Abstract
If nations are non-preordained configurations of socio-political collectivities then they cement – or fragment – as a consequence of two core sets of on-the-ground interactions: those taking place within a national movement among contending intra-national constituents; and those taking place between competing national movements, typically over territory. A third set of on-the-ground socio-political interactions has received less attention in the study of the phenomenon of nationalism: I term it ‘dynamics across nationalisms’. If such dynamics are explored in conjunction with the more prevalent study of interactions within and between nationalisms, they can shed brighter explanatory light on the phenomenon of national consolidation/disintegration.
Consciously analysed from an exclusively non-institutionalist, non-statist, societal vantage point, if ‘nations’ are non-preordained configurations of socio-political collectivities, then they gradually cement (or fragment) as a consequence of two core sets of on-the-ground dynamics: the first consists of either peaceful, forceful or violent interactions which take place within a national movement among its internally competing sub-national constituents (civil war being the gravest possibility); the second consists of interactions taking place between rival national movements (or states), typically, though not exclusively, over territory. These two sets of socio-political interactions can gradually consolidate – or wreck – national collectivities.
A third set of on-the-ground socio-political interactions has not received as much attention in studies of the phenomenon of nationalism: I label it ‘dynamics across nationalisms' (contrasting with dynamics within and/or between nationalisms). My first aim is to delineate the socio-political logic and thrust underlying ‘dynamics across nationalisms’; my second aim is to appeal to scholars to track/test this aspect in their regional area study as a means to perfect it further. To these ends, I begin by assessing the two sets of interactions that scholarship on the phenomenon of nationalism has customarily dealt with, i.e. (1) sub-national dynamics within single instances of national movements and (2) socio-political dynamics between competing national movements. My main section then explores what dynamics across nationalisms are and concludes with their rudimentary historicisation in the study of the twentieth-century Middle East and the conflict between Serbia and Croatia in the early 1990s.
Within and between nationalisms
Quintessentially global, the phenomenon of nationalism has taken many forms. These include political, cultural, class-based, liberal, conservative, fascist, communist, territorial, pan-, linguistic, religious, ‘civic’, primordial, separatist, integrationist, racial, diasporic, colonialist and more. The differences between these forms of nationalism – and thus the ostensibly homogeneous ‘national’ units they promote – seem so profound that they might actually be more important than the similarities. The solution that comparativists devised to tackle the phenomenon's ‘multiplicity problem’ has taken at times the form of typologies and at other times the form of classifications (Symmons-Symonolewicz, 1965), yet the solution has chiefly taken the form of dichotomies.
It has been suggested that there are ‘Western’ (voluntaristic) and ‘Eastern’ (organic) nationalisms (Kohn, 1945 and 1955; Palmenatz, 1976); or ‘nation-to-state’ and ‘state-to-nation’ routes of nationalism (Smith, 1986, pp. 133–137); or ‘historic’ and ‘non-historic’ nations/nationalisms (Herod, 1976); or ‘old-continuous’ and ‘new’ nations/nationalisms (Seton-Watson, 1965 and 1977); or ‘territorial/civic’ and ‘ethnic/genealogical’ nationalisms (Smith, 1991, ch. 1, p. 181); or ‘civic’ and ‘primordial’ national ties (Shils, 1953) – to recall just a few such studies. So prevalent have these dichotomous conceptions been that the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism devoted its 18th Annual Conference to their exploration under the banner ‘Nationalism, East and West: Civic and Ethnic Conceptions of Nationhood’ (LSE, 15–17 April 2008).
I previously juxtaposed constitutive elements of two bodies of scholarship and assessed them vis-à-vis each other (Behar, 2005). The first consisted of comparative social science studies of nationalism providing broad theoretical and conceptual insights into the phenomenon worldwide; the second consisted of regional studies of manifestations of the phenomenon of nationalism in the Middle East. I concluded that comparative studies (including those just cited) have tended to compare between whole instances of national movements while concurrently devoting less attention to cross-regional comparative examinations of sub-national dynamics within single movements (i.e. particular instances of nationalism). Conversely, dominated by narrative historians, specialised regional studies on the manifestations of the phenomenon of nationalism in the Arab and non-Arab Middle East have scrutinised almost exclusively intra-national dynamics within movements in single case/country studies: interactions between ideologically contending sub-national constituents have been the main topic researched in studies of nationalism in the Middle East, with peripheral concern for broader – theoretical or comparative – implications that might travel outside the Middle East; examples include Coury (1982); Beinin and Lockman (1987); Gershoni and Jankowski (1986 and 1995); Safran (1961); Khalidi (1997); Khoury (1987).
Yet in contrast to this specialised regional scholarship of nationalisms in the Middle East, social science scholarship devoted less attention to the (frequently fierce) dynamics taking place among organised sub-national forces within national movements; theoretically conscious studies tended to compare more between whole instances of national movements/states. When comparativists did address intra-national dynamics, this work was mostly done before the end of the Cold War, though commonly restricted to a single case/country study (rather than through a comparison of such intra-national dynamics in two, or more, countries); examples include Pollis (1973); MacMillion (1981); Shabad and Gunther (1982); Marx (1991). Yet, this was – on the whole – infrequent: political scientists tended to bypass cross-regional explorations of sub-national dynamics. 1 Many preferred to focus on the scholarly, more ‘luxurious’, broader realm upon which comparisons of whole instances of national movements (and/or states) were advanced. 2
This relative neglect of sub-nationalism could hardly change the fact that different organised movements within potential or realised nations (or states) – certainly outside the overbearingly dominant Euro-American orbit – have divergent conceptions of what their nation is or should be; how and on what basis it should be defined; who it should include/exclude; and what its designated borders should be. Various methods are available to explore such varying tendencies within nations theoretically and comparatively; what is more critical here is simply to highlight the mere scholarly (and socio-political) importance of such explorations. My own work led me to conclude that cross-regional comparative study of sub-national dynamics currently holds the greatest potential for narrowing the formidable gaps between comparativists studying the phenomenon of nationalism globally and specialist regionalists studying nationalisms in the Middle East. Put differently, contemporary scholars should not prioritise comparisons between whole instances of nationalism (as comparative social science scholarship has tended to do), or immerse themselves too deeply in sub-national dynamics within single case/state studies (as specialised scholarship on nationalism in the Middle East has done): cross-regional comparative study of sub-national dynamics presently seems the more promising turn.
I have thus far typified two sets of interactions that have dominated studies on nationalism: intra-national dynamics within single instances of national movements and dynamics between national movements. I now claim that a third set of on-the-ground interactions – ‘dynamics across nationalisms' – can shed additional light on the phenomenon of national consolidation/disintegration.
Across nationalisms
Theoretically minded studies on the phenomenon of nationalism have tended to compare between whole instances of national movements while devoting less attention to comparative examinations of sub-national dynamics within single movements. Conversely, studies on nationalism in the Middle East have mostly analysed non-comparatively intra-national dynamics within single case countries (Egypt, Iran, Iraq, etc.). However, if one subscribes to the constructivist view that ‘nations’ are non-preordained configurations of socio-political collectivities, then they evolve (or decline) not only as a result of socio-political interactions within a national movement – and/or between competing movements – but also as a consequence of dynamics across them: this aspect of the study of the phenomenon of nationalism has not been explored as it deserves in either the theoretically minded comparative scholarship or specialised scholarship on nationalism in the Middle East. 3
My focus on these understudied dynamics begins with the observation that unintended alliances are sometimes formed between opposing forces across otherwise unbridgeable divides. Examples include American feminists and fundamental Christian evangelists concerning the question of pornography; Islamic Hamas and Israeli-Jewish settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories regarding the rejection of the 1993 Oslo Accords; Danish anti-immigrant ultra-nationalists and Danish Marxists by casting a 1992 oppositional ‘No’ vote on the Treaty of Maastricht; or Ireland's Sinn Féin, Catholic right and far left in their conjoint ‘No’ vote in the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty (June 2008).
In a similar fashion – though of hugely greater socio-political magnitude – national movements tend to evolve simultaneously; they are commonly formed historically in relation to rival movements (rather than in the isolation that most nationalists fantasise about). That is why back-and-forth dynamics across organised sub-national forces within competing national movements are consequential for the study of national consolidations. There are several possibilities for interactions of organised sub-national forces across any given national divide; these interactions may be intentional, unintentional or structural and – in any event – are neither deterministic, nor random, nor teleologically preordained. To illustrate, a cross-national intentional alliance between sub-national secular (Muslim and Hindu) groups in Pakistan and India might yield implications for a long-term national outcome in South Asia. Similarly, a cross-national alliance – unintentional or structural – between militant Hindu and Muslim groups in Kashmir (both of whom claim Greater Kashmir exclusively as their own) might affect both the national and political outcome in the region (by, say, frustrating possibilities for a settlement).
To put such dynamics in terms that are more general conceptually: it is out of the sub-national ideological and/or socio-political diversity within each and every instance of a national movement – yet also out of the effects among sub-national forces across potent national divides – that (contingent) configurations of national collectivities consolidate (or disintegrate). It is out of the multiple, yet concurrent, collective interactions and struggles, not only within and between, but also across, organised sub-national forces that ‘nations’ emerge (or decline) irrespective of whether the nation is imagined, potential or actual/real. I conclude with a rudimentary historicisation to illustrate the explanatory fruitfulness that an exploration across nationalisms has for the study of the twentieth-century Middle East and/or the conflict between Serbia and Croatia in the early 1990s.
Across Jewish and Arab nationalisms
As I historicised comprehensively elsewhere (Behar, 2007), until the conclusion of the first regional Arab–Israeli war in 1948 there were some 750,000 indigenous Jews living in established communities in Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, Libya, Morocco and Lebanon. Most of these nine Jewish communities had lived in the region continuously for many centuries. Between Britain's 1917 publication of the pro-Zionist Balfour Declaration and its 1947 handing of the Palestine mandate to the recently established United Nations, the conflict between the European Zionists and Palestine's indigenous Arabs escalated more and more. During these three decades the hitherto Palestine-bound conflict steadily reverberated regionally to affect unfavourably the socio-political position of minority Jewish communities within Arab states neighbouring Palestine. Their position grew more complex than that of other indigenous minorities precisely because the Palestine conflict was between Jews and non-Jews: from a comparative social science perspective it seems safe to hypothesise that had there been in mandated Palestine a British-sponsored Coptic Zionism, Maronite Zionism or Nestorian Zionism then similar repercussions and socio-political ricochets might have affected Egypt's Copts, Lebanon's Maronites or the Nestorians in Iraq.
During these turbulent decades, the fundamental distinction between ‘Jews’ and ‘Zionists’ eroded throughout the region. This inconspicuous process worked to the exclusive advantage of the European Zionists who for various reasons during the 1930s and the 1940s had material interests in conflating the terms (and identities) ‘Jew’ and ‘Zionist’ vis-à-vis domestic, regional and global politics. The first reason was to manufacture a hegemonic perception that Zionism was the majority position within world Jewry (while Zionists at the time were a significant minority among all Jews, whether African, Asian or European). The second reason was to persuade anti-immigrant global powers (including the US and Britain) of their ‘obligation’ to recognise Jewish nationalism/political Judaism in Palestine as the exclusive solution to the (European) Jewish question – foremost as a refuge for Jewish survivors of the Nazi genocide – a national Zionist solution alleged to express the wishes of the majority of Jews worldwide.
An astoundingly undervalued core variable which facilitated the post–1948 triumph of the European Zionists over their Arab nationalist adversaries resulted from their success in furnishing some of their fiercest Arab enemies across the national divide with their self-made conceptions, terms and socio-political logic. From the late 1930s, a politically significant number of ‘radical’ Arab nationalists (of secular and religious persuasions) began identifying non-Zionist indigenous Jews as constituting a potential Zionist fifth column (while increasingly exercising towards them a ‘guilt by association’ nationalist activism). In Egypt, central sub-national constituents within the (otherwise liberal) national movement – including the Muslim Brothers and Young Egypt – embraced for all intents and purposes the Zionist conflation between Judaism and Zionism in their ongoing collective action vis-à-vis local Jews (Behar, 2007; Kramer, 1989). In Iraq, the pseudo-secular, pan-Arab Istiqlal party effectively became the single most xenophobic organised sub-national Arab movement vis-à-vis indigenous Jews (Shiblak, 1986).
The conflation between ‘Jews’ and ‘Zionists’ culminated in a largely unintentional collaboration across the Jewish and Arab national movements between (1) Zionist forces working towards pulling Jews into Palestine/Israel and (2) several of their (presumably) fiercest Arab opponents whose mobilisation and collective actions increasingly aimed towards pushing indigenous Jews out of Arab societies/states (without having a concrete destination in mind). Neither the European Zionists in Palestine, nor the illegal emissaries they installed throughout the region (beginning in 1942), nor the minority of Arabised Jews who collaborated with them, grieved too much over this exclusionary development within Arab nationalism: this development simply worked to the advantage of European Zionists in the materialisation of their principal national dicta, i.e. ‘liquidation of the (Jewish) exile’ and Aliya (e.g. Jewish emigration) to formerly-Palestine-now-Israel. Hence, the consolidation of hegemonic identification between ‘Jews’ and ‘Zionists’ was a double-edged constructivist enterprise running back and forth across Jewish and Arab nationalisms between the 1930s and 1950s: although initiated and advanced by European Zionists, it was duplicated and nourished by important sub-national Arab forces across the Arab–Zionist national divide.
The unintended ‘alliance’ structurally formed across the Arab–Zionist divide affected immensely the very direction that the phenomenon of nationalism in the Middle East followed in the post–1949 armistice period (when the dispersal of Jews indigenous to the Middle East began). These dynamics across nationalisms not only allocated religious affiliation comparative advantage over competing bases for collective identities; they also shaped the internal socio-political configuration and composition of the two rival national movements. Israel would subsequently double its Jewish population and demographically become considerably less ‘European’ than it had previously been. In the Arab world competing sub-national groups active within the umbrella of Arab nationalism and advancing more inclusionary bases for collective identity and self-determination – including regional, linguistic or class – were fractured by, and had to respond to, the region's relative politicisation of religious affiliations (firstly Judaism and later on Islam): between the 1940s and the 1960s the strength of sub-national liberal and Marxist groups in (for example) Egypt and Iraq struggling to institutionalise Arab self-determination on a solid inter-religious basis correlated negatively with the strengthening of the separatist Jewish nationalism. It is unclear how the latter could have aided the multi-religious Arab democratic cause whether before or after the first regional war (1948).
Lastly in the context of the region's (contingent) national consolidations, it seems reasonable to propose that had Arab nationalism not contributed to the exclusion of Jews from their homelands in concert with Euro-Zionism, Israeli society would have remained overwhelmingly (East) European culturally, ethnically and demographically. Under this path not taken it seems reasonable to hypothesise that non-displaced Arabised Jews would have made the post-1950s internal composition of Arab societies and states significantly more multi-religious – particularly when ‘measured’ comparatively with a Zionist Israel lacking non-European Arabised Jews. Furthermore, under this untaken, counterfactual path it seems reasonable to suggest that the Arab anti-Zionist standing would have faced fewer obstacles than it actually did in global international politics since without Arabised Jews Zionism/Israel could have been portrayed more easily as a remnant outgrowth of late European colonialism. But dynamics across nationalisms in this case have contingently played themselves out via another path (both regional and socio-political).
Across Serbian and Croatian nationalisms
To explore dynamics across nationalisms further it is worth recalling the break-up of Yugoslavia while limiting the focus to the evolving conflict between Serbia and Croatia. Rogers Brubaker's analysis of the Serb–Croat matrix highlights ‘the complex interplay of three overlapping and mutually intensifying processes: the nationalization of the Croatian incipient state … the increasing disaffection, and nationalist mobilization, of Serbs in the ethnic borderlands of Croatia; and the development of a radical and belligerent “homeland” stance in the incipient Serbian state’ (Brubaker, 1996, p. 70). Two processes heightened the politicisation of the Croatian Serbs: the radical ‘homeland’ stance of Serbia and the nationalising Croatian movement (especially under Franjo Tudjman) which attempted to assert ‘ownership’ and control over the territory and institutions of Croatia through a process of ‘Croatisation’ of the state's economy, language and cultural symbols. These developments tended to evoke fear among Croatian Serbs, induced militant mobilisation and eventually led to an armed rebellion against the Croatian regime.
When news of the plight of Kosovar Serbs spread, it was interpreted as a threat to minority Serbs everywhere. After Tudjman's election, this threat was seen as acute in Croatia, also portrayed as the fascist successor to the wartime Ustasha state (Ramet, 2002, pp. 560–561). Serbia, under Slobodan Milosevic, had no reservations in encouraging Croatia's borderland Serbs to oppose the new Croatian regime and its bid for independence; the Croatian Serbs were later provided with arms for these purposes. Serbian claims to speak for Croatian Serbs – by challenging Croatian sovereignty and reinforcing fears of aggressive Serb hegemony – helped push the Croatian government towards a firmer assertion of sovereignty in the rebellious borderlands and to a more uncompromising position regarding the form of independence it demanded.
Reading this historical brief against the sequence across Jewish and Arab nationalisms explored earlier, it is possible to think of the Croatian Serbs as structurally occupying a socio-political position comparable to the one into which the Arabised Jews were relegated in the 1940s (particularly when Zionism/Israel began to ‘speak’ for them as Serbia spoke for the Croatian Serbs and when Israel and Arab states launched their respective Judaisation and Arabisationa projects analogous to the ‘Croatisation’ process mentioned). Notwithstanding these similarities, differences are evident too. Most strikingly, Arabised Jews were never a part of any secessionist struggle within Arab states as Croatian Serbs (eventually) were within Croatia. Precisely in this context an investigation across the Serbian and Croatian national movements – comparable to the one detailed in relation to Jewish and Arab nationalisms – might better help to refine explanations of the Serb–Croat matrix by such scholars as Lendvai and Parcell (1991), Moodie (1995) or Duffy and Lindstrom (2002). Exploration of such a dimension is missing in Brubaker's account of the break-up of Yugoslavia which is concluded candidly:
‘I have had to limit my discussion to a general sketch of the interplay between the incipient Serb national minority in Croatia, the incipient Croatian nationalizing State, and the incipient Serbian homeland, locked in an intensifying spiral of mistrust, misrepresentation and mutual fear. I have had to ignore … also the struggles among competing stances internal to the minority, nationalizing state, and homeland’ (Brubaker, 1996, p. 75, emphasis added).
Indeed, Brubaker notes in passing that intransigent opposition to Croatian independence prevailed almost exclusively among village and small-town Croatian Serbs and hardly at all among Zagreb's cosmopolitan Serbs. Yet, like sub-national dynamics, a sub-ethnic struggle within a given minority cannot be circumvented since it is crucial for a full understanding of national outcomes in any region studied. A paradigmatic example is the friction that existed between the minority among Iraqi and Egyptian Jews who committed themselves (to utilise Brubaker's formulation) to the ‘external [Jewish] homeland’ in Palestine and the majority of non-Zionists among them – liberals, Marxists or religious orthodox – who opted, as Iraqis/Egyptians, for allegiance to Arab states.
An analysis of the sequence of events surrounding the Croatian Serb minority community – positioned at the edges of both Croatian and Serbian nationalisms and situated in a volatile border zone between them – is likely to shed additional light on the subsequent national outcome in the region. That could be the case precisely as the study of events surrounding Arabised Jews illuminates the concurrent formations of the Jewish and Arab national collectivities as well as the ‘across-mode’ via which the two nationalisms mutually shaped each other's path to self-determination in the post-British colonial era (Behar, 2007). Put differently, a complementary analysis within and across Croatian and Serbian nationalisms via the Croatian Serbs – comparable to the one detailed vis-à-vis Jewish and Arab nationalisms via pre-1949 Arabised Jews – is likely to enhance studies of the Serb–Croat conflict and the reassembling of national collectivities in former Yugoslavia.
Closing thoughts
While leading comparative studies on the phenomenon of nationalism have mostly made comparisons between whole instances of national movements, specialised studies on nationalism in the Middle East have commonly highlighted dynamics within national movements in single-country studies. That is why the cross-regional comparative study of sub-national dynamics currently has the greatest potential to narrow gaps between comparativists studying nationalism globally and regionalists studying nationalism in the Middle East. However, in the Middle East or elsewhere, comparative and regional studies of nationalism have under-explored dynamics taking place across national movements which develop simultaneously, often antagonistically. If dynamics across nationalisms are explored in conjunction with the more prevalent study of interactions within and between nationalisms, they can shed brighter light on the phenomenon of national consolidation (or disintegration thereof). My work on the Middle East has led me to conclude that the region is promising for studying further dynamics across nationalisms; scholars of other regions may be able to perfect to a higher level explorations of such dynamics for the benefit of students of nationalism globally.
Footnotes
For their valuable reports I thank the anonymous reviewers of Politics. A version of this article was presented at the colloquium of the International Political Science Association's Research Committee on Politics and Ethnicity (RC14), Queen's University Belfast, 10 September 2007: I thank the diverse participants for their lucid remarks. Another version was presented at the Scoil na Polaitíochta agus Gnóthaí Idirnáisiúnta, University College Dublin, 12 June 2008: the glacial mono-ethnic ambience notwithstanding, I remain indebted to the school for its assisting role.
1
In the United States this was a side-effect of the post-Cold War restructuring of the international programme of SSRC-ACLS whereby American foundations such as Ford and Mellon cut resources from single case studies and area studies while concurrently promoting cross-regional/transnational research financially and intellectually; consult Prewitt (1996), Heginbotham (1994), 
.
2
To sense this tendency juxtapose Marx's 1991 and 1999 studies.
3
I first discussed this in Behar (2005, pp. 603–606). Curiously, the concept/construct ‘across nationalisms’ yields just four results in www.google.com; two in http://www.scholar.google.com; and one in (that archives some 1,000 scholarly journals published since the seventeenth century). Ergo, there is room for utilising the term.