Gellner's Theory Research Articles

The Nation as Propertied Community: The Emergence of Nationalism in the United States and Norway

AbstractThis article engages in the debate about the origins and nature of nationalism. The argument is a modernist one, but it qualifies this narrative by focusing on landed property rights as the basis for the emergence and development of nationalism. The argument complements Ernest Gellner's theory of nationalism by suggesting that nationalism was at first a landed agrarian phenomenon which later became ideologically functional to industrial society due to its property assumptions. A historical‐sociological comparative analysis of land rights and national development in the United States and Norway between 1770 and 1884 forms the basis of the argument. The key point is that nationalism emerged as a consequence of the emergence of the more widespread individual ownership of land, which spawned the idea of national popular sovereignty. This original connection to property rights made nationalism ideologically functional for industrial society.

The importance of being Ernest: a Comment on Riga and Hall

AbstractErnest Gellner's work on nationalism continues to draw a mix of both admiration and criticism. In a recent article, Riga and Hall find fault with a new line of criticism of Gellner's theory of nationalism that I introduced in a series of articles in this journal. They claim that I have merely repeated a well‐known criticism of Gellner – that his work is functionalist. This would be convenient for their arguments if it were true. While I would agree, and have explicitly acknowledged, that there is nothing new in the charge of functionalism, I do not take a functionalist line on Gellner. Functionalism is not the issue. My work shows that his theory of nationalism is plagued with problems that have little or nothing to do with functionalism.

The Gellnerian modality revisited: towards a ‘genealogy’ of cultural homogenization and nation-state congruency

This paper re-evaluates Ernest Gellner's theory of nations and nationalism and particularly his conceptions of cultural homogenization and congruency. The paper shows how Gellner's historical and epistemological stance naturalizes homogenization processes and rationalizes modern history as an inevitable trajectory of congruency making of states and nations. The paper proposes, nonetheless, to deploy a critical framework and read Gellner's notions of congruency and cultural homogenization as a ‘social imaginary’/‘fantasy’. That is, understanding congruency as a sociopolitical project that idealizes a certain imaginary as positive, necessary and inevitable – a ‘fantasy’ that sets to secure and stabilize discursively the contingency of social relations. It is suggested, moreover, to deploy a Foucauldian genealogical technique in an attempt to de-naturalize congruency and homogenization practices and expose the conditions of their emergence in modern history.

Ancient Chinese Mathematics in Action: Wu Wen-Tsun's Nationalist Historicism After the Cultural Revolution

The article attempts to theoretically explain the origins of the nationalist and historicist turn of the Chinese mathematician Wu Wen-Tsun (born 1919). Wu returned to China from France in 1951 as an internationally recognized expert on algebraic topology, but his career was frustrated by political disruption and isolation from international research, especially during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). After he studied ancient Chinese mathematics during the 1974 campaign against Confucianism (Pi Lin Pi Kong 批林批孔), he defended its relevance for modern mathematics and set out to demonstrate it in his own work. This coincided with Wu's reorientation from algebraic topology to mechanization of geometric proofs. Wu claimed that ancient Chinese mathematics inspired the method he developed, both by its general style and by specific techniques. His use of ancient Chinese mathematics was connected to his calls for an independent mathematical tradition in China. I argue that he turned to nationalism to protect himself from the “uneven development” of mathematics, in analogy to Ernest Gellner's theory of nationalism. The early success of his method of mechanization, however, resulted in more dependence on world mathematics, and a revival of ancient Chinese mathematics has not occurred.

Defending the Gellnerian premise: Denmark in historical and comparative context

ABSTRACT.The teleological functionalism of Gellner's theory of nationalism has been much criticised. Attention here is on a different matter, namely Gellner's basic premise – that national homogeneity is a condition for societal success. We defend this view in a particular way – by showing that small, culturally homogeneous countries have advantages that often enhance their socioeconomic performance. They can coordinate policy in ways that help them respond successfully to the vulnerabilities of smallness. These capacities stem in part from the common bonds of nationalism and the resulting institutional capabilities for co‐operation, sacrifice, flexible manoeuvring, and concerted state action. The argument is supported by a detailed analysis of the Danish case – a country whose impressive success has been deeply marked both by a diminution in size and an increase in national homogeneity. Less detailed examples of other countries are also presented. The conclusion urges caution as to the policy implications of the argument.

Max Weber on Nations and Nationalsim: Political Economy before Political Sociology

Abstract: Although Weber voiced doubts about the scientific value of the concepts of and in his work one can detect the outlines of two theories of nation. In the political-sociological theory (exposed in Economy and Society), the is understood as a status group united by common historical memory and fighting for the prestige of power and culture with other nations. Besides that, in his early work Weber outlines the political-economical (or national-economical) theory of nation, conceiving as the organizational form of economic association which is optimal in the fight for elbow-room in the globalized Malthusian world as described by the classical model of long-term economic dynamics. Weberian political-economical concept of nations and nationalism is explicated using recent idea of rent-seeking, and is applied to highlight the deficiencies of the prevailing E.Gellner-E.Hobsbawm-B.Anderson theory of nations and nationalism. Resume: Bien que Weber ait des hesitations concernant la valeur scientifique des notions de la nation et l'ethnicite c'est possible distinguer les esquisses des deux theories de la dons ses travaux. La theorie politique-sociologique (en Economie et societe) define la comme une groupe de statut uni par la memoire historique commune, qui se battre contre les autres nations pour prestige de pouvoir et culture. Dons ses travaux premiers Weber profile aussi la theorie politique-economique (ou national-economique) de la nation. Ici la est conceptualisee comme une formed' organisation de association economique, qui est optimale pour la pour l'espace vitale dans le monde scion Malthus (comme il c'est decrit dons medele classique de la dynamique economique d'une longue duree) globalisee. La conception weberienne politique-economique des nations et nationalisme est reconstruite an utilisant la notion contemporaine des lutte pour des rentes (rent-seeking). Cette conception est aussi utilise pour exposer les defauts de in theorie de la et nationalisme de E.Gellner-E. Hobsbawm-B.Anderson, qui prevaut jusqu' a present. Introduction In one of his essays comparing the theoretical views of Max Weber and Ernest Gellner, Perry Anderson noted: Whereas Weber was so bewitched by the of nationalism that he was never able to theorize it, Gellner has theorized nationalism without detecting the spell (Anderson, P. 1992: 205). Anderson wants to say that Gellner's theory of nationalism (Gellner 1983, Gellner 1994) cannot explain the attractiveness of the ideas of nationalism. About Weber, Perry Anderson claims that although the famous German sociologist in his political views was an ardent German nationalist, he had no well-considered concept of nations and nationalism, and unreflectively adopted the dominant ideology in Wilhelmine Germany. In my paper, drawing on Weber's early writings (some of them became more accessible only after their reprint in his Gesamtausgabe), I try to reconstruct Weber's early political-economic (or national-economic) concept of nation. This is done in the second section of my paper. The first section discusses the later and more widely known political-sociological concept of nation, which is documented by Economy and Society, and the publications during the First World War. In the fourth and concluding section, I will try to evaluate both of Weber's concepts of from the viewpoint of the contemporary discussion about nations and nationalism. Most importantly, I will attempt to show here how Weber's early political-economic concept of nations and nationalism can be useful for the revival of the political-economic concept of nationhood which has unfortunately been eclipsed in current discussions. But firstly, I must explain how my contribution is related to the existing body of literature on Weber's notions about nations and nationalism. One of the reasons why Perry Anderson and other authors writing about the irrationalism and arbitrariness of Weber's nationalism (1) do not find the conceptual foundations of his political choice, is that in their searches they restrict themselves to the quite fragmentary chapters of Weber's Economy and Society devoted to ethnicity and nations, written between 1910 and 1914, and not prepared by Weber himself for publication. …

Expliquer le nationalisme: les contradictions d'Ernest Gellner

Ernest Gellner's theory of nationalism is founded on a simplistic and deceptive materialistic reasoning, masking the tension between functionalist postulates and historicist inclinations. Various methods are used to resolve this tension. Initially, idealism is introduced into the body of the analysis. When this becomes too visible, the nature of the materialism displayed is discretely modified. Relational materialism — a dynamic articulation between relations to the means of production and relations between classes — gives way to substantialist materialism — based on a mechanical opposition between the means of production and ethno-linnguistic attributes. The use of a consistent vocabulary obscures the elision between the two: ‘structure’ and ‘culture’ are alternatively defined in relational or in substantialist terms. Gellner then returns to relational considerations which make his explanation all the more unclear.

The State of the nation: Ernest Gellner and the theory of nationalism

Introduction John A. Hall Part I. The Making of the Theory: 1. Thoughts about change: Ernest Gellner and the history of nationalism Roman Szporluk 2. Ernest Gellner's diagnoses of nationalism: a critical overview, or, what is living and what is dead in Ernest Gellner's philosophy of nationalism Brendan O'Leary Part II. The Classical Criticisms: 3. Real and constructed: the nature of the nation Miroslav Hroch 4. The curse of rurality: limits of modernisation theory Tom Nairn 5. Nationalism and language: a post-Soviet perspective David Laitin 6. Ernest Gellner's theory of nationalism: some definitional and methodological issues Nicos Mouzelis Part III. Bringing Politics Back In: 7. Nationalisms that bark and nationalisms that bite: Ernest Gellner and the substantiation of nations Mark Beissinger 8. Nationalism and modernity Charles Taylor 9. Modern multi-national democracies: transcending a Gellnerian oxymoron Alfred Stepan Part IV. Wider Implications: 10. Nationalism and civil society in Central Europe: from Ruritania to the Carpathian Euroregion Chris Hann 11. From here to modernity: Ernest Gellner on nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism Dale F. Eickelman 12. Myths and misconceptions in the study of nationalism Rogers Brubaker.

Memory and modernity: reflections on Ernest Gellner's theory of nationalism

Memory and modernity: reflections on Ernest Gellner's theory of nationalism

Explaining monoculturalism: Beyond Gellner's theory of nationalism

For Ernest Gellner, nationalism occurs in the modern period because industrial societies, unlike agrarian ones, need homogeneous languages and cultures in order to work efficiently. Thus, states an...

Culture, structure and development: An alternative perspective∗

This article sets out to explore the role of culture in development, and in particular the ways in which the relationship between culture and structure may influence possibilities of development By means of an analysis of theoretical problems inherent in the culture of poverty thesis, it attempts to identify some of the preconditions for a successful theory of culture and development. In particular attention is focused on the power relationships and inequalities between cultures within the context of the contemporary national state. A theoretical framework which utilises Ernest Gellner's theory of culture and nationalism in industrial societies is proposed, and some of the implications for development research and practice are considered.

Responses to a Picture-Object Sorting test by two Groups of Moderately Retarded Children

SummaryThis investigation evaluated 2 groups of mentally retarded institutionalized Ss on a picture-object sorting task. Ss included 60, mentally retarded institutionalized residents ranging in CA from 10.3–31.8; MA 4.0–7.2; and IQ 22–54. These two groups were matched on CA, MA, and IQ and paired on perceptual functioning on the basis of Gellner Classifications. 30 Ss were classified as Auditory Autonomic-major difficulties in abstraction and in word comprehension and 30 did not have this classification. 35 colored pictures illustrating a variety of situations were administered with 30 small toy objects to be sorted for each picture. 15 objects applied and 15 were not suitable. (1050 total objects sorted per S). Results showed that the Auditory Autonomic Ss performed less well on this type task. Implications in terms of concept formation and the Gellner theory were discussed.

Responses of Retarded Children on Three and Two Dimensional Visual Tasks

This study attempted to evaluate the performance of two groups of mentally retarded children on 3 dimensional objects and 2 dimensional colored pictures. A total of 30 mentally retarded children residing at the Columbus State Institute were divided into 2 groups paired on perceptual functioning in relation to visual motor tasks. The groups were also paired on CA, MA, and IQ. In random order, 180 objects and colored pictures (90 of each) were presented. Results showed that subjects with severe visual motor handicaps scored significantly lower than those who had minimal visual motor handicaps on identification of 3 dimensional objects and total scores. There were no significant differences on the picture scores between the 2 groups. Implications of these results in terms of the Gellner theory are discussed.