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In the Name of the NationNationalism: A Means of Taking up the Challenges?

In the Name of the Nation: Nationalism: A Means of Taking up the Challenges? [The example of Russia urges us to reconsider the supposed “death of the nation”: today the nation-state is still the only force proposing to heterogeneous populations that they mutualize their risks and build a minimum of solidarity in the name of a certain community of political culture. It seems difficult to refer to nation as an outdated entity, inasmuch as in Russia it constitutes a unifying slogan. Nationalism thus spans a large social spectrum stretching from the racist violence of skinheads and the population’s massive but vague xenophobia, to the elite’s affirmation of cultural and material satisfaction and the middle classes’ beliefs in a better future. The process of reinventing the nation is all the more fundamental as Russia has been confronted over the last two decades with changes of unprecedented radicality: the loss of its empire, the shrinking of its borders, a change of political regime, social transformations on a major scale, and its opening up to the world. The national narrative therefore conjugates Russia’s coming out of an authoritarian regime with a process of opening up to globalization, which in turn motivates the discourse to take root in the national territory and history. The widely prevalent feeling in Russia of belonging to a specific civilization thereby fits easily with contemporary culturalist theories and the discourse on the right of peoples as a legitimation of anti- or alter-globalization.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

In the Name of the NationNationalism: A Means of Taking up the Challenges?

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan US
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2009
ISBN
978-1-349-38117-3
Pages
13 –48
DOI
10.1057/9780230101234_2
Publisher site
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Abstract

[The example of Russia urges us to reconsider the supposed “death of the nation”: today the nation-state is still the only force proposing to heterogeneous populations that they mutualize their risks and build a minimum of solidarity in the name of a certain community of political culture. It seems difficult to refer to nation as an outdated entity, inasmuch as in Russia it constitutes a unifying slogan. Nationalism thus spans a large social spectrum stretching from the racist violence of skinheads and the population’s massive but vague xenophobia, to the elite’s affirmation of cultural and material satisfaction and the middle classes’ beliefs in a better future. The process of reinventing the nation is all the more fundamental as Russia has been confronted over the last two decades with changes of unprecedented radicality: the loss of its empire, the shrinking of its borders, a change of political regime, social transformations on a major scale, and its opening up to the world. The national narrative therefore conjugates Russia’s coming out of an authoritarian regime with a process of opening up to globalization, which in turn motivates the discourse to take root in the national territory and history. The widely prevalent feeling in Russia of belonging to a specific civilization thereby fits easily with contemporary culturalist theories and the discourse on the right of peoples as a legitimation of anti- or alter-globalization.]

Published: Nov 24, 2015

Keywords: Foreign Policy; Russian Society; National Minority; Legislative Election; Russian Citizen

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