6 New Conventions for Old
This chapter continues the examination of forms of conventionalism. It focuses on
nationalism, neo-Aristotelianism, and republicanism. Each of these doctrines tries
self-consciously to recover and reconstitute an older foundationalist conventionalist
language. The most recent of these has been republicanism, which has only begun
to make headway in the last decade, but now has a growing following within the
discipline of theory. Republicanism has though a problematic relationship with both
communitarianism and neo-Aristotelianism. Both the latter doctrines, for example,
can be seen as extensions or mutations of the republican arguments. Yet this is again
hotly contested by many contemporary republicans. However, one of the starkest and
most troubling of these conventionalist vocabularies is nationalism. In many ways,
although like republicanism and neo-Aristotelianism, an older vocabulary of nine-
teenth and early twentieth century politics, it nonetheless generates much stronger
feelings and reactions than most other doctrines. In fact, both the latter doctrines are
uniformly violently opposed to nationalism in much of their recent output. Nation-
alism has had, in fact, an immensely complex and tangled relationship with twentieth
century politics and still appears as a crucial, if ambiguous, driving force in twenty-
first century politics. It has also had a problematic relation with political theory in
general over the same period, although it now has a number of enthusiastic lib-
eral devotees. Unlike other conventionalist theories, though, nationalism contains a
more ambivalent and unwieldy body of ideas. It has also had a more direct relation
to ideological theory and political practice than any other form of conventionalist
argument. This alone has made many political theorists deeply uncomfortable. This
chapter will sketch the conventionalist arguments employed by recent nationalist,
neo-Aristotelians, and republicans over the last decade.
Nationalism
Basically, there have been two broad approaches to nationalism within the twentieth
century political theory. The first has opposed any linkage with nationalism. The sense
of deep disquiet with nationalism, in many theorists, was profoundly influenced—on
theoretical and practical levels—by the events surrounding the Second World War.
The ideological practices of national socialism and fascism marked out national-
ism for especial odium. Many academic commentators, from the post-1945 period
up to 1989, consequently saw nationalism as tribalist, potentially totalitarian, and