Introduction
/Since the demise of Lehman Bros in 2008, the focus throughout the European Union has been on the economic meltdown that has plagued the region, and especially on the sovereign debt crisis in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy.
But what of politics within the region?
Is the European Union still a viable political entity, or are the forces of change so strong that they could bring the whole edifice crashing down?
While the world holds its collective breath on the financial question, is there a political crisis in the making that will prove to be a final death knell for the European Union?
It’s almost a question of whether centrifugal forces will either throw the marginal states of the European Union off the curve, or whether the core can hold and exert sufficient centripetal force to pull all together?
As a point of departure for this volume, we wish to revisit the issue of nationalism in Europe to remind ourselves of how nationalism developed and how it turned, unchecked through Fascism, into the scourge of the 20th Century. We also wish to ask whether nationalistic sentiments within Europe will reemerge in response to the economic crisis as a force for change? And if so, what type of nationalism will appear again in Europe? Will the Flemish, Catalans, Scots, Basques, amongst others, challenge the status quo to the point where they are granted independence? Will these new states toe the European line? Will Europe still develop along the lines of democratic humanism, or plunge once again into the age of Machtpolitik, with divisive policies based on power and self-interest? Will nationalism, as projected by each European state, determine how the European Union unfolds politically in the future?
Alternatively, will Germany’s view of ‘Order’ Democracy trump a looser federation of economic nation states? Will the European Union create the necessary bureaucratic structures to enforce conformity on its members, or will the bonds weaken over time? In any event, nationalism should define how Europe develops politically, whether as a stronger European Union or as a looser confederation of nation states. Thus we need to unpack the whole idea of what nationalism actually means and how the various streams that make up its different components have developed over time in Western and Central Europe.
What is nationalism? Hans Kohn argues that nationalism is a state of mind, in which the supreme loyalty of the individual is felt to be due the nation-state.[1] Granted, there has been an attachment of this nature to native soil, to local traditions and to established territorial authority throughout history. Max Weber has articulated this form of attachment through his depiction of ‘Traditional Authority’.[2] The modern idea of nationalism, however, really only developed at the end of the 18th Century, increasingly molding all public and private life. Prior to the 18th Century, man’s loyalty was due not to the nation-state, but to other forms of social authority, whether tribe or clan, the city-state or feudal lord. Also in the past the political ideal was not the nation-state but empire involving numerous nationalities and ethnic groups on the basis of a common civilization and assurance of a common peace. Could we not argue that the current incarnation of the European Union is precisely formed to create this assurance of a common peace, and is the specter of war theoretically no longer an issue amongst the European nation-states themselves? Then why would nationalism be an issue? The answer really turns on whether the nationalism that develops in Europe today will be a benign or malign form of nationalism and to tease out this issue, we need to go back to the intellectual roots that govern the development of nationalism in Europe over time.
[1] Hans Kohn, Nationalism: Its Meaning and History (Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand, 1965), p.9.
[2] Max Weber, ‘The Three Types of Legitimate Rule’, Berkeley Publications in Society and Institutions, Vol. 4, No.1, 1958, pp. 1-11. Translated by Hans Gerth.
