well. With Özkirimli and Brubaker9 however, I would argue that nationalism goes beyond identification with a certain political community, and is most prominently a way of perceiving the whole of humanity.
Based on the previous, my definition is that nationalism is the categorization of humans – including the self – into nations. Nations refer to subjective categories, rather than objective groups. Which nations exist and which do not, and the question which nation a certain individual belongs to, are in the eye of the beholder. Nations are deemed to have a right to a certain measure of self-determination in a demarcated territory. Based on this definition, the conclusion is that “Nationalism, far from being the intermittent mood in established nations, is the endemic condition”10.
Transnationalism
The term transnationalism has often, and with good reasons, been criticized for its
“fuzziness”11; once again, there seem to be as many definitions of the term as there are writers on the subject. As a result Steven Vertovec needs no less than nine pages to sketch out the six different types of the phenomenon that scholars have studied since the emergence of the field of transnational studies in the 1980s: transnationalism as a social morphology; a type of consciousness; a mode of cultural reproduction; an avenue of capital; a site of political engagement; and a (re)construction of place or locality. Of course, these six takes on the subject cover only the major strands of academic studies on transnationalism. Many transnational works will fall into multiple categories, or perhaps none at all.12
But what exactly is this phenomenon that can be studied in so many ways? One of the earliest and most influential definitions of transnationalism came from the discipline of international relations. Nye and Keohane defined transnational relations in 1971 as
“contacts, coalitions, and interactions across state boundaries that are not controlled by
9 Özkirimli, Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction, 192, 208-9.
10 Phrase borrowed from Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage, 1995), 6.
11 Achim Hurrelmann, "Transnationalism and the Theory of European Integration: Politcal Science Perspectives," in Transnational Europe. Promise, Paradox, Limits, eds. Joan DeBerdeleben and Achim Hurrelmann (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 28.
12 Steven Vertovec, Transnationalism (London: Routledge, 2009), 4-12.
10 the central foreign policy organs in government.”13 They continued to point out that these transnational relations should be seen as a subset of global interactions:
“movements of information, money, physical objects, people, or other tangible or intangible objects across state boundaries”14.
Nye and Keohane point out that transnationalism is a part of globalization. Before delving deeper into the question which part of globalization it is, the question what is meant by globalization needs to be answered. Globalization is a societal transformation:
a change occurring at the multiple levels (micro, meso, and macro) of society at the same time15. It denotes not so much a state of being but rather a movement, an increase in the “extent, intensity, velocity and impact of global interconnectedness across a broad range of human domains”16. Globalization studies has a higher focus than transnational studies; the objects of study can be found at the macro level, rather than at the micro or meso level17. Transnationalism as a phenomenon (rather than transnational studies) can thus be broadly understood as all those parts of globalization that play out at the micro or meso level.
What must further be noted about transnationalism is its relation to nation-states.
Vertovec – who certainly added to the fuzziness surrounding the term by casually giving no less than three definitions in two pages – focuses on this relationship in all his
13 Jospeph S. Nye and Robert O. Keohane, "Transnational Relations and World Politics: An Introduction," International Organization 25, no. 3 (1971): 331.
14 Ibid.: 332
Hurrelmann levelled three criticisms against Nye and Keohane’s definition: it focuses on the role of agency at the expense of systemic factors; it presupposes that actors are independent and can form their intentions accordingly, ignoring the role of possible (inter-)dependencies in this process; and finally it focuses on the role of physical cross-border activities whilst disregarding the spread of ideas, beliefs and identities†. These criticisms follow a rather narrow reading of Nye and Keohane’s definition and ignore the explicit embedding of transnational relations within global interactions. In relation to the first two points raised by Hurrelmann, it should further be noted that Nye and Keohane make no reference to agency, systemic factors, or intentionality when defining transnational relations.
† Hurrelmann, Transnationalism and the Theory of European Integration: Politcal Science Perspectives, 28.
15 Vertovec, Transnationalism, 20.
16 Ibid., 2
17 Sanjeev Khagram and Peggy Levitt, "Constructing Transnational Studies," in The Transnational Studies Reader, Intersections and Innovations, eds. Sanjeev Khagram and Peggy Levitt (New York:
Routledge, 2008), 3-5.
11 definitions: “sustained cross-border relationships, patterns of exchange, affiliations and social formations spanning nation-states”; “sustained linkages and ongoing exchanges among non-state actors based across national borders”; “a condition in which, despite great distances and notwithstanding the presence of international borders (and all the laws, regulations and national narratives they represent), certain kinds of relationships have been globally intensified and now take place paradoxically in a planet-spanning yet common – however virtual – arena of activity.”18 (emphases added). Once more, in parallel with Nye and Keohane, there is a focus on non-state actors and objects somehow traversing state borders.19
Transnationalism is thus not (or at least not only) a phenomenon that is “out there” and influences the daily lives of individuals on an intermittent basis, for example when transnational financial flows cause the collapse of a local bank; it denotes a transformation in the quotidian. Crang, Dwyer and Jackson call transnationalism – paraphrasing Giddens’ description of globalization – “an ‘in here’ phenomenon, involving ‘transformations in the very texture of everyday life’.”20 Kennedy and Roudometof concur and add that the focus of transnational studies on migrants and migrant communities is becoming outdated: “transnational relationships have to be understood as manifestations of broader social trends that are not confined to the experience of immigrants; rather they are extending into and shaping the lives of people engaged in many other kinds of associations, clubs and informal networks as well as into cultural life at large.”21
Based on those factors in the previously mentioned definitions that were both crucial and shared by multiple authors, my definition is that transnationalism is a transformation in the quotidians of non-state actors towards quantitatively more – both more links and more frequent interactions within those links – and qualitatively more
18 Vertovec, Transnationalism, 2-3.
19 Ironically, the fact that (almost by definition) many transnational studies investigate how non-state actors and processes routinely cross nation-state borders, puts the focus very much, even if only by inversion, on the power of nation-states.
20 Peter Jackson, Philip Crang and Claire Dwyer, "Introduction: The Spaces of Transnationality," in Transnational Spaces, eds. Peter Jackson, Philip Crang and Claire Dwyer (London: Routledge, 2004), 9.
21 Paul Kennedy and Victor Roudometof, "Transnationalism in a Global Age," in Communities Across Borders, New Immigrants and Transnational Cultures, eds. Paul Kennedy and Victor Roudometof (London: Routledge, 2002), 1.
12 important cross-border interactions. Transnationalism must be understood as a part of globalization: an increase in global interconnectedness in all areas of human life.
Research question
Looking back at these two key concepts, it can casually be noted22 that both nationalism and transnationalism are at work in contemporary western Europe. But it seems that there is a friction between the two concepts; does it make sense to categorize humans on the basis of their nationality when cross-border interactions are on the rise? What does it even mean to speak of nations and nationalism – concepts that, as will be discuss more fully below, are deeply related to territory – when people are ignoring territorial borders in their day-to-day lives? It is clear that transnationalism problematizes nationalism, but it is unclear how and to what extent exactly. The central research question of this thesis is thus: How and to what extent does transnationalism influence nationalism in contemporary western Europe?
Delimitations and focus
The spatial delimitation has been chosen because transnationalism, despite its obvious and inherent global implications, must be studied separately and differently in different regions of the world. For instance, whereas transnational phenomena in middle American countries often evolve around labour migration to (and remittances back from) the USA, developments in telecommunications create large transnational networks in south Asia. Using the same methodological framework for transnational studies in such separate and dissimilar environments does not make sense. Rogers therefore argues for the use of macro-regions: large regions in the world where similar transnational trends can or might be distinguished. These macro-regions are not to be understood as discrete and static regions, but rather as overlapping and fluid regions which differ substantially between research topics.23
In this thesis the choice to study developments in western Europe – which Rogers also suggests as a possible macro-region – has been made for a number of reasons, but first it must be established what “western Europe” is. As a casual definition the EU-15
22 This casual notion will of course be expanded to an academic understanding in the upcoming chapters.
23 Macro-regions are not to be understood as discrete and static regions. Alisdair Rogers, "A European Space for Transnationalism?" in Transnational Spaces, eds. Peter Jackson, Philip Crang and Claire Dwyer (London: Routledge, 2004), 164-182.
13 will be used: the 15 member states that made up the European Union between January 1995 and May 2004: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom24. Although each of these countries has a unique (political) history, the fact that since 1995 they have been part of the EU means that – as far as transnational factors are concerned at least – their inhabitants have been subject to largely similar influences.
Western Europe has been chosen first of all because of the practical concern that, thanks to the efforts of the Eurobarometer office which holds standardized surveys twice a year in all EU countries25, a wealth of (statistical) information is available on various transnational developments and that this data is largely comparable over time and between countries. More important, however, is that the various processes of European integration have created a unique opportunity for transnational phenomena to blossom: cooperation has replaced the deathly cross-border animosity between states, which had surely smothered any changes that transnationalism would have influenced nationalism.
These political integration processes are also the first reason for the temporal focus on contemporary developments. Furthermore, the nation-state borders have been relatively stable in western Europe since the end of the second world war – with the most notable exception of course being the German unification and in stark contrast with the situation prior to the second world war and in eastern Europe26 – which makes data comparable over periods of time. This also forces attention towards the reproduction of nations and national identities, rather than to the production of them.
24 At various points in the thesis, small deviations in this casual definition of western Europe will be allowed for. The reader will always be notified of such variations, which usually stem from the plethora of definitions of western Europe that other authors use.
25 For the sake of completeness it should be mentioned that Eurobarometer surveys are also carried out in EU-candidate countries and that regularly non-standard questions are included in the Eurobarometers.
The Eurobarometer office is part of the European Commisson and the Eurobarometer surveys are carried by various national agencies.†
† European Commission, "Public Opinion," European Union, http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/
index_en.htm (accessed 7/16, 2012).
26 Anssi Paasi, "Europe as a Social Process and Discourse: Considerations of Place, Boundaries and Identity," European Urban and Regional Studies 8, no. 1 (2001): 7.
14 When the contemporary age – literally the time that we are with –starts exactly will always be up for discussion and (by definition) changing. However, based on the above it can be noted that in the western European context, this period starts in the post- war period in which European integration took place. Furthermore, with the spatial delimitation in this work on the EU-15, the focus will as far as possible be on developments that took place since their entry into the EU in January 1995.
Additionally, in order to amplify the relevance of the thesis, the most up-to-date data will be used whenever available. Concluding, the focus of the present work is as close as possible to the current moment.
Relevance
There is an ongoing academic debate about the importance of territorial borders: they imply that one thing ends and another thing begins, but what exactly are those things that are ending and beginning at borders, and for whom? Closely related are questions regarding globalization: is it altering the role of borders? A large body of works on these subjects exists27 to which this thesis hopes to add a perspective that is based around individuals’ identifications.
The scientific relevance of this thesis further lies in its contribution to the ongoing concern with regards to reification of the nation-state. The way in which data is often collected, stored, and analyzed nudges social sciences researchers into an implicit recognition and acceptance of nation-states and nations. No work – including this thesis – can be completely free of such influences, but understanding how nationalism works and doesn’t work can help to make better sense of societies.
The societal relevance of this thesis lies in the study of how nationalism is developing under the changing conditions of transnationalism. The principle organizational form that states take in contemporary western Europe is that of the national democracy, in which the legislative power is held by a parliament chosen by general – i.e. national – suffrage. This system relies on the acceptance of the governed to abide by the rules and the willingness to turn up to vote in elections28. Both this acceptance and willingness in turn rely on an identification with the nation: does an
27 See for an overview Steffen Mau, Social Transnationalism: Lifeworlds Beyond the Nation-State (London: Routledge, 2010), 9-10.
28 Bart Tromp, De Wetenschap Der Politiek, Verkenningen, 6th print, 2nd edn. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007), 138-146.
15 individual feel part of a nation and thus represented by a national parliament? Keeping track of nationalism thus means keeping track of the primary mode of democracy in contemporary western Europe: “the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” 29
Furthermore and as will be discussed in more detail below, the borders of the nation-state also function as borders for mutual solidarity and risk-sharing. If territorial borders become meaningless for individuals that are becoming increasingly used to transnationalism, this solidarity might also change, for better – a more inclusive type of world solidarity perhaps – or worse – a complete withering away –. Understanding the relation between nationalism and transnationalism can help to find solutions if the possible problems noted here and in the previous paragraph become a reality30.
Division in chapters
The division of the main body in two chapters follows logically from the opposition between the two concepts (nationalism and transnationalism) in the research question.
The body will start with chapter two on nationalism, in order to be able to better understand how transnationalism might impact nationalism. In this chapter the subject of nationalism will be approached from a bottom-up perspective rather than from a top- down, statist perspective. This is done because transnationalism focuses on non-state actors, so nationalism must also be understood from this perspective31. This puts the focus on individuals’ national identities. The chapter will consider what identities are and what national identities are. Then, in order to explain how national identities are being reproduced, the attention will turn to the role of national territories in this process.
In the conclusion of this chapter, a model on the reproduction of nations, national identities, and nationalism will be presented.
The third chapter will function as a counterweight to the second chapter, taking transnationalism as its central theme. In this chapter it will first be investigated whether, how, and to what degree transnationalism is happening in contemporary western Europe. Then, these developments will be set against the backdrop of the model that
29 Winston Churchill, 1947, as cited in Dimitr K. Simes, "America's Imperial Dilemma," Foreign Affairs 82, no. 6 (2003): 97.
30 See also Mau, Social Transnationalism: Lifeworlds Beyond the Nation-State, 160-4.
31 Ibid., 24-26
16 was developed in the first chapter in order to gain an understanding of how the model of territorial capture is being impacted.
Finally, in the conclusion of the thesis the research question will be answered.
Possible scientific and policy implications of the findings will be discussed, and suggestions for further research based on the limitations of this and other works will be made.
17 Chapter 2: Nation-states and identity
In this chapter, national identities will be investigated in order to gain an understanding of how contemporary nationalism works form a bottom-up perspective. The questions, what kind of identities are they, and why are they so powerful, will be examined.
Crucially, this chapter will also highlight the way in which place and territory influence national identities. First, some key characteristics of identities in general will be considered with the focus on individual identification. In the second section attention will be given to national identities. In the third section the concepts of space and state territories will be considered, and how they have been crucial in the formation of national identities. Finally, the chapter will wrap upwith a conclusion.
Before starting with the discussion of identities, a small remark on terminology is needed. In the academic literature as well as in daily usage, identity is used in two quite distinct, albeit related, ways. First of all, when speaking of a person’s identity, the complex set of self-understandings of that person is meant32. However, when talking of an identity, specific labels that can be ascribed to people and that form parts of their self-understanding are meant33. In the context of this work, one might for example encounter an identity being described as ‘French’. This could describe whether a particular person feels she/he is French, but could also denote the label ‘French’ that is used to describe any number of persons. This subtle – but important! – difference might give rise to confusion. In order to lessen this confusion somewhat, I shall use the term
“p-identity” (personal identity) in the following to denote someone’s identity, while “l- identity” (label identity) will be used to denote labels that people ascribe to themselves and others.
Furthermore, the question why identities matter beyond the realm of personality psychology must be asked. This is because p-identities make people evaluate their surroundings from a certain perspective and they motivate to behave in certain ways.
When we understand ourselves as being an Arsenal hooligan, we will dress and act accordingly and we expect others who we understand to be Arsenal hooligans to also
32 See for an influential example of this approach to the term Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self- Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991).
33 For a more thorough theoretical discussion of this approach to identity, see Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall, "Identity and Interaction: A Sociocultural Linguistic Approach," Discourse Studies 7, no. 4-5 (2005): 585-614.
18 dress and act accordingly34. Put more generally, in enacting their identities, people go from being social objects to being social subjects.35
Key characteristics of identities
In the words of Ross Poole: “We have an identity because we can identify with figures or representations that are made available to us.”36 With this sentence, Poole points to several crucial elements of both p-identity and l-identity.
Most notably, p-identity is an act of self-understanding. P-identity is not something that happens to people, but they look around themselves in the world and find figures and representations of others. When, for example, the (imaginary) Peter hears someone describe someone else as a college dropout, he might wonder whether he himself is a college dropout. He can look into the metaphorical mirror and discover that he has indeed attended college for two semesters, but has terminated his enrollment before obtaining a degree. In other words: Peter has identified himself as a college dropout.
Of course, it can also happen that someone describes Peter as being brown- haired. In such a scenario, part of Peter’s p-identity is being ascribed. It then becomes essential for his self-understanding whether or not he chooses to accept or resist that ascribed p-identity. In this case, he can easily test if he thinks his hair is brown enough to qualify him as being brown-haired. Whether or not this will influence the p-identity others ascribe to him remains to be seen, and here Poole’s definition of identity runs into difficulty: it neglects the fact that who someone thinks she/he is might differ from how they are being perceived. This problem will be returned to in the subsection on national identities.
Focusing for now on self-identification, the easiest way to discover what figures and representations someone identifies with is to ask a simple question: who are you?
Depending on the context, various self-understandings will come to the fore, possibly including such categories as gender, age, occupation, position within the family, etc. In short: p-identity is built from a complex set of l-identities, most of which have been made available to people by society and some of which might have been constructed by
34 Vice versa, it is often actions (or the lack thereof) which is a deciding factor in whether a certain identity applies to someone, for instance in the case of vegetarianism.
35 Ross Poole, Nation and Identity (London: Routledge, 1999), 61.
36 Ibid., 44-5
19 people themselves37. All these l-identities can be grouped under either generic or specific l-identities.
Generic l-identities are shared with others. When someone claims to be a father – rather than the father of his children – he will not be offended when somebody else also claims to be a father. Specific l-identities on the other hand are exclusive in the sense that the person who has such an l-identity (as part of their p-identity) is making a claim that she/he – and only she/he – can be described as such. If somebody describes himself as the father of his children, he is at the same time also claiming that nobody else is the father of his children.
Returning to the sentence by Poole38 that was quoted at the beginning of this subsection, it should further be noticed that all p-identities – whether they are self- ascribed or ascribed by others and whether they are individual or collective – are based on l-identities that are made available by society and that all l-identities are social constructs. Of each l-identity, two sides are constantly being (re-)defined:
Determination rules (rules that determine who can and who can not be described using a certain label) and content rules (sets of features that are seen as archetypal of bearers of a certain l-identity)39. This means that especially for complex l-identites, which are based on a multiplicity of factors, it is at any time contested who does and who does not have that l-identity and what the exact requisites are to be able to have a certain l- identity (as part of one’s p-identity).
Key characteristics of national l-identities
In this section, national l-identities will be investigated, starting with a consideration of their obviousness in western Europe. It will then be discussed how individuals acquire these identities and the possibilities for shedding them. Finally, attention will be paid to what it means in a societal (and moral) context to have a national l-identity.
37 The first empirical – and consequently groundbreaking – study into identity was undertaken by asking
“Who are you?” to university undergraduates: Manford H. Kuhn and Thomas S. McPartland, "An Empirical Investigation of Self-Attitudes," American Sociological Review 19, no. 1 (1954): 68-76.
38 “We have an identity because we can identify with figures or representations that are made available to us.” Poole, Nation and Identity, 44-5.
39 James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, "Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity,"
International Organization 54, no. 4 (2000): 848.
20 First and foremost, what must be noted about national l-identities, is that it is assumed that everyone has one as part of their p-identities. Usually, the expectation is that this l-identity will overlap with the citizenship of a certain state. In contemporary western Europe it seems to be the normalized state of a human to have a national l- identity, even though certain l-identities can be traced back just a few decades and a small number of centuries ago it was quite imaginable to never have heard of nations and national identities. Because it is seen as a natural state of humans, a collective national l-identity is ascribed to people, often as a result of being born into a family or local group that already has this national l-identity40.
Some choose to adopt a new national l-identity later in life, usually as a result of migration. However, the costs of self-ascribing a new national l-identity and having this ascription accepted by others who also ascribe that specific national l-identity to themselves may be massive41. (NB: although national l-identities and national citizenship – which involves legal rights and duties and is often seen as a prerequisite for having a certain national l-identity – are quite different from each other, they are often confused with each other.42) This stands out even more clearly when thinking of other collective l-identities, such as “hockey player”. To be accepted as having the l- identity “hockey player” as part of your p-identity, it would probably be enough to play hockey once or twice a week, something each adult with a little willpower and financial resources can be expected to achieve.
Now that everyone – in whatever way, but surely – has acquired a national l- identity as part of her/his p-identity, they are part of an imagined community of the nation43: imagined because nobody will personally know all those with whom she/he shares this l-identity44; and a community because it is conceived as a deep, horizontal, comradeship45. People can not easily shed any part of their p-identities as they see it as
40 Poole, Nation and Identity, 73.
41 Note that the reverse is also true in many cases of (forced) migration: the costs of not self-ascribing a new national l-identity and having this ascription accepted may also be massive, for instance in terms of social exclusion and (physical) violence.
42 Gidon Gottlieb, "Nations without States," Foreign Affairs 73, no. 3 (1994): 108-9.
43 Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 6.
44 Ibid., 6
45 Ibid., 7
21 essential in understanding themselves46, but when the emotional stress of leaving a community of deep, horizontal comradeship is added to this, it becomes a task which might not be possible at all.
Reminding for a moment that it was concluded in the section on the definition of nationalism on page 9 that nations refer to subjective categories rather than objective groups, the strong wording in the previous paragraph is called into question. After all, couldn’t people just imagine a new community, or to put it differently, include themselves in a new category since the determination and content rules for national l- identities – and even the question which nations exist – are very subjective? They quite probably could. However, what matters here is not that everyone imagines exactly the same nations, but that they imagine that they imagine the same nations47. Giving themselves completely new national l-identities or national l-identities that nobody agrees with is therefore an exercise in futility. Taking this extra step into account, it is easy to understand how to add up the imaginations of single individuals into collective actions.
The aforementioned deep horizontal comradeship means that those who share a national l-identity can call on each other for compatriotism. Vice versa, members of the community will usually answer calls for help emanating from within the community.
The limits of the community – which can be guarded quite strictly, as was shown above – in this way also function as moral limits and it follows logically that they function as political limits: in the political arena, moral dilemmas are decided which might require difficult and costly actions on the parts of the members of the community.48 The members of such communities from the nineteenth century onwards believed they would be most content in a sovereign state which overlaps with the national community:
the nation-state49.
46 Poole, Nation and Identity, 66.
47 Ibid., 16
48 The (more-or-less democratic) political arena brings together collectivization, centralization and legitimate authority, making it the ideal place for decisions on collective moral questions and the enforcement of the outcomes. Tromp, De Wetenschap Der Politiek, Verkenningen, 382-3, 388-9.
49 Eric J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990), 18-19. Compare also Gellner’s influential definition of nationalism:
“A political principle which holds that the political and national unit should be congruent.” Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 1.
22 Many humans have given (part of) their lives for their nation-states based on the ascription of a certain national l-identity, for instance in military service, but also as bureaucrats and tax-payers. Seen from the perspective of the previous paragraph this is perhaps not surprising, but when calling back into mind that all l-identities (including national l-identities) are social constructs and thus constantly being redefined, it begs the question how one l-identity could gain such influence, especially one which is fraught with so much complexity, controversy, and contradiction? This is because the relation between national l-identities and nation-states is build around territory and territorial borders.
The role of territories in national l-identities
In the previous section, one essential aspect of national l-identities has been carefully circumvented in order to be able to delve deeper into it here: the importance of territory in the construction of national l-identities. This section starts with a short consideration of what it means to speak of space and territories, after which it turns to the concept of territorial capture in its myriad forms: direct governmental capture and indirect capture, through language, (labour) markets and the news media.
The production of territories
Understanding space can, following Lefebvre, be done in four ways: The starting point for any consideration of space must be (1) natural space50, the sort of physical space that surrounds us and which makes movement possible; Technocrats and planners overlay the natural space with plans: (2) representational space51, on the basis of which buildings and infrastructure are installed: the natural space is being altered; Within the new spatial layout the (daily) users form routines based on how they understand it, called (3) perceived space or spatial practices52; Finally, there is the space in the way its users experience it, not only intellectually but also emotionally, called (4) lived space53. These four understandings of space stand in constant contact with each other (and
50 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1991), 30.
51 Ibid., 38-39
52 Ibid., 38
53 Ibid., 39
23 themselves) and together they permit, imply, and rule out future actions that will dialectically shape and reshape the different understandings of space54.
The territory of (western European) states is a social space that is based on the natural space available. Although an interesting topic, for this study it is not of importance how states appropriated natural space into national territories, but this can be observed a posteriori. What matters here is how state territories became a crucial element in national l-identities.
First and most simply, the territory of a state plays an important part in the l- identity as a lived space. There is a distinct feeling of “coming home” when one enters the territory of the “own” state and the map of the state, even when reduced to a logo on a postage stamp, will readily be recognized by all state subjects55. With this, the question how – namely, as a lived space – territory enters national l-identities is answered, but not why it does so. To answer this question, the attention must be focused on the concept of institutional capture, in both its (direct) governmental and (indirect) non-governmental forms.
Direct governmental capture
Governmental capture refers to the way states organize the government of their territory and subjects. The usual approach is to govern the whole of the territory from one (symbolic) capital. For practical and/or historical reasons the territory is cut up into smaller pieces which have self-government in certain policy areas, but are dependent on, derive their mandate from, and have to report back to the central government. At a higher level, again for practical and/or historical reasons, there are inter- and supra-state organizations, in which states work together to achieve myriad goals. The delegations – note the terminology – which states send to these international – note once again the terminology – organizations again are dependent on, derive their mandate from, and report back to central state governments.
Focusing for now on sub-state institutions and referring back to Lefebvre’s theory of space, the central government is creating a representational space. For example, on the basis of demographic data the state (or one of its local organs) decides
54 Ibid., 73
55 For an interesting example of how the national map of Indonesia/the former Dutch East Indies became an important element of the lived space of Indonesians, see Anderson, Imagined Communities:
Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 175 and further.
24 where and when roads and prisons will be built. This will directly affect the spatial practices of individuals and perhaps also their lived spaces.
The principle that ensures the unity and primacy of the central government – note again the terminology – in this governmental web is sovereignty: the historical norm that the state has final responsibility over anything and anyone within his territory56. What is interesting about sovereignty here is that it is principally a norm that refers to the territorial space of a state: the governmental web set out above always refers back to the central government within a certain demarcated space because the state has final responsibility. The state is primarily a territorial unit.
The western European state has taken its duty more and more seriously over the past centuries, involving its subjects in its affairs on an increasingly routinized basis57. Also, it has concerned itself more and more with the lives of its subjects, most prominently in such areas as healthcare, education, and welfare redistribution policies.
The number of governmental institutions (most of which work on a sub-national level) has proliferated to meet the demands of the states. In this way it has created a background in which the lives of individuals are played out58: a representational space.
The state has directly captured a significant amount of the spatial routines (i.e. lived spaces) in its framework.
Language
Before taking a look at indirect capture through the goods, services, and job59 markets, a step back is needed in order to consider state languages. All western European states have one or multiple (de facto if not de jure) state languages, which are taught to children in schools funded, sponsored, or accredited by the state. As the state is a territorial unit, this establishes state languages as also territorial. Since states usually, for practical or ideological reasons, choose a certain vernacular60 as the state language that
56 Joshua s. Goldstein and John C. Pevehouse, International Relations, 4th, brief edn. (New York:
Pearson Longman, 2008), 42-3.
57 Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, 81.
58 Ibid., 86
59 The labour market could, exercising extreme intellectual vigour, be considered a part of the services market, but it operates and influences lives in such a distinct manner as to warrant separate investigation.
60 For an exploration of the problems that early states faced when initially selecting a certain vernacular as the state language and the subsequent hegemonization of those languages – and vice versa the
25 is used in education61, this makes most of the chosen vernaculars territorial as well.
Dialectically, the fact that a certain language is chosen as the state language and taught to all children, adds to its vernacular value. The current situation is that in the average EU member state, only 7 percent of the residents speak a non-state language as their mother tongue, a number which decreases to less than 6 percent if the Russian speaking minorities in Estonia and Latvia are not included. Most dramatically, the median number of non-state language mother tongue speakers in EU countries is just 4 percent.62 Assuming that most of those who do not speak the state language as their mother tongue will be able to speak it as a second language, it can be concluded that the state monopoly of legitimate education63 has produced languages among state – and thus territorial – lines. The modern state has produced territorial languages.
Goods and services markets
Non-governmental organizations are also captured in the territorial frameworks created by states: businesses have to comply with the rules laid down by the state as do the goods and services they produce, which have to meet quality and safety criteria (including for instance labeling in the state language). Additionally, becoming active in a new state market means having to differentiate your products to meet local preferences, and could even mean having to set up a whole new production line64. Furthermore, entering a new market means having to make large expenses in the area of
marginalization of other vernaculars which usually became known as dialects – see chapter 2 (pages 13- 36) of Billig, Banal Nationalism.
61 It might be worth exploring the situation in the two most populous countries in the world at this point.
India has, for both ideological and practical reasons, opted to choose a non-vernacular – English – as the second state language besides Hindi. Furthermore, it explicitly recognizes 22 languages in its constitution (article 334, section 1 and article 351) which are being used as the primary and often only languages in education. Thus, language pluralism continues to thrive in India.
In China, Mandarin (originally based on the vernacular of the Beijing area, but now highly divergent from it) is used as the language to conduct state business in, but there is no active policy to promote its usage in daily life besides as a lingua franca for business. As such, it is being taught to all school children as a second language. As a result, Mandarin does seem to be gaining in importance rapidly for non-state and non-business activities also, but no reliable numbers on usage exist.
62 Public Opinion Analysis sector of the European Commission, Europeans and their Languages (Brussels: European Commission, 2006), 7.
63 A phrase borrowed from Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 33.
26 marketing. The new customers are unacquainted with a product or company, and used to buying the product of the competition.
Besides having to make adjustments in their products or services, the internal organization of companies that want to become active in multiple state markets has to change. The complexity of the organization increases dramatically as a result of the growing differentiation of products and environments in which the company is active.
In order to achieve the benefits that international expansion sometimes entails, it is necessary to effectively integrate the different parts of the organization, i.e. an extra layer of (expensive) managers and overhead is needed.65 This issue is further aggravated by differences in national value systems with regards to for instance power distance and uncertainty avoidance66.
This situation is especially salient for the tertiary sector (also known as the services market), which compromised 73.1% of economic activity in the European Union in 201167. The main products of service providers are knowledge and information, which both crucially depend on heavily territorialized languages. Thus, expansion into another state market means hiring a great number of new employees who speak the language at a high level.
In order to better deal with the complexities of doing business in multiple countries, many companies choose to set up separate branches in each country that deal with for instance local marketing, purchasing, legal affairs etc.68 The picture that thus emerges is one in which national companies compete with national branches of international companies on national markets. This concentrates profit opportunities in single state markets, dialectically further reinforcing the territorial capture. Not-for- profit-associations face largely the same constraints.
64 Richard L. Daft, Organization Theory and Design, 8th edn. (Mason, Ohio: Thomson South-Western, 2004), 221.
65 Gareth R. Jones, Organization Theory, Design, and Change, 7th edn. (Harlow: Paerson, 2013), 253.
66 Daft, Organization Theory and Design, 224.
67 Measured in percentage of GDP, based on the three-sector hypothesis. Central Intelligence Agency,
"The World Factbook: GDP - Composition by Sector," Central Intelligence Agency, https://www.cia.gov/
library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2012.html (accessed April, 16th, 2012).
68 Jones, Organization Theory, Design, and Change, 253-6.
27 Labour markets
With regards to the labour market, two effects of this territorialization of language are significant. First there is the obvious effect that to be able to function in a certain professional environment, it is of vital importance to speak the language spoken there.
Both in the private (most NGO-activities are bounded by a state territory, see below) and public (for obvious reasons) sector, one can expect the most important language to be the state language, both for communication between colleagues69 and with external contacts, such as clients. It can be expected that you would face a disadvantage when trying to find work abroad when you do not speak the state language while 96 percent of the competition does.70
The second effect of the territorialization of language that greatly increases the tendency to seek work in the home state is education. The state gives out diplomas after finishing an education that is in a certain state language. Being admitted to (let alone finishing) an education taught in a language one does not speak is not a viable option, thus forcing people into the education system of which they speak the language, or learning the language of that system first. Diplomas thus acquired give access to either higher-tier education or jobs, but both often only in the state in which the diploma has been acquired, either because the diploma is not recognized outside the state or it is simply not relevant outside of the state. This last point greatly impairs for instance lawyers and other bureaucratic professionals who specialize in the dealings with one specific state.
Besides language and education, there is a further and related argument to be made with regards to culture. When job seekers do not know the cultural “shared implicit conventions”71 concerning job hunts, they will face a disadvantage when
69 In certain multinationals the working language between colleagues has switched to English in order to facilitate cross-border cooperation within the company. This by no means diminishes the importance of state languages in order to conduct business in virtually all locations around the world. Thus the ability to speak a state language remains vital for almost all job applicants.
70 Note that around half of those in the EU who do not speak the state language of their current home state as their mother tongue, do speak the state language of another EU state as their mother tongue. This further reinforces the tendency of state languages to become territorial, as those who speak another state language as their mother tongue face an incentive to migrate to that state.
71 Thomas Hylland Eriksen, "Place, Kinship and the Case for Non-Ethnic Nations," in History and National Identity: Ethnosymbolism and its Critics, eds. Montserrat Guibernau and John Hutchinson (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 54.
28 seeking a job abroad. Such conventions include for example the style and content of cover letters, CVs, application interviews, and whether or not references are required.
Of course, this is all assuming that relevant job adverts can even be found. The fact that the University of Groningen offers courses to international students on finding a job in the Netherlands underscores the problems faced by international applicants72.
One could argue that especially for the western European context the influence of the EU should not be underestimated when it comes to the labour market. From the early days of European integration – when the free movement of persons was limited to the free movement of workers and tourists willing to spend large sums of money abroad, – to the current situation – in which even family members of EU citizens enjoy almost completely free travel throughout the territory of the member states, – there has been a constant shift towards policies aimed at increasing labour mobility73. However, Eurostat statistics show that, despite the best efforts of the EU over the last 50 years to create a single labour market, just 2.3 percent of the European labour force came from other EU states in 2006, and 3.8 percent came from outside of the EU74. Most of the intra-EU labour migrants are active in seasonal, unskilled, or construction labour, sectors in which language plays a relatively minor role75. Concluding, one can say that EU labour market integration did have an effect, as long as language did not interfere, further underscoring the point that territorialized languages inhibit labour migration.
Concluding, labour markets are territorially captured through language, education, and state regulations.
72 See for instance: Talent & Career Center, "How to Get a Job in the Netherlands?"
http://www.talentcareercenter.nl/producten-en-diensten/how-to-get-a-job-in-the-netherlands (accessed june, 4th, 2012).
73 Compare chapter 1, title III from the Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community (1957) with European Parliament and Council of the European Union, "Directive 2004/38/EC on the Right of Citizens of the Union and their Family Members to Move and Reside Freely within the Territory of the Member States," Official Journal of the European Union, no. 158 (2004): 77-123.
74 Eurostat, "Globalisation Indicators," Publications office of the European Union, http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/globalisation/indicators (accessed April, 17, 2012).
75 Adrian Favell and Randall Hansen, "Markets Against Politics: Migration, EU Enlargment and the Idea of Europe," Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 28, no. 4 (2002): 589-92.
