chapter 29
...................................................................................................................................................NATIONALISM
...................................................................................................................................................david miller
1 Introduction
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Articles of this kind often begin with a short and snappy deWnition of the
concept to be discussed, but, desirable as this might seem, in the case of
nationalism any attempt at such a deWnition would inevitably exclude some
part of this large and complex idea. There are many forms of nationalism to
be found in political theory, just as there are many varieties of nationalism in
practical politics. In lieu of a precise deWnition, we can perhaps characterize
nationalism as having three core elements.
TheWrst of these is simply the idea that nations are real: that there is
something that diVerentiates people who belong to one nation from those
who belong to its neighbors. Poles are diVerent from Germans, Canadians
from Americans. There are diVerent views about what that something is—the
criteria we use to identify nations—but all nationalists believe that it is more
than just the fact of membership in a particular state. Germans are not simply
people who happen to be citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Nationalists need not deny that political boundaries have, over the course
of history, helped to form the nations that now exist, but the key point is that,
whatever story we tell about their historical origins, nations today are real,
and people who identify with them are not simply deluded.