Strategic Assessment

In recent years, any writer who predicted that nationalism was the wave of the future would have been regarded as eccentric….However, it [has] become increasingly clear that nationalism is back.
Gideon Rachman, The Economist, November 13, 2014

This review will map the
academic debate regarding national identity in various periods. It will first
review the classic discourse on national identity, ongoing since the middle of
the last century, which focuses on the source and roots of national identity: Is
this a modern social structure, or an identity whose origins are deeply rooted in
the more distant past and are an integral part of human nature? Later, the review
will track developments in the debate from the 1990s, when with the rise of
globalization and neoliberal economics, the Western world apparently transitioned
to the post-nationalist era. At the same time, however, nationalism came under
increasing attention, mainly in East European countries, where 15 new
nation-states were created with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and others
were released from the Warsaw Pact. The review then outlines new studies in the
field of national identity, which deal with the “return” of nationalism to
center stage in the West in recent years. In conclusion, issues will be raised
that have not yet been the subject of in-depth discussion and merit further
study. In view of the large number of studies on the subject, examples are
presented of leading research in each school of nationalism studies, and the
survey focuses on the most prominent scholars in each of these schools.

National Identity: Real or Imagined?

The debate regarding
national identity has dealt with a variety of questions, led by: What are the
roots of such identity? Is it a new phenomenon that was invented as part of the
transformations that took place in modern society? Is it an integral part of
human history and embedded deep within the human soul? These questions have
become a central axis in the discourse on national identity, since they have
far-reaching political implications.

Those propagating nationalist
ideas, most of whom were European intellectuals from the mid-19^th
century, implored their people to adhere to the romantic notion of nationalism
in order to break from the old, rotten order of imperialist-monarchist regimes
in Europe and to attain popular freedom. This was the original, primordial
concept of the nation, which viewed national identity as a natural part of the
identity of each person, as much as the color of her eyes or shade of his skin.
These ideas formed the basis of the “Spring of Nations” in 1848.

Among the primordial
school of thought were various approaches to the nature of national identity. For
instance, in 1882 French philosopher Ernest Renan characterized nationalism as
a spiritual and emotional idea, and not a physical quality implanted within a
person (Renan, 2018). This was the basis for civil nationalism, which includes
those who identify with its ideas. In contrast, German thinkers in the 19^th
century, such as Johannes Gottlieb Fichte (Fichte, 1922) emphasized the deep
common characteristics that communities shared over the years, which gave rise
to their national identity.

Notwithstanding the rise
of the nationalist idea in the 19^th century, it was the end of the
First World War in the 20^th century that led to the establishment of
dozens of nation-states as part of Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” (Rachmimov,
2004). These nation-states demanded of their citizens absolute loyalty to their
national identity and the commitment to sacrifice themselves and their children
for the national idea and the national interest. Pursuant to the romantic ideas
of the 19^th century, the nation-states adopted nationalist
ideologies that related to nationality as an integral part of the person, and
exhorted citizens to follow the order of their natural—i.e., national—identity.

Beginning in the mid-20^th
century, the primordial approach attracted various critiques. The most
important of them was put forth by a group of sociologists who argued that
national identity is a modern social construct. The most prominent among this
group, who became known as modernists, were Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson,
and Eric Hobsbawm. Gellner described nationalism as a creation of modern
society and of processes that took place in the 19^th century:
industrialization, urbanization, and education (Gellner, 1983). The transition
from a rural to an urban and industrialized society broke the traditional
identity links of many Europeans, which were based on family and local, rather
than state, identity. Furthermore, education weakened the place of religion in
the lives of citizens. This created a need for an overarching unifying identity
that would provide a response to the alienation of urban life in an
industrialized society. Hence, instead of tribal-family, local, and religious loyalties
in the urban, educated, and industrialized society, people began identifying
with the nation.

Anderson emphasized the role
of education and printing in the rise of nationalism, and argued that national
identities are the “imagined” structures of an educated society that records its
history as it wants to imagine it. During such writing, the nation edits its
narrative—what it wants to remember, and even more importantly, what it wants
to forget. This imagined narrative becomes the story that motivates citizens to
commit to serve it and even to sacrifice their lives for it (Anderson, 1983).

Hobsbawm explained the
emergence of national identity from a modernist-Marxist viewpoint. He argued
that modernism released the masses from the bonds of religion and from
traditional loyalties, and threatened the ruling elites in European countries. He
described the emergence of nationalism as a response by the elites to a
situation in which they were about to lose their place, and as a tool of
renewed incitement and enslavement of the masses. According to Hobsbawm, the
elites came up with traditions and customs that appeared as if they had been
taken from the distant common historical past of the nations, but they invented
traditions in order to create legitimacy for their continued leading role in
society (Hobsbawm, 1983).

The common thread among
modernist thinkers is that they view the nation and national identity as a novel
social construct that emerged as part of the transition from the ancien régime to
the new modern era. The modernist approach resonated widely in social sciences,
and became almost hegemonic in nationalism studies. It also enriched the
constructivist theoretical discourse that became central in the social
sciences.

A deep theoretical and
ideological chasm opened between the primordialists and the modernists. If
national identity is a new, imaginary phenomenon manipulated by the elites,
then the primordialist proponents and defenders of nationalist ideas are in the
best case mistaken and misleading, and in the worst case exploiters and
manipulators. The question becomes even starker in conflict and war: Do we send
our children to die for an imaginary idea, or even worse, for an elitist
manipulation?

A bitter political
discourse took place in Israeli society as well surrounding the question of the
origin of national identity—Israeli-Zionist and Palestinian alike. From the
Israeli political-left, historian Shlomo Zand argued that the Jewish nation is
a modernist invention of Zionist leaders (Zand, 2008). In contrast, those on
the Israeli right explain the phenomenon of Palestinian nationalism as a result
of post-colonialist theory (see, for instance, Greenstein, 2015). These politically
and socially sensitive topics have turned the primordialist-modernist debate into
a long, bitter dispute.

Despite the divide, a few
researchers have enriched the discussion from different angles. Alongside
primordialism, there are researchers who argue that nationalism is not a new
phenomenon, but a continuation of identities with deep historical roots, known
as perennialism. Perennialists do not view nationalism as an integral and
natural part of the person, but the roots of nationalism are to be found in
ancient history. Gat and Yakobson described a situation of this sort in their
book Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and
Nationalism (Gat & Yakobson, 2012), positing the existence and continuation
of the foundations of national identity before the modern age. The book brings
examples of the solidarity and attachment that were characteristic of ethnic
groups from ancient times until today, which in the opinion of the authors
refutes the arguments of the modernists regarding nationalism as a modern and
invented structure that exists in the imagination of citizens in the new age. In
the Israeli context, the book by Assaf Malach, From the Bible to the Jewish
State (Malach, 2019), presents a perennialist approach that attempts to
challenge the modernist concept by Zand and connects perennialism to the
current Israeli political discourse.

The second group of
scholars between the modernist and primordialist poles are the ethno-symbolists,
led by historian Anthony Smith. Smith argued that while nationalism is a new
phenomenon that developed in the modern period and an invention by the elites
who created national narratives and myths, these narratives rely on identities
and symbols with a deep history that provides them with exceptional political
power (Smith, 1999). Smith exposed the foundations underlying national
identity, and those that turned national myths from a meaningless story to a
strong political narrative that drove masses. Smith described certain patterns
that repeat themselves in national myths, including a common distant past,
hardships that were experienced along the way, and stories of heroism about
figures that overcome the difficulties. All these bind the nation together and
structure a similar way in which individuals, primarily in ethnically-based nations,
tie their fates to that of the nation.

In parallel with the theoretical discussions on national identity, two historical events in the final decades of the 20^th century became a turning point in both the historical development of national identities and the academic discourse and writing on the topic—the rise of neoliberal globalization, and the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union.

From the End of History to the End of Nationalism?

If the end of the First
World War became the “big bang of nationalism,” as described by historian Iris
Rachmimov (Rachmimov, 2004), globalization was supposed to end the nationalist
idea, together with the end of history as foreseen by Francis Fukuyama at the
end of the Cold War (Fukuyama, 1992). Neoliberal globalization, which is the
current faster wave of human convergence, accelerated the transfer of goods,
resources, and people around the globe at a pace unseen in human history. Behind
all these stood ideas of freedom and nonintervention of the state in the global
economy and in civilian life. The nation-state retreated both from physical
management and from the creation of ideological narratives for its citizens. In
addition, the Western economy moved to the post-industrial age service-based
economy and toward the digital age.

These processes were
described by sociologists Anthony Giddens and Zygmunt Bauman, who argued that modernity
itself changes and becomes the new modernism—“late modernity” (Giddens, 1991;
Bauman, 1996). Bauman and Giddens concurred with modernists regarding the roots
of national identity as a modern structure created as a result of urbanization,
education, and industrialization, but they argued that as modernity evolves,
national identity refashions itself along with it. They described how the
state’s retreat from the life of its citizens since the 1980s has blurred and
weakened national identity. Citizens in the West were empowered to decide on
their identity, and together with increased migration, societies in the West
became more pluralistic in relation to the identities of their citizens. As
Bauman described it, globalization put the creation of identity in the hands of
individuals, who could rely only on themselves to produce new identities that
matched the fast-paced world that was developing around them. The new identities
that were created were more flexible, and Bauman used the metaphor of liquid to
describe them.

However, Bauman and
Giddens did not deny that alongside cultural pluralism and the retreat of the
state from the lives of its citizens, national identity continued to play a
role in the political life of advanced post-industrialist Western states. Sociologist
Michael Billig described national identity in the post-industrialist era as
“banal” (Billig, 1995). He argued that national identities in this age are the
default of each citizen in an advanced Western country, and are deeply
imprinted in citizens. However, and perhaps because of the deep assimilation of
these identities, the citizens in those countries no longer have to engage in
grandiose actions to demonstrate their national affinity, but reflect such
affinity through everyday practices. Thus, nationalism in this age, as
described by Giddens and Bauman, has weakened and become flexible, but as
Billig noted, is an underlying and unspoken force that still dominates life in Western
societies. In contrast, enthusiastic and fervent nationalism has been branded
in the post-nationalist age as a dangerous ideology that exists in the global
periphery and among peoples who lag behind progress. As Billig described it: “The
guerilla figures, seeking to establish their new homelands, operate in
conditions where existing structures of state have collapsed, typically at a
distance from the established centres of the West” (Billig, 1995, p. 5).

The rise of the
post-nationalist era deflected nationalism to the global periphery, and mainly
to the new countries in Eastern Europe that were established following the
dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Theoretician Rogers
Brubaker reframed the topic of national identity in Eastern Europe (Brubaker,
1996). He described three types of nationalisms that developed in Eastern
Europe after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The first type is
“nationalizing nationalism,” which drives groups that feel they have been
marginalized in the past and now demand national hegemony in their “own” territory.
This type of nationalism was attributed to ethnic groups in the new countries
that were created in the 1990s, which demanded that these countries reflect
their national uniqueness. The second type of nationalism Brubaker described is
“homeland nationalism,” which comes from the source countries, and aims to
protect minority groups that remained outside the national borders. For
instance, the nationalist movements in Russia frequently championed the
minority rights of ethnic Russians who remained outside Russian borders and
were given inferior status in some new countries. The third type of nationalism
is “minority nationalism” belonging to those who remained outside the borders
of the new national entities that were created. Following the imperial collapse,
these minorities remained outside the borders of the national state of the
ethnic group to which they belong, were exposed to nationalist policies of the
new countries. They developed nationalist concepts that differed from what the
leaders in their countries of origin expected. The three types of nationalism
defined by Brubaker provided the framework for understanding the development of
nationalism in Eastern Europe following the end of the Cold War and the
dissolution of the Soviet Union.

During the 2000s, it seemed that this status quo would be maintained for the foreseeable future. Nationalism was withering away while globalization conquered new territories, including most East European countries, which had joined the European Union, and whose citizens were abandoning the national idea in favor of the more flexible and adaptive global idea. Places such as Putin’s Russia, for instance, where there was a strengthening of national policies supported by a regime that was becoming increasingly involved in the lives of its citizens, seemed to be an anachronistic reaction. No one foresaw the surprising sharp return of nationalism to the center of the political stage.

Back to the Future: Is the Post-Nationalist
Era Coming to an End?

2016 proved to be the
breaking point for the globalist dream. Brexit in the UK and the election of
President Trump seem to have heralded a radical change of direction in the
balance between globalism and nationalism. Two major countries that had been
symbols of the post-industrialist and post-nationalist age chose to deviate
from the global path and reinforce their national identities. However, many of
the signs of the crisis were in place long before 2016. Neoliberal globalization
had economically served neither emerging countries, nor the entire public in developed
countries. But of no less importance, the lack of the anchors of identity, the
demand for constant adaptation, and the blurring of national identity were
shown to be unpleasant for many. For various population sectors, 2016 was the
culmination of years-long erosion in their status, their financial state, and
their perception of themselves and their identity.

In fact, as far back as
the 1990s, Gidden and Bauman indicated the gaps in neoliberal globalism that in
their view were a risk to its continued development (Giddens, 1991; Bauman,
1999). Giddens noted that nationalism had a psychological function. It creates
continuity of people’s identity and a sense of ontological security. This security
described by Giddens develops from day-to-day practice and from long-term
relationships that create people’s identity. Neoliberal globalization
intentionally undermines the continuity of identity in that it calls for
flexibility and rapid adaptiveness to new situations, thereby undermining the
ontological security of many citizens. Giddens and Bauman warned back in the
1990s that these cracks would create social tensions over the years, which
would be impossible to overcome. They both indicated that this state of affairs
would lead to a “longing for identity [that] comes from the desire for security.”

It certainly seems that Giddens
and Bauman’s warning was on the mark. In the second decade of the 21^st
century, there was an unprecedented nationalist mobilization relative to
previous decades, which was based on the yearning for a strong, stable, and
more defined identity. These calls came at the expense of global values and the
expression of national identity through banal practices. With the re-emergence
of nationalism in the West, the nationalist mobilization in Putin’s Russia
seems a vanguard in a world that is becoming ever more nationalistic. As
Putin’s former advisor Vladislav Surkov concluded: “When [the West] was still
crazy about globalism…Moscow provided a clear reminder that sovereignty and
national interests matter….They taught us that there is no reason to hold on to
the values of the nineteenth century.…The 21st century, however, turned out to
be closer to our path: the English Brexit, ‘Make America Great Again,’ and the
anti-migrant movements in Europe are just the first items on a long list of the
ubiquitous manifestations of deglobalization, resovereignization, and
nationalism” (Surkov, 2019).

The old-new situation and the
return of nationalism to center stage in the current
era has led to a resurgence of attention to the topic and a large number of books
that have tried to explain the phenomenon. The most prominent of these include
the book by historian Timothy Snyder, The Road to Freedom: Russia, Europe,
America, in which Snyder links the rise of authoritarians in Russia and the
nationalist movements in Eastern and Western Europe with the rise of Trump in
the US (Snyder, 2018). Although Snyder deals frequently with Russia’s direct influence
on Western countries and its undermining of liberal democratic ideas, he also
emphasizes the close link between the in-depth processes that have taken place
both in Russia and in the West and have led to a rise of nationalism.

Another prominent book
that deals with the rise of Trump and the rise of nationalism in the United
States was written by anthropologist Arlie Russell Hochschild (Hochschild,
2016). In her book Strangers in Their Own Land, she explains the
philosophies and the sense of loss and estrangement felt by layers of the white
working class in the United States regarding the changing world around them, in
which identities became flexible, while groups such as migrants and Afro-Americans
“jumped” the line on the way toward the American dream. Former Israeli education
minister Yuli Tamir presented her theory in her book Why Nationalism
(Tamir, 2019), which describes the political, social, and economic gaps in the
post-nationalist era, and in which she calls for liberal nationalism to heal
the rifts created in society due to globalism. Journalist Nadav Eyal also
touched upon similar points in his book, The Revolt against Globalization
(Eyal, 2018).

As the list of new books and articles on national identity becomes longer, most researchers show a tendency to describe the return of nationalism to the center of the political agenda as a pendulum, with global identity on one side and national identity on the other. As the pendulum swings from one side to the other, identity transforms from global to national. If so, are we going back toward a society similar to the one of the 19^th or early 20^th century, or is the return of nationalism a sudden short-term flickering that will disappear as the pendulum swings back toward globalism? These directions of thought may soon prove to be overly simplistic

The likelihood that in a few years we will find ourselves living in a futuristic version of 19^th century politics is quite low. To the same extent, it is clear that the return of nationalism indicates a deep difficulty within the process of globalization. It is therefore difficult to show that it may be possible to limit these tensions quickly and successfully, and to continue with the dizzying pace of globalization that we have so far experienced.

From a historical point of view, this may not be a pendulum movement, but an internal struggle within societies and between various groups with conflicting philosophies. In historical struggles such as this, the results have frequently been surprising and completely unexpected, and have led to the emergence of new ideas. For instance, the idea of sovereignty that formed the basis for national ideas and nation-states grew out of the wars of religion in 17^th century Europe. Therefore, researchers in the field must take nonlinear developments and implications into account, as well as the appearance of unexpected black swans that fundamentally change the face of society (such as the coronavirus that is currently spreading throughout the world and may have far-reaching implications for national ideas). These directions of thought have not yet attracted attention from national identity researchers, and are awaiting in-depth thought and further research.

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Further Recommended Reading

Galecki, L. (2005, December 1). The unwinnable
war: An Interview with Zygmunt Bauman. OpenDemocracy. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/modernity_3082jsp/

Harari, N. Y. (2017, March 2).
“Nationalism vs. globalism: The new political divide. TED Dialogues. https://www.ynharari.com/nationalism-vs-globalism-the-new-political-divide/

Rachman, G. (2019, December 16). In
search of liberal nationalism. Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/2867d79e-1fe4-11ea-92da-f0c92e957a96