Locating Agency in Collective Political Behaviour: Nationalism,Social Movements and Individual Mobilisation

Introduction

One of the major points of debate for scholars studying nations and nationalism has been the role of the state. This field has become bogged down in pedantic debates over the role of dates such as 1789, as well as obscure arguments over the entomological roots of ‘nation’. This article does not seek to deny the importance of ‘modernity’ for nations and nationalisms – in terms of the emergence of the state, questions of citizenship, democracy, etc. (Billig, 1995; Brubaker, 1996; Chatterjee, 1993; Connor, 1994; Geertz, 1963b; Gellner, 1983; Hechter, 1975; Juergensmeyer, 1995; Kedourie, 1960 and 1971; Mann, 1995; McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly, 2001; Mosse, 2001; Tilly, 1975, 1978, 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006); nor does this article reject the notion that sustained movements of contentious politics based on the nation seek to change the state – as movements of secession, reform and unification (Anderson, 1991; Billig, 1995; Breuilly, 1993; Brubaker, 1996; Chatterjee, 1993; Connor, 1994; Gellner, 1983; Kedourie, 1971; Mosse, 1991 and 2001; Nora, 1997; Smith, 1986; Tarrow, 1998; Tilly, 2002 and 2006). Instead, the argument presented here emphasises the importance of the rationales put forward by those who claim to act on behalf of the nation; individuals for whom the nation is more than a structural/procedural detour to democratisation and/or the establishment of the modern state. The article will seek to do this by demonstrating how ethno-symbolist perspectives on the nation explain the potency of national myths, memories and symbols, and indicate how these might become key factors in nationalist mobilisation. By engaging with ‘how’ questions rather than those of ‘why’ or ‘when’, it may be possible to nuance potentially overly-deterministic structural theories of the nation, and finally put to one side any account arguing that the nation represents an elite instrumental construction without equal recognition for its potential as an expression of popular political will.

Nationalism and the state

The nation is defined here as ‘a group of human beings, possessing common and distinctive elements of culture … citizenship rights for all members, a sentiment of solidarity arising out of common experiences, and occupying a common territory’ (Smith, 1998, p. 188). The nation encompasses a common culture, history, territory and destiny and a political self-awareness that distinguishes it from other forms of collective organisation. Being a nation entails an awareness of the rights, privileges and responsibilities which are a condition of membership. Nationalism is a movement for the attainment of a state on behalf of an existing or ‘potential’ nation – a collective movement by the nation, its elites and masses, to gain congruence between the institutions of the state and the identity of the nation. There are a variety of forms of nationalist movements: cultural, political, instrumental, romantic, all of which differ in form and content, aims and means, but all of which bind co-nationals together, and co-nationals to state elites and institutions. Nations are also important because they serve to distinguish their collective from others.

There can be little dispute that something fundamentally changed in Europe between 1600 and 1800. During this period nationalism has been associated with social, economic and political transformation – as a mechanism to aid in this change (Breuilly, 1993; Connor, 1994; Gellner, 1983; Hobsbawm, 1992), a function of this change (Anderson, 1991; Winichakul, 1994) or in reaction to this change (Armstrong, 1982; Hastings, 1997; Hutchinson, 1987; Smith, 1986, 1998 and 2003). Whatever the basis for this transformation, whether political, economic, cultural, the emergence of democracy, the expansion of the franchise and resultant political and social problems all created new spaces and sites for political actions and expressions (Tilly, 2004 and 2005). As part of this process, nations and nationalist movements emerged as a significant source of political legitimacy in Europe. This transformation was aided and abetted by Herderian linguistic movements of nationalism, often representing middle classes who felt alienated from foreign elites and were suffering from ‘blocked upward mobility’. Other nationalist movements argued that the collective of the nation laid the framework for the equality of all members of the nation, something apparent in the French Revolution.

Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly (henceforward McTT) have argued that the state is the crucial factor in the emergence of nationalism, where the emergence of co-nationals/co-citizens is a function of structural processes of democratisation (McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly, 2001, pp. 77–84; Tarrow, 1998, pp. 108–121; Tilly, 2004, pp. 51–71 and 2005, pp. 31–51). McTT assert that this results from factors such as ‘modern’ technological innovation and the growth of state institutions – factors echoed in the modernist approaches of authors such as Benedict Anderson (1991) and Ernest Gellner (1983). From this perspective the creation of publicly recognised associations, the pursuit of friendship, kinship and shared beliefs, the securing of high risk enterprises, government registration of vital events and the purchase of government securities with funds otherwise committed to maintain interpersonal ties, all require an anchoring of atomised co-nationals within the rhetoric of the state found in social transactions (Tilly, 2004, p. 137). ‘Orthodox’ modernist perspectives on the nation similarly focus on the role of the state in defining the relationships between co-nationals to create co-dependent citizens, as factory workers, literate bureaucrats and soldiers. These relationships are underpinned by the emergence of ‘modern’ social networks which are reified by technology, education and industrialisation (Anderson, 1991; Billig, 1995; Breuilly, 1993, pp. 335–344; Brubaker, 1996; Geertz, 1963a, pp. 107–113; Gellner, 1983, pp. 55–62; Giddens, 1995, pp. 119–121; Hechter and Levi, 1979; Hechter, 1975; Hobsbawm, 1992; Mann, 1995; Tilly, 1975). These parallel perspectives regard the nation as a mechanism for anchoring individuals to one another and to the institutions of the state, necessary because of the loss of traditional ‘pre-modern’ social ties which accompanied the accession to ‘modernity’. Although slightly different, other accounts espouse the view that the emergence of such nations can be an unintended consequence of the creation of regional units of administration to deliver more efficiently the benefits of the state (Anderson, 1991 (see esp. ch. 4); Brubaker, 1996, pp. 20–25; Hechter, 1975, pp. 101–106; Nairn, 1977, pp. 100–103). Alternatively, where factors which underlie the anchoring of the citizen to the state do not exist, or where groups of individuals feel alienated by identities antithetical to these trust structures – where members of a nation feel that trust is being imposed from above – nationalism may take the form of revolutionary insurgency, and provides an ideological template to rectify this situation (McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly, 2001, p. 230; Tarrow, 1998, p. 17).

The role of national myth, memory and symbol

While there are some elements of a structuralist interpretation of nationalism which are insightful, they fail (like all other perspectives) to accurately explain or predict the occurrence or potency of nationalism or the ‘emotional depth’ of national identity. Even George Mosse (1991 and 2001) and Elie Kedourie (1960 and 1971), who eschew explicitly state-driven accounts of nationalism, rather explaining its emergence as a modern substitute for religion, do not go so far as to explain how individuals come to believe that the nation provides a rational basis for political action, or why this should occur in some cases and not in others. Those accounts which focus on the emergence of the modern state as a cause of nationalism ultimately leave little possibility for understanding the perceptions and rationales of individuals acting in the name of the nation (except potentially as a form of ‘false-consciousness’), especially where nationalism is a reaction against, rather than a function of, the emergence of the state (Connor, 1994, p. 385; Margadant, 1998; Tarrow, 1998, p. 103). How do collectives of individual actors, such as nations, mount challenges? What is the collectively shared, understood and resonant common purpose of sustained nationalist politics? The mechanisms that underpin an individual's attachment to the nation, and which explain how, once the collective has formed, individual perceptions of collective action are framed, are dependent on the accessibility and familiarity of their context – after all ‘it is not just in the shape but in the content of what lies within that we need to seek an explanation’ (Smith, 1998, p. 83). Links between culture, in terms of representations of the past, and social action are well established in the literature, especially in so far as they are forms of political communication (Emirbayer and Goodwin, 1996, pp. 123–124; Ismail, 2004, p. 628; Passy and Giugni, 2000; Swidler, 1986 and 1995). It is in this vein that national myths, memories and symbols ¹ can be understood to provide a mise en scéne for individual interpretation, providing contexts for individuals to understand participation in and support for contentious political actions.

The mobilising value of national myths, memories and symbols comes from their being ‘founded on living traditions of the people (or segments thereof) which serve both to unite and to differentiate them from their neighbours’ (Smith, 1998, p. 46). Myths, memories and symbols can only be mobilising factors when they are resonant, uniting or exciting, politically or culturally, members of the nation (Githens-Mazer, 2006, p. 3). National myths, memories and symbols constitute repertoires of action that signpost the importance of past events – whether real or imagined – providing popularly accessible ‘points of entry’ for individuals to locate and contextualise their own personal experiences within the broader collective (Gamson, 1995, p. 85). Repertoires are the ensemble forms of political action which constitute the means of agitation for a social movement, such as the creation of special-purpose associations and coalitions, public meetings, processions, rallies, demonstrations, pamphleteering, etc. (Tilly, 2004, pp. 3–4 and 2006). Repertoires are recurrent and historically embedded performances which link at least two actors, and must be recognisable for actors and their audience (Tilly, 2006, pp. 34–36). Repertoires of national myths, memories and symbols are dynamic and constantly being recast or re-invoked to maintain their contemporary pertinence and meaning, either as a project of the nationalist elites, or through grass-roots movements, from above and below – in order to address the needs of the collectivity of the nation. Myths, memories and symbols which are resonant in the national repertoire are not thought of by one single brain, and they are individually experienced yet communally shared, creating a ‘consistency’ through communication and action (ritual) even when they may be conflicting (Schöpflin, 1997, pp. 20–28).

Despite this flux and flow, a nation's repertoire of myths, memories and symbols aids in the interpretation of meanings of contemporary events and defines what are deemed as appropriate responses to such events (Tarrow, 1998, pp. 32, 93). The core of ethnicity – the ‘myth-symbol complex’ or mythomoteur – diffuses the national repertoires of myths, memories and symbols of the ethnic group or nation intra-and inter-generationally, preserving and maintaining the form of the group, and the content of its identity over the longue-durée – i.e. those myths, symbols, values and memories that make the ethnie distinct and separate (Barth, 1969; Smith, 1986, pp. 200–208). A nation's ‘myth-symbol complex’ serves to unite disparate individuals to the collective phenomenon of the nation through the shared meanings and values attached to the myths, symbols and memories of the nation (Smith, 1986). Whether a matter of ‘perception’ or fact, historical context and interpretation are significant in showing how/why nationalist movements ‘incorporated some crucial factors’, explaining how movements evolve and showing the historical conditions that account for their emergence (Tilly, 2004, p. 3).

While collectively defined, interpretations of contemporary events are individually expressed. Collective ‘definitions’ are likely to result from pressures brought to bear by nationalist institutions and the elites, both of which try to organise and persuade individuals of the merits of the nationalist cause. The experience of a specific action or event, especially repression carried out by the challenged ‘opponents’ of the nationalist movement, may help to cause an individual to cross the threshold from sympathy to participation (Klandermans, 1992). Myths of disaster, tragedy and defeat are particularly potent in the formation of nations, commemorations of which can be based on ‘distinctly emotional sources’ (Frijda, 1997, p. 106; Schöpflin, 1997, pp. 28–35; Smith, 1986). Acts of repression by a movement's opponents reify and focus conceptions of the collective's grievance, and help to define the available and appropriate actions to rectify this grievance (Smith, 1998, p. 46; White and White, 1995; White, 1989, p. 1294). The particular effects of repressive experiences are permanent, creating unsolved problems and incorrigible expectancies, permanently undermining a belief in a ‘just’ or ‘safe’ world and potentially aiding in the cultivation of a collectively shared perception of injustice (Frijda, 1997, p. 123). Nationalist movements adapt their own ‘cultures’ and engage with their own legacies which are reflexively defined by the interplay between their nationalist struggle and behaviour because of these experiences (Swidler, 1995, p. 38). Nationalist movements can therefore be understood to adapt and engage with events and experiences – whether tangible or imagined, whether myth or memory. Even where this is a top-down elite-led approach, the elites/intelligentsia must accomplish this within the rubric of the repertoire of the nation's myths, memories and symbols, defined and delimited by what is ‘popularly resonant’.

National repertoires and mobilisation

One fundamental question plagues the role of culture in understanding the processes of mobilisation: if culture is latently present in any given situation, what factors, mechanisms or processes explain the differential in its power to act as a basis for action (Snow, Zurcher and Ekland-Olson, 1980)? Answers to such a question often focus on psychological dispositions, resource mobilisation and/or questions of personal motivation. David Snow, Louis A. Zurcher Jr. and Sheldon Ekland-Olson (1980) suggest that mobilisation results from ‘structural availability’ – possession of ‘discretionary time’, a minimum of countervailing risks/sanctions and individual anchoring to coherent and relevant social networks which facilitate the pursuit of common interests and allow for and/or encourage individuals to gain a point of entry through ‘sheltered in-group contexts’ into a social movement organisation (SMO) (Snow, Zurcher Jr. and Ekland-Olson, 1980, pp. 792–793; Sturmer and Simon, 2004, p. 275). Social movements occur where social networks facilitate the occurrence and maintenance of contentious politics over a prolonged period of time. Nationalism is a form of social movement – a collective ‘national’ struggle with a common purpose and solidarity to challenge opposing elites and repressive/oppressive collectives and authorities. Participation in any social movement is motivated by: (1) injustice or ‘moral indignation’; (2) collective identity; and (3) agency, the sense that sustained collective action will be able to alter conditions and politics it seeks to address (Klandermans, 1997, p. 179).

These three factors occur at different levels of the collective, at different rates and in differing contexts, and they emerge in response to various stimuli and may even be ‘cultivated’ by nationalist elites trying to persuade potential sympathisers of their take on these three factors. Gregory Wiltfang and Doug McAdam (1991) allude not only to the importance of social networks in recruitment to participate in social movements, but also to the lack of homogeneity from one explanation of participation to the next. While these authors emphasise the importance of microstructures in explaining movement recruitment and participation, they recognise a certain degree of fundamental importance for a shared ‘disposition’, especially in so far as disposition is in turn defined by membership and interaction in these same social networks of the collective (Snow, Zurcher Jr. and Ekland-Olson, 1980, p. 798). Disposition determines ‘popular resonance’, helping to explain the direct and causal impact of an ‘imagined community’ on individual political behaviour. This interaction emphasises the key role for agency in a successful SMO, let alone a nationalist SMO, in so far as participation is a function of individual political choice rather than a function of the structural emergence of the state.

Conclusions

This article has attempted to indicate how state-based accounts of nationalism often fail to explain those factors which lead to individual mobilisation in the name of the nation. A combination of ethno-symbolist approaches to nations and nationalism and examinations of the social movement/mobilisation literature can begin to help illuminate the importance of content to the emergence of nationalism. Theoretical approaches to social movements and mobilisation provide insights into: (1) how popularly resonant and collectively accessible national myths, memories and symbols are translated into political action; (2) how ‘pre-modern’ (especially ‘pre-state’) repertoires of action can be translated into contentious politics of the nation; and (3) how discourses and behaviour in nationalist movements are bounded, interpreted and translated through popular resonance. Many coherent social movement analyses of nationalism, however, are obscured by the assumed structural role ascribed to the state, and mobilisation in the name of the nation is too often left unexplained in state-based accounts.

This is not to deny the important structural role that the emergence of the modern state has played and continues to play in the construction of social realities and political behaviour, but rather to assert that the content of myths, memories and symbols has a measurable importance. The organised and prolonged conduct of contentious nationalist politics depends on the framing and packaging of relevant myths in a popularly resonant way, emphasising not only the primacy of the nation above all other forms of collective identity, but also creating a model by which collective action on behalf of the nation is understood and is apparent in processes of mobilisation. This process can be dependent on or independent from the state. The overemphasis on the state in modernist approaches to nationalism and McTT's approaches to social movements are apparent in their rigid structuralist understanding of nationalism as a phenomenon causally linked to modernity, democratisation and state development. The reluctance of such perspectives to recognise how and why the particularities of a nation's repertoire of myths, memories and symbols (‘stories’) are fundamental, and not necessarily state based, for understanding how, why and when nationalist movements occur, leads to incomplete and faulty accounts of nationalism through their neglect of the phenomenon of popular resonance. This article has sought to nuance this perspective by highlighting the importance of popular resonance behind social transaction – thereby linking not only individual to individual, within the highly politically risky and complex community of the nation, but also the individual to the collective, and past experience to present contexts.