Title: PPt SURREY KEYNOTE 12 6 07 Nationalism and National Identities Today: Multidisciplinary Perspective
1 PPt SURREY KEYNOTE 12 6 07Nationalism
and National Identities Today Multidisciplinary
PerspectivesCRONEM, University of Surrey, 12-13
June 2007 A radical response to the
intractability of ethno-national
conflictPartition, consociation or
border-crossing democracy?
- James Anderson
- School of Geography and
- Centre for International Borders Research
www.qub.ac.uk/cibr - Queen's University Belfast
- 1. The Intractability Problem Territoriality
and its limitations - - nationalism, ethnicity, sovereignty,
representative democracy -
- 2. Conflict Management Territorial 'solutions'
partition, internal - integration or consociation?
-
- 3. Conflict Resolution Through other conflicts,
crossing borders, - participatory democracy, divided cities?
-
2- The Arguments
- The paper, informed by Ireland's national
conflict and 'peace process, is a critique of
the problems underlying such conflicts and the
difficulties transforming externally-imposed
conflict management into self-sustaining conflict
resolution. - It is argued that the intractability of these
problems is deeply rooted in a thoroughly modern
complex of nationalism, ethnicity, sovereignty
and representative democracy. These are knotted
together in a common denominator of
territoriality, and the nub of the problem is the
double paradox of representative democracys
undemocratic origins in the present. - Territoriality, the use of bordered geographical
space, is a powerful and ubiquitous mode of
social organisation which simplifies social
control. But it can grossly over-simplify and
distort social realities, particularly at borders
and especially where territory is contested, and
thereby it reinforces other distorting
simplifications typical of ethno-national
conflict. - Deep-rooted problems demand radical remedies.
Rather than relying on the pieties of remembrance
and reconciliation, making ethno-national peace
paradoxically requires forgetting and making
conflict over other issues. -
31. The Intractability Problem Territorialitys
limitations nationalism, ethnicity,
sovereignty, democracy
- All conflicts have their own particularities, so
any comparisons (or lessons from Ireland) work
best at the more abstract level of general
structures. - Ethno-national problems are often explained in
terms of the resurfacing of primordial
ethnicities and atavistic hatreds'. But the
main causes are rooted in contemporary society
modern state and state-related territoriality. - Territoriality - the use of bordered geographical
spaces to 'control, classify and communicate' is
a powerful and widespread mode of social
organisation. - It simplifies issues of control, management and
administration, and makes power relationships
more tangible materially and symbolically -
whether in the home, the workplace, or with
respect to the state and the nation. - But its advantages can become serious
disadvantages - over-simplifying, reifying and
distorting social realities, de-personalising
social relationships, obscuring relations of
power, erroneously equating physical space with
social space, and arbitrarily truncating social
processes at territorial borders. - Territoriality (with roots related to 'terror)
actively encourages conflict, generating rival
territorialities in a competitive 'space-filling'
process. - It directly encourages the 'zero-sum game' of
national conflict - territory is a finite
resource with a fixed total where more for one
side really does mean less for the other. But
this equation is then inappropriately applied to
'goods' (e.g., economic wealth, cultural capital,
political democracy) which do not have a fixed
total. Positive-sum games where both sides gain
are blocked and we actually get a negative-sum
game where both lose (though often unequally).
4Nationalism and ethnicity
- Nationalisms tend to essentialise ethnic
identities as natural, timeless and
unchangeable. But they are always socially
(re)produced and changeable. -
- However, contrary to the post-modern emphasis on
a free choice between multiple identities',
there is limited freedom to choose or change
identities in conflict situations, where much
effort is expended on reproducing existing
identity you change your identity at your
peril. - Such effort has to be expended, especially where
the opponents are very similar and closely
intermingled (fixating on the 'narcissism of
small differences as in Ireland). Ethnic and
territorial conflict may be more a means of
creating/maintaining difference than a simple
reflex of difference. - Conflicts supposedly due to ancient ethnic
hatreds are more likely contemporary struggles
to consciously reproduce ethnic differences. And
they are rooted in the distinctly modern and
often benign phenomena of national sovereignty
and democracy.
5The doctrine of nationalism
- Nationalism's happy ideal of nation and state
coinciding geographically in the particular
territory of a 'nation-state' has powerful
appeal, linking home, freedom, democracy and
sovereign self-determination without 'outside
interference'. But nationalism 'promises
to deceive - Geographic realities conspire against its happy
ideal - the often different/ intermingled
distributions of ethnic groups, nations and
states mean the ideal is not attainable, or
trying to make reality fit the ideal is not worth
the cost in human lives, misery, the
foreclosing of other more fruitful options. -
- The ideal itself is 'two-faced' -
unifying/divisive, including/excluding,
forward-looking/backward-looking (to an invented
past?) - only variably progressive. -
- In class-divided societies the 'national
interest' is inevitably an ideological and
illusionary unity, often serving the reactionary
interests of dominant groups and classes and used
for internal control against enemies within.
6Limitations of national sovereignty
- National sovereignty is also elusive, applying -
and as a claim more than a reality - mainly in
the political sphere, while most of the
economic sphere - multinational branch plants,
foreign direct investment - is conveniently and
necessarily excluded from the claim.
Self-determination is at best partial. -
- While recognising nationalism's democratic
associations, and differentiating between
oppressed and oppressor nations, the resolution
of national conflict requires a critical stance
to nationalism nationalist doctrine. - But this critical stance is just what conflict
managers lack - coming from other national
governments of great(er) powers, they are
caught in the same national 'territorial trap as
the protagonists they try to 'manage'. - They pander to them and their shared presumption
that ethno-national identities have over-riding
importance over all other types of identity.
7Limitations of territorial representative
democracy
- The most basic problem in ethno-national
conflicts is not some easy archaic or atavistic
target, but modern and valued representative
democracy. - National territorial conflicts are not amenable
to 'normal' democratic resolution because at
issue is the territorial framework or shell for
democracy. -
- These conflicts repeat the paradox of
'democracy's undemocratic origins' in the present
in effect there is a double paradox -
- 1. Democracy depends on democratic institutions
and is absent until they are established, but
they cannot be established democratically because
initially there are no democratic institutions. -
- 2. For democracies to have legitimacy there is
'normally' a politics of forgetting their
undemocratic origins (in, e.g., war, conquest,
genocide.). But in national conflicts forgetting
is impossible historical origins are a 'live
issue' ('The past is not dead. It's not even
past - Wm. Faulkner) and the paradox is
repeated in any contemporary (or proposed)
re-drawing of borders..
8More limitations of conventional democracy
- Normally 'the electorate decides', but the prior
question here is who decides the electorate? What
is the appropriate territorial framework? (eg.,
in the Irish-British conflict is it NI,
BritainNI, NI R of I, or all three territorial
entities?) - How the borders of the institutional shell are
drawn will determine the outcome of a democratic
majority vote, but the contested borders cannot
themselves be decided by this democratic means. -
- Instead we get an infinite regression who
decides who decides who decides which in
conventional terms can only be terminated
undemocratically - Either one of the protagonists decides (e.g.,
by unilateral action, in the extreme creating a
'democratic' majority by ethnic cleansing -
which Michael Mann shows to be 'the dark side of
democracy') - Or external conflict managers pragmatically
enforce a 'solution' (e.g., partition, or more
likely internal power-sharing) - though
perhaps with marginal plebiscites, or subsequent
legitimation by democratic ratification. -
- Conventional territorial, representative
democracy politicises demography (e.g., Northern
Ireland, Israel) and this gives territory added
political significance. But representative
democracy cannot itself resolve the ensuing
conflict.
92. CONFLICT MANAGEMENT National solutions to
national problems reproduce divisions -
Partition or territorial integrity
- National solutions (usually not endorsed by
external conflict managers) include the murder,
removal and/or forced assimilation of ethnic
minorities. - Less malign management strategies include 1. the
territorial (re-)partitioning of states, and 2.
internal power-sharing or consociation (ethnic
partitioning) - Both in different ways emphasise the management
virtues of separation/ segregation, whereas
conflict resolution requires contact
co-operation. - But partition has limited application
subdividing existing territories with completely
new borderlines has mostly applied to
defeated/collapsing multi-national empires (e.g.,
Austria-Hungary after WWI the USSR and
Yugoslavia), or retreating empires (the British
from Ireland, Palestine, India). - Since the 1940s, partition has been out of favour
for national states because - it is often impossible to (re)draw national
borders where ethnicities are geographically
intermingled it can invite ethnic cleansing
temporary expedients (extensions of divide
rule, or divide run) become permanent,
perpetuating conflict (eg., Indias partition
200,000 deaths, 5 million migrated, several wars,
and now nuclear threat) and - the partition of national states (unlike
multi-national empires) threatens the
territorial integrity of national states in
general (hence Biafra not supported), though
internal federalisation may be an option. - Thus consociational power-sharing in various
forms became the international communitys
preferred conflict management strategy.
10Consociation versus Integration
- Consociational power-sharing contains and
regulates conflict, but by institutionalising,
and therefore cementing, ethnic divisions. - The main 'consociational model'
(Lijphart/Netherlands) has 4 non-majoritarian
devices a coalition government by
representatives of all the ethnic groups
representation proportional to their relative
sizes autonomy in their group organisation and
mutual vetoes to protect particular ethnic group
interests. - The case for consociation it accepts the harsh
reality of conflicting groups and succeeds in
stopping or preventing their open/violent
conflict it is fair and secures the trust of the
groups by giving them guarantees about their
future it provides stable democratic government.
It is more realistic than wishful thinking
integrationist illusions about creating a single
unified society - which would not stop the
fighting, and which some groups would see as an
assimilationist threat to their own ethnic
identity and interests. - The integrationist case against the
integrationists mirror-image the
consociationalists, arguing that the latter
enshrine a bleak view of humanity seeing distrust
and antagonism are as inherent irredeemable.
Power-sharing mechanisms guarantees produce
expensive cumbersome gridlock, and static rather
than stable government. Secretive elitist dealing
replaces open political debate, and blocks
effective opposition/alternative government.
Consociation is counter-productive
11Consociation versus integration (contd.)
- Consociation further entrenches ethnic divisions,
increases polarisation and reproduces the basis
of the conflict. Its keeps/forces people into one
or other ethnic camp, and excludes other more
fruitful bases of political mobilisation (eg.,
gender, class) which cross-cut ethnic divisions.
- It further erodes the so-called 'middle ground'
of compromise, or 'other grounds' for alternative
politics. It conservatively accepts the primacy
and permanency of ethno-national categories
rather than questioning how and why they are
sustained and how they might be superseded. It
ignores identity (re)production, and in effect
supports ethnic essentialisms. -
- Comment Both cases are typically over-stated,
and presented as a static either/or choice of two
mutually exclusive strategies or ideal
end-states. - This is unfortunate because both have some valid
points, and they need to be seen dynamically, not
as alternatives but as complementary elements or
stages in an historical process of transforming
externally-imposed management into
self-sustaining conflict resolution the key
post-cease fire challenge but it needs to
built-into peace-processes from the start.
12Consociation and then integrative
border-crossing
- To achieve cease-fires/end to hostilities, the
consociationalists are generally realistic in
insisting that elaborate, guaranteed and hence
rather static power-sharing arrangements are
essential for establishing initial, at least
minimal, cooperation. However consociation is
necessary but not sufficient. - The integrationists have the valid point that
consociational arrangements reinforce divisions
and perpetuate or at the very least fail to
supersede - the conditions of the conflict. And a
telling point (from a supporter) consociation is
crucially dependent on continuing external
enforcement for its maintenance on its own has
no realistic prospect of becoming self-sustaining
(in N. Ireland, Lebanon, Bosnia?). It is thus
dependent on the priorities and pace of external
forces whose interest/lack of interest varies but
whose main interests are always elsewhere. As
external managers it is they who have the
limited ambition of stopping the worst of the
violence or keeping it to acceptable levels
(acceptable to whom?) and their continuing
overall responsibility may encourage continuing
irresponsible brinkmanship by rival
ethno-national leaders. - Such problematical external help further
supports the argument that the post-cease-fire
focus should increasingly be on developing
cross-ethnic and cross-border contacts and
co-operation.
133. CONFLICT RESOLUTION Through other conflicts,
crossing borders, participatory democracy,
divided cities
- Self-sustaining conflict resolution requires two
moves From ethnic territorial separation to
border-crossing co-operation and
transnationalism and from ethno-national
conflict to more productive struggles over other
issues. - Cross-border co-operation, whatever its
socio-economic advantages, will only lead to
conflict resolution if it creates trans-ethnic
and cross-border 'political communities' and
non-territorial forms of democratic
participation. - Rather than emphasising reconciliation, truth
commissions or identity issues (when usually
only one type of identity is recognised and
remembering can be a continuation of conflict
by other means), it may be more productive to
mobilise around (more?) important issues (e.g.,
of class, gender, and the environment) which
cross-cut ethnic and territorial borders (though
ethno-national forces will continue to try and
draw people back into their particularist and
zero-sum moulds). - The emphasis here is not on building the
integrationists dream of a single unified
society' which does directly threaten (minority)
ethnic identities, but instead is on transcending
them, by under-cutting and weakening the
divisions of the conflict and shifting the whole
political terrain away from ethno-national or
territorial issues per se to enable some
forgetting. - Here border crossing activities which are valued
in and of themselves, without any conflict
resolution motivations, may paradoxically prove
to be the most important in resolving
ethno-national conflicts. - And for this divided cities are a promising
locale. -
- A. To achieve cease-fires/end to hostilities,
the consociationalists are generally realistic in
insisting that elaborate, guaranteed and hence
rather static power-sharing arrangements are
essential for establishing initial, at least
minimal, cooperation. However consociation is
necessary but not sufficient a prerequisite
for B - B. The integrationists have the valid point that
consociational arrangements reinforce divisions
and perpetuate or at the very least fail to
supersede - the conditions of the conflict. And a
telling point (from a supporter) consociation is
crucially dependent on continuing external
enforcement for its maintenance and has no
realistic prospect of becoming self-sustaining
(in N. Ireland, Lebanon, Bosnia?). It is thus
dependent on the priorities and pace of external
forces whose interest/lack of interest varies but
whose main interests are always elsewhere. As
external managers it is they who have the
limited ambition of stopping the worst of the
violence/keeping it to acceptable levels
(acceptable to whom?) and their continuing
overall responsibility may encourage continuing
irresponsible brinkmanship by rival
ethno-national leaders. Such problematical
external help further supports the argument
here that the post-cease-fire focus should
increasingly be on developing cross-ethnic and
cross-border contacts (but not on the
integrationist/assimilationist goal of a single
identity see below). As A works against such
contact, the move to B needs to start sooner
rather than later and be programmed in from the
start.
14City life versus territoriality
- Theres a dialectic between the urban social
space of mixing, sharing, co-existing (incl. in
inter-city networks), and its antithesis in the
state state-related territoriality of
ethno-national separation and control. - Cities depend on border crossings there are
inherent pressures to (re-)assert urban space
over state and ethnic territorialities. Cities
are amenable to agon or urban traditions of
channelling and negotiating conflict see
www.conflictincities.org - Border-crossing activities can achieve their
highest density within divided cities (and
between cities) - whether contested state borders
actually run through the city (e.g., Jerusalem,
Nicosia, pre-1989 Berlin), or are contested
symbolically at local territorial borders of
ethnicity (eg., in Belfast or Mostar). - Conflict is often most intense in cities due to
density, proximity and symbolism, making them
dysfunctional, or terminally threatening their
viability as cities. - But, by the same token, there is always
resistance and border-crossings (e.g., Berlins
'wall jumpers divided Nicosias single sewage
system war-torn Mostar retaining one tiny shared
area (modelled on divided Berlin). - Hence the potential of city life for creative
border crossings, whether in leisure groupings
(e.g., 'Goths' in Belfast), or in political
struggles for non-national goods (e.g., higher
wages, or gender emancipation, or adequate public
services), as alternatives to the pre-occupations
of ethno-nationalists.
15Some Conclusions
- Ethnicity, nationalism, democracy and
territoriality all have powerful appeal. All are
problematical, and especially so in
ethno-national conflicts where the resulting
problems are intractable and sometimes lethal. - Resolving or transcending them demands a
critical, radical stance, instead of accepting
the presumptions of nationalism, essentialism and
territorial integrity or concentrating on
democracys territorial shell and neglecting
democracy itself or confining democracy to its
conventional (and stunted) territorial
representative form all of which is what
conventional conflict management generally does.
It manages rather than resolves conflict, and
sometimes fails even to manage because of
built-in contradictory tendencies to reproduce,
even exacerbate, rather than reduce divisions and
conflict (as in partition undiluted
consociationalism). - But for governments trying to manage these
conflicts, consociationalism has the great
advantage of not being radical just change some
of the political institutions and deal with
elites, rather than re-structure state and
society. Deal with symptoms more than causes. - The powers who manage and impose solutions
are typically caught in same nationalist
'territorial trap and share the same flawed
assumptions as the nationalists they are
managing may indeed provide them with models
of 'national success. They are in a weak
position to 'preach or teach.
16Some more conclusions
- But we should not simply counterpose resolution
to management, or integration to
consociation in both cases the latter is a
prerequisite for the former. - Peace-processes are better seen and planned
dynamically, as moving from an emphasis on
consociational measures to end the more serious
violence and conflict, towards concentrating on
politics which encourage the growth of political
communities which straddle, cross-cut, under-cut
or transcend ethnic divisions and territorial
borders. - The resolution of ethno-national conflict will
not come from moral appeals to agree a
compromise or an integrated identity.
Paradoxically, it will only come through other,
more productive disagreements and conflicts about
other issues on a non-ethno-national,
non-territorial basis. - Good fences do not make good neighbours. But nor
can weak fences. Only the neighbours themselves
can.