E. J. Hobbsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780. Cambridge: CUP, 1992.
The contribution of Hobsbawm’s book to the debate on the origins and development of nationalism in large part surround his rejection of other approaches. He is first concerned to establish what is not the right understanding of nationalism. First, the concept of “nation” is a modern one and all mythical attempts to make it the proper timeless division of humanity into distinct groups should be dismissed out of hand. Secondly, all reductionisms are to be rejected as unable to deal with the complexity of this modern phenomenon of nationalism, a complexity that has both significant geographical and chronological elements (i.e. nationalism, the rise of nation-states, etc. did not happen for the same reasons in every case and, as a whole, the phenomenon develops significantly over time with respect to its causes and implications for its people). Such reductionisms that are rejected include single-factor objective criteria for what constitutes “a nation” (whether language, ethnicity, religion, geography, etc.) as well as the subjective criteria of popular self-consciousness (i.e. not every group that fancies itself a nation is thereby a nation). Furthermore, Hobsbawm is convinced that objective and subjective criteria must be looked at together in one complex mix of factors in a given time and place. This desire on his part to hold together objective and subjective factors also serves his belief that dealing with the phenomenon of nationalism requires that we pay attention to the sentiments of the masses. Hobsbawm approaches nationalism from a top-down perspective (i.e. it is more often created by the state than it is the origin of a state), but he wants to give more weight to the developing consciousness of the average person than has previously been the case in such approaches. He seems to either assume that those at the top gear their programs in such a way that the masses will be receptive and so the program effective, or he assumes that true nationalist sentiment will only result if the needs of the common people are met (or he makes both assumptions). Thus, in order to understand nationalism, “it must also be analysed from below, that is in terms of the assumptions, hopes, needs, longings and interests of ordinary people” (10). He thinks one must look at the intersection of official ideologies and social realities in all their particularity: “The ‘national question’, as the old Marxists called it, is situated at the point of intersection of politics, technology and social transformation” (10).
This heightened attention given to the bottom-up vantage point is where Hobsbawm sees himself going beyond Gellner. It is also the point at which Hobsbawm is attempting to articulate data that is very hard to access, a point which he admits repeatedly. There is an interesting tension throughout the book, because he certainly views the causal factors as coming primarily from the top-down, but he also insists that “official ideologies of states and movements are not guides to what is in the minds of even the most loyal citizens or supporters” (11), an insistence consistent with advancements in the methods of the social history of ideas. If the force behind nationalism is not indicative of the social context in which it takes root, what substantive role does that social context play? (There may be an easy answer that I’m just missing…)
Because Hobsbawm sees the various factors as interacting in a complex fashion, depending on time and region, his argument proceeds in the same manner. He divides the development of nationalism into three eras: 1830-1880; after 1880 until the end of WWI; and 1918-1950.
Hobsbawm gives relatively little time to the early radical democratic movements such as that of the French Revolution, but instead focuses his attention, for the 1830-1880 period, on the economic rationality of the liberal bourgeoisie, whose concept of nation he thinks dominated this period. He turns to figures such as Adam Smith and other classical economists to demonstrate how their views on international free trade and governmental non-interference led them to de-emphasize the notion of a “national economy.” Certain functions of the state were nevertheless seen as being helpful to economic factors (guaranteeing contracts, protection of property, etc.) and nations were considered legitimate if they met the “threshold principle,” which states that a nation must be of sufficient size to be economically viable. So expanionist views of nationhood were favored, which in turn relegates ethnic and linguistic factors to secondary status, as nations in theory embraced multiplicity. Historical continuity of the group, cultural vitality (e.g. literary traditions) and “a proven capacity for conquest” were other relevant factors to the dominant theorists of this era. As a part of liberal ideology, this understanding of the development of nations is tied to the notion of human progress and the creation of larger and larger units of human identification (family-tribe-region-nation and eventually world). Again, while things like language, common history, religion, or ethnicity could play critical roles in creating nationalism (myth-making) among the populace after the state had been established, these factors are not primary.
In the period after 1880 nationalist ideologies become more self-conscious about being geared toward the masses. “State patriotism” is developed, often on the basis of stronger myth-making, which served to bring greater unity and common identity to the people (thus making them a “nation” after the creation of the state = nation-state). Even though these programs are implemented from the top-down, part of the program is to make the subject into a citizen, to supply notions previously embraced by the radical democratic revolutionaries (of course, with the sympathetic state in place no revolution would be necessary). Such programs were so integrative that they sustained loyalty to the nation despite the rise of class-consciousness; the active support of the bourgeois state by the working class in WWI is given as an example (89). The very success of these programs fostered opposition in the form of certain “non-state nationalisms,” which in many cases were absorbed but which thrived in Eastern Europe. Such nationalisms were based on factors such as common culture, language, etc. (they were “imagined communities”). Where they were absorbed, they served to tighten the grip of the prevailing nationalist ideology and legitimated the growth of xenophobia. Such movements do persist, however, even today.
The period from 1918-1950 is characterized by Hobsbawm as “The Apogee of Nationalism.” The principles of what makes a nation a nation, however, were decidedly different in the post-war division of Europe under Wilsonian principles than they were in the expansionist views of the 19th-century liberal bourgeoisie. While many nation-states were created after the war, this program was disasterous and served to implement the decline of the prominence of nations as such. Hobsbawm also thinks that the decolonization process was more a result of anti-imperialist attitudes than it was nationalist sentiments, making the huge number of states born after 1945 unclassifiable as “nations.” The political role of the nation as such only continued to decline toward the end of the 20th century, as a “supranational” structure has taken center stage.
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A couple “notes to self””
It remains a big question for me just how reliable or extensive Hobsbawm’s extrapolations of popular consciousness is, and if that is the case I’m wondering how much more he offers than someone like Gellner at the end of the day.
He seems to seriously de-emphasize the causal role that popular sentiment had on the rise of nationalism, whether democratic, religious sentiment, etc. Instead, the role of religion-as-traditional-religious-conviction-and-way-of-life is the role that it serves as part of a myth-making program implemented from the top-down. Also related to the role of religion is the way that state patriotism itself arguably serves as a religion, in that it serves the same social function that traditional religion did before it was relegated to at best a secondary status.
