The Experts below are selected from a list of 130659 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Runa Das - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Nation, Gender and Representations of (In)Securities in Indian Politics
European Journal of Women's Studies, 2008Co-Authors: Runa DasAbstract:This article examines the relationship between gender, nations and Nationalisms vis-a-vis the Indian state's nationalist identity and perceptions of (in)security. It explores how the postcolonial Indian state's project of nation-building — reflective of a western secular-modern identity (under the Congress Party) and a -dominated identity (under the BJP) — incorporates gender, with continuities and discontinuities, to articulate divergent forms of nationalist/communalist identities, `cartographic anxieties' and nuclear (in)securities. The article contends that with the recent rise of the Hindu-Right BJP, guided by ideology, the nature of representing the Indian nation, its women and (in)securities has changed from a geopolitical to a cultural perception — thereby necessitating a rereading of the Indian nation, Nationalism, gender and its perceptions of (in)security.
Veljko Vujačić - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Historical legacies, nationalist mobilization, and political outcomes in Russia and Serbia: A Weberian view
Theory and Society, 1996Co-Authors: Veljko VujačićAbstract:In the preceding analysis, I attempt to demonstrate the usefulness of some of Weber's key theoretical ideas on nations, Nationalism, and imperialism by way of a comparative examination of contemporary Russian and Serbian Nationalism. More specifically, I try to show how long-term historical and institutional legacies, shared memories, and defining political experiences, played themselves out in the contemporary period, influencing the different availability of mass constituencies in Russia and Serbia for nationalist mobilization under the auspices of new “empire-saving coalitions.” But political outcomes are never wholly pre-determined as historical legacies are subject to different cultural interpretations and political contest. To put it simply, Nationalism is made and remade by politicians and ideologists; and there is no need to gloss over the frequently bloody and unpredictable consequences of their struggles with unduly abstract sociological generalizations. Instead, we should theorize our narratives, while giving contingency its place. I suggest that the presence of a highly symbolic issue (such as the World War Two experiences of Serbs in Croatia, the mythology of Kosovo, Sevastopol or the mythology of the Russian fleet), which touches on the core historical mythology of one “nation,” but is contested by another on different grounds (demographic, ethnic, or for reasons of “historical justice,” for example) increases the likelihood of national conflicts. Once highly symbolic issues are involved, national conflicts quickly assume the form of struggles over “ultimate values” not subject to compromise and conflict-regulation. However, as the Russian case demonstrates, other symbolic legacies (the experience of Stalinism) might be powerful enough to override Nationalism. I also suggest in this article a few simple ways in which we can interpret, and possibly, test the likelihood of the emergency of national conflicts: the significance of prestige considerations, the absence of compensatory mechanisms such as economic prosperity, the egalitarian character of nationalist appeals, the dynamic of status-reversal, and the theory of the superimposition of conflicts. To understand the exclusivist overtones of much of contemporary Nationalism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, however, it would also be necessary to pay more attention to the political-cultural and social-structural legacy of Communist rule. The prevalence of uncompromising stances among political leaders, the absence of mechanisms of conflict-regulation, the hostility to proceduralism and legal mechanisms as a means of resolving the emerging “national questions,” and the appeal of the new Nationalism to “state-dependent” and traditionalist strata are among the most important elements of this legacy.
Hizky Shoham - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The Israel BBQ as national ritual: performing unofficial Nationalism, or finding meaning in triviality
American Journal of Cultural Sociology, 2019Co-Authors: Hizky ShohamAbstract:Concerned with how nationalist cultural codes are embedded in everyday life, studies of “Nationalism-from-below” mistake nationalist meanings for the contents of official messages. Rather than studying the reception of spectacles and symbols produced from above, the article suggests looking at unofficial Nationalism and focusing on the nationalist meanings of traditions and customs—especially those related to ritual and food—that are common to broad strata of the population but have almost no state involvement. Using the anthropological history of Israeli Independence Day as an exemplary case, and focusing on how people spend their country’s national day, the article examines the failure of official Nationalism to design the holiday’s popular traditions. Next it surveys the development of what has become the popular mode of celebrating the day—the picnic and cookout. In due course, this practice was ritualized and iconized as representing “Israeliness,” an identity that is more ambivalent than the seamless images circulated from above. I argue that the meanings of unofficial practices, because of their triviality, lie not in the symbolic codes they enact, but rather in the synchronicity that ritualizes and iconizes a “way of life,” forms national solidarity, and imbues the performance with nationalist meanings.
Arash Abizadeh - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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on the demos and its kin Nationalism democracy and the boundary problem
American Political Science Review, 2012Co-Authors: Arash AbizadehAbstract:Cultural–nationalist and democratic theory both seek to legitimize political power via collective self-rule: Their principle of legitimacy refers right back to the very persons over whom political power is exercised. But such self-referential theories are incapable of jointly solving the distinct problems of legitimacy and boundaries, which they necessarily combine, once it is assumed that the self-ruling collectivity must be a prepolitical, in principle bounded, ground of legitimacy. Cultural Nationalism claims that political power is legitimate insofar as it expresses the nation's prepolitical culture, but it cannot fix cultural–national boundaries prepolitically. Hence the collapse into ethnic Nationalism. Traditional democratic theory claims that political power is ultimately legitimized prepolitically, but cannot itself legitimize the boundaries of the people. Hence the collapse into cultural Nationalism. Only once we recognize that the demos is in principle unbounded, and abandon the quest for a prepolitical ground of legitimacy, can democratic theory fully avoid this collapse of demos into nation into ethnos. But such a theory departs radically from traditional theory.
Alejandro Quiroga - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Spanish Nationalism
Ethnicities, 2005Co-Authors: Diego Muro, Alejandro QuirogaAbstract:In recent years, it has been a common complaint among scholars to acknowledge the lack of research on Spanish Nationalism. This article addresses the gap by giving an historical overview of ‘ethnic' and ‘civic' Spanish nationalist discourses during the last two centuries. It is argued here that Spanish Nationalism is not a unified ideology but it has, at least, two varieties. During the 19th-century, both a ‘liberal' and a ‘conservative-traditionalist' nationalist discourse were formulated and these competed against each other for hegemony within the Spanish market of ideas. In the 20th-century, these two discourses continued to be present and became backbones of different political regimes. However, after the emergence of the Basque and Catalan nationalist movements, Spanish nationalists unified as a counter-force to these regional sources of identity. In fact, one can see 20th-century Spanish Nationalism as a dialectical struggle between the centre and the periphery.
