Abstract
The main aims of this paper are on the one hand to highlight some aspects of the complex and sometimes controversial relationship between nationalism and the state and on the other hand to overcome the traditional ‘civic‐ethnic’ theoretical dichotomy of the mainstream descriptions of ethnonationalism, according to which Western conceptions of the nation based on the principle of citizenship represent the positive example of nationalism while Eastern conceptions based on ethnic, linguistic and cultural principles represent a retrograde and tribalistic approach to nationhood; therefore, the recent bloody ethnic conflicts in Central and Eastern Europe can be only explained by the return of this pre‐modern phenomenon. The two main school of theories of nationalism, the modernist and the ethnicist, will be reviewed through analysis of the key texts of Gellner, Hobsbawm, Anderson, Giddens and Smith, Hutchinson, and Connor respectively. This part will chiefly focus on the question to what extent these explanations of the emergence and proliferation of modern nationalism can be of use as an analytical tool for understanding the nationalist revivals of the 1990s which occurred both in Central/Eastern Europe and in the ‘stateless nations’ of Western Europe. After reviewing the above‐mentioned schools explaining nationalism, the author's own typological triangle of pre‐modern, modem and post‐modern ethnonationalisms will be outlined in the context of post‐modem global politics.
Published Version
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