Nations without Nationalism: Ethno-Political Theory and the Demise of the Nation-State

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between the ethnic group, the nation, and the state. In addition to the analysis of related concepts such as modes of production and world-systems theory, it uses examples from precolonial Northern Nigeria to emphasize how multi-ethnic states existed in Africa prior to the development of global capitalism and the imposition of the colonial state. In so doing, it challenges the standard notion that the nation-state first emerged in Europe after the French Revolution. Instead, it offers a conceptualization of patriotism as identification with the state, which is distinct from nationalism and it also suggests areas of research in which this conceptualization of patriotism might be fruitfully applied.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

AMIN, S. 1980. Class and Nation. Historically and in the Current Crisis. London: New York Monthly Review Press .

ANDERSON, B. 1991. Imagined Communities. London: Verso .

BANERJEE, D. , ed. 1985. Marxian Theory and the Third World. New Delhi: SAGE Publications .

BARTH, F. , ed. 1969. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference. Boston: Little Brown Co.

BIRCH, A. 1989. Nationalism and National Integration. London: Unwin Hyman .

BYRES, T.J. 1982. “Modes of Production and Non-European, Pre-Colonial Societies: The Nature and Significance of the Debate.” Journal of Peasant Studies 12(2-3): 1-18 .

COHEN, R. 1978. “Ethnicity: Problem and Focus in Anthropology.” Annual Review of Anthropology 7: 379-404 .

CONNER, W. 1994. Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding. Princeton: Princeton University Press .

FOSTER-CARTER, A. 1978. “The Modes of Production Controversy.” New Left Review 77: 44-77 .

10.

DEVOS, G. and L. Romanucci-Ross , eds. 1975. Ethnic Identities: Cultural Continuities and Change. Palo Alto: Mayfield Publishing Co.

11.

GEERTZ, C. 1973. “The Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civic Politics in New States.” In The Interpretation of Cultures, edited by C. Geertz . New York: Basic Books .

12.

GELLNER, E. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell .

13.

GILPIN, R. 1987. The Political Economy of International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press .

14.

GRAN, P. 1996. Beyond Eurocentrism: A New View of Modern World History. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press .

15.

HERBST, J. 1999. “The Role of Citizenship Laws in Multi-Ethnic Societies: Evidence from Africa.” In State Conflict and Democracy in Africa, edited by Richard Joseph . Boulder: Lynne Rienner .

16.

HOBSBAWM, E. 1990. Nations and Nationalism Since the 1780s: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

17.

LOWIE, R. 1962. The Origin of the State. New York: Russell and Russell .

18.

MAFEJE, A. 1971. “The Ideology of Tribalism.” Journal of Modern African Studies 9(2): 253-262 .

19.

ERNEST M. 1971. The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx. New York: Monthly Review Press .

20.

MILES, W. and D. Rochefort . 1991. “Nationalism vs. Ethnic Identity in Sub-Saharan Africa.” American Political Science Review 85 (June): 393-403 .

21.

PLANO, J. and R. Olten . 1988. The International Relations Dictionary. 4h ed. Santa Barbara: Abc-Clio .

22.

SEDDON, D. , ed. 1978. Relations of Production: Marxist Approaches to Economic Anthropology. London: Frank Cass .

23.

STACK, J.F. ed. 1986. The Primordial Challenge: Ethnicity in the Contemporary World. Westport: Greenwood Press .

24.

TIBI, B. 1990. “The Simultaneity of the Unsimultaneous: Old Tribes and Imposed Nation-States in the Modern Middle East.” In Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, edited by P. Khoury and J. Kostiner . Berkeley: SAGE Publications .

25.

USMAN, Y.B. 1972. “Some Aspects of the External Relations of Katsina before 1804.” Savanna 1(2): 175-197 .

26.

USMAN, Y.B. 1981. The Transformation of Katsina: c. 1400-1883. The Emergence and Overthrow of the Sarauta System and the Establishment of the Emirate. Zaria: Ahmadu Bello University Press .

27.

VAN DE WALLE, N. 1999. “Globalization and African Democracy.” In State Conflict and Democracy in Africa, edited by Richard Joseph . Boulder: Lynne Rienner .

28.

WALLERSTEIN, I. 1979. The Capitalist World Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

29.

WOLPE, H , ed. 1980. The Articulation of Modes of Production: Essays from Economy and Society. London: Routledge .