Liberal and Illiberal Nationalisms. By Ray Taras. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. 251p. $75 cloth.

Nationalist Exclusion and Ethnic Conflict: Shadows of Modernity. By Andreas Wimmer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 319p. $64.00 cloth, $24.00 paper.

Sun-Ki Chai, University of Hawai`i

Each of these two books offers a wide-ranging, retrospective look at the theoretical literature on nationalism in light of recent history. In some ways, the books have remarkably similar outlooks. While both authors seem to accept the usefulness of mainstream theoretical approaches to analyzing nationalism and ethnicity, each book puts forward a novel view regarding the implementation and interpretation of these approaches. For Taras, it is the idea that conventional methodologies for studying nations and nationalism are too narrow and surreptitiously encourage the association of liberal nationalism with the West and illiberal with the rest of the world. For Wimmer, it is the idea that exclusionary nationalism of the illiberal type is not only consistent with modernization, but has been a necessary precondition for modernity's political and economic institutions.

Taras posits that existing theoretical categories and research agendas tend to either focus exclusively on the West or base their comparison between the West and developing world on a stereotyped view of the two sides, leading to misleading dichotomies such “banal” vs. “violent” or “civic” vs. “ethnic”. For him, the defining characteristic of nationalism is its embodiment of the concept of home, a place where geography, culture, and legal institutions are made consistent with one another. This conceptualization in turn spreads nationalism far beyond the contexts in which it typically is investigated.

To correct this tendency, he examines four different types of nationalism cross-cutting the East-West divide: nationalism of empires, secessionist nationalism, right-wing nationalism, and pan-nationalism. For each type, he examines two empirical cases, which themselves tend cross the divide as well. In aggregate (Russia and India, South Africa and Canada, Germany and Israel, the Islamic Umma and Latin America, respectively), he manages to cover a diverse range of Western and non-Western societies and civilizations.

Along the way, he accepts certain well-known propositions in the literature (e.g. that nationalism was in large part a product of Enlightenment thought), while rejecting others (e.g. that nationalism is associated with the striving for linguistic unity). Most importantly, he draws the conclusion that civic nationalism, far from being a solution to chauvinism, is actively complicit in its persistence and presents perhaps the greatest threat to state stability today. He blames this not so much on the civic ideals but the way that they, in practice, have become an excuse for imperialistic attacks against political entities based upon historical communities.

Wimmer begins his book by noting the seemingly incongruous fact that ”modern societies have unfolded within the confines of the nation state” (p. 3), and proceeds to analyze why this might be so. His key proposition is that the main components of a modern society, such as democratic citizenship and economic security, are feasible, given contemporary scarcity, only if there is a clear limitation on who is entitled to them. This in turn requires a level of cultural agreement that is in practice found only within the confines of certain ascriptively-derived groups. Hence, modernity in a sense requires ethnic exclusion in order to be sustainable, and ethnically-based nationalism will not, and perhaps should not, be completely abandoned. While many writers have explored the causal link between modernity and ethnonationalism, Wimmer goes a step further in specifying the relationship in a clear and precise manner.

In his analysis, Wimmer presents two new concepts, cultural compromise and social closure. Cultural compromise is an agreement among actor inhabiting a common arena for communication about basic principles . These are not so much principles relating directly to government policies, but rather about meaning, about the moral and social categories that are salient in determining those policies. Once these categories are defined, social closure is the process by which certain characteristics and practices are taken as part of a group’s collective identity, while other are viewed as external and foreign, as well as ways in which this identity is made concrete through institutions. In essence, social closure refers to the process of boundary formation and maintenance.

Nonetheless, the nature of the compromise depends on the balance of power and interests, and hence may be altered during times of change in social structure. In this view, modernization is associated with nationalism because it leads to the incorporation of elite and non-elite classes into a common set of social boundaries. This broader definition of social identity in turn results in a broader and more fluid sharing of power and wealth. Given continued conditions of limited resources, this creates an incentive among the members of society to slow down further broadening of social boundaries, which would upset the cultural compromise and could lead to the dilution of benefits for the less-privileged.

Wimmer examines his arguments in light of three different contemporary case studies: Mexico, Iraq, and Switzerland. Mexico and Iraq are an interesting contrast because in the former, a mestizo elite rules over a set of unassimilated native American minorities, while in the latter, a Sunni Arab minority ruled (until very recently) over Shiite Arabs and Sunni Kurds. His case study of Switzerland is particularly well-chosen to illustrate his arguments, since it has long been seen as a successful multi-ethnic state. However, increasing homogeneity among existing inhabitants has created conditions under which newer immigrant are subject to increasing levels of discrimination. He is thus able to use this case to attack the notion that ethnic conflict is a simple outgrowth of heterogeneity.

As mentioned, these two authors seem to share similar points of view on a number of matters. They both challenge the notion that modernization will eventually lead to elimination of ethnic and nationalist identity, a notion that at any rate has few proponents nowadays. However, they also attack the idea that the burgeoning of “identity politics” in Western countries is an indication of the repudiation of modernity, seeing it instead a manifestation of interest group politics in a modern context where interests are legitimated by inclusion within a particular concept of a nation. Finally, they also criticize the idea that exclusionary, violent nationalism is largely a malaise accompanying a transition to moderncapitalism and democracy, as well as the notion that nationalisms in modern societies are somehow benign compared those elsewhere. Rather, both argue that nationalism, including its exclusionary form, will continue to plague all areas of the word for the indefinite future.

If there is a major difference in the style of the books, it is that, while contain considerable theoretical and empirical analysis, much of Wimmer’s book tends to organize around a logic of theory-testing, Taras’ is more interested in surveying a relatively broad of states and nations in order to uncover sources of variation. Both however, are part of a larger movement that seeks to show how the study of nationalism can be improved by throwing off some of the legacy of its European origins.