The Rise of Nationality. NATIONALITY Nationality is distinct from Race and Ethnicity. Race is a term descendants of western Europeans use to classify.

The Rise of Nationality

NATIONALITY

Nationality is distinct from Race and Ethnicity.

Race is a term descendants of western Europeans use to classify the indigenous peoples of other places.

Ethnicity is a term used to identify groups who share a specific cultural inheritance.

Nationality refers to the country/state in which an individual is born and holds citizenship.

If ethnicity refers to shared cultural values like mentifacts and artifacts, nationality refers here to shared identity through sociofacts and legal attachment to country through voting, civil rights, civic duties, citizenship, etc…

The US and Canada are multi-ethnic states because they are states composed or more than one ethnic group.

NATIONALITY

The United StatesThe United States has attempted to de-emphasize ethnic identity and use national identity and nationality as a centripetal force.

Remember the three eras (colonial, 19th century and modern) of migration and the source regions of migrants. America is a country composed of a number of distinct ethnic groups.

Strong ethnic identity can be a centrifugal force

In order to create a unified country, the US emphasized not individual ethnic identity but shared national identity through the values of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution… equality, rights, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, justice, etc.

Citizenship and voting rights were added to American national identity over time.

NATIONALITY

CanadaCanada also has a varied ethnic background, but much less diverse.

The Northern territories contain most of the indigenous populations of Canada (Inuit and Metis). The southern provinces are comprised mostly of the descendents of British settlers (including Scotch and Irish), except in Quebec where there are a large number of descendents of French settlers.

The question for Canada is if the Quebecois are “just” a distinct ethnic group within one nationality or form a second nationality of there own.

If a nationality, then Quebec has a stronger case to form a separate state from Canada.

NATION-STATES

Outside of North America, the distinction between ethnicity and nationality gets muddy.

To preserve their unique ethnic identity, many ethnicities assert the right to self-determination (the right to self rule without outside interference) and form nation-states. A nation is an ethnic group that identifies itself as distinct and that has a history of self-determination.

A nation-state is a country/state whose territorial boundaries correspond the the geographic boundaries of a specific ethnic group so that the ethnicity becomes a nationality. Almost all members of the group live in there.

DenmarkDenmark is a nation-state because the territory of Denmark closely follows the territory of the Danish ethnicity.

Nearly all Danes speak Danish, and nearly all of the world’s Danish speakers live in Denmark.

However, 10% of the Danish are ethnic minorities, the largest of which are Turkish and refugees from the former Yugoslavia.

Denmark also controls two territories in the Atlantic whose inhabitant are Danish:

The Faeroe Islands (who speak Faeroese) and Greenland (12% Danish, 88% indigenous greenlanders, primarily Inuit).

Denmark has granted Greenland a locally autonomous government, which adopted Greenlandic placenames and adopted Greenlandic as the official language.

NATION-STATES

European Nation-States

Many European ethnic groups transformed themselves into nationalities during the 19th and 20th centuries.

During that time many larger empires broke down into smaller and smaller nation-states.

Check out the progression on the left.

NATIONALISM

Nationalism is a bit of a tricky term. It operates in three ways:

1) In one sense, it refers to the desire of an ethnic group within larger country/state to exercise its right to self-determination, break away and form its own nation-state.

2) In a second sense, it refers to loyalty and devotion to one’s state/country as a centripetal force (a national pride more accurately called patriotism).

3) In a final sense, it refers to the promotion of one’s own state’s interests above the interests of all other states or of global cooperation (often called jingoism).

NATIONALISM

In all three senses, nationalism acts as a centripetal force, one that attempts to bring unity either to an ethnic group or to an established state/country.

Nationalism uses a number of techniques (usually called propaganda) to create a strong sense of national identity:

Flags Anthems Sports Symbols Holidays

Nationalism can be dangerous in that it often also focuses on negative images, stereotypes and attitudes about other countries or ethnic groups.

MULTINATIONALSTATES

Multinational states are types of multi-ethnic states that contain two or more ethnic groups with strong traditions of self-determination.

Each group recognizes the other groups as nations (nationalities), but the various nations decide to coexist within a single state/country.

One group may try to dominate others, or they may coexist peacefully. One group may try to assimilate another or acculturate into another, or the nations may preserve their unique identities. Some countries may devolve some amount of power to locally autonomous regions.

The United KingdomThe UK contains four major nationalities: England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland.

Wales was formally united with England in 1536 and exists as a local government unit.

Scotland formally united in 1707 and Scotland retains its own laws and education system. England, Wales and Scotland are called Great Britain.

Northern Ireland remained under British rule after the southern 5/6 of the island became independent in the 1920s.

The various nations coexist for the most part peacefully these days as a whole.

Distinct national identities emerge most strongly in professional sports, with each nation fielding its own professional soccer and rugby teams and competing separately.

MULTINATIONALSTATES

The former USSRThe USSR was a massive multinational state until its collapse in the early 1991.

It was comprised of 15 republics, each based on the largest ethnic groups. Smaller ethnic groups existed but were not recognized as republics.

Some ethnic groups were given some mount of power and recognized as nationalities, other, smaller groups were suppressed in the Russification of the country.

When the USSR fell, the 15 republics became their own states

Three Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania

Three European States: Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine

Five Central Asian States: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

Three Caucasus States: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia

Russia

The Baltic, European and some of the Central Asian states are decent examples of nation-states.

However, the Caucasus states and Russia experience high levels of ethnic fighting.

MULTINATIONALSTATES

Baltic Nation-States

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are called Baltic States because of their location on the Baltic Sea.

They existed independently after WWI but were annexed into Russia in 1940.

Lithuania is closest to being a nation-state.

COUNTRY ETHNICITY RELIGION LANGUAGE

LITHUANIA 85% Lithuanian Catholic majority Indo-European

ESTONIA 69% Estonians Lutheran majority Uralic

LATVIA 59% Latvians Lutheran MajorityLarge Catholic minority

Indo-European

MULTINATIONALSTATES

European Nation-StatesThe new European states do not qualify as well as nation-states for various reasons.

COUNTRY ENTHINICTY RELIGION LANGUAGE

BELARUS 81% Belarusians Majority Orthodox Catholic

East Slavic

MOLDOVA 78% Moldovans Majority Orthodox Catholic

East Slavic

UKRAINE 78% Ukrainians Majority Orthodox Catholic

East Slavic

Belarusians and Ukrainians became distinct ethnicities after being separated from the Russians (Eastern Slavs) by various invasions in the 1300-1400s.

When Russia re-conquered the areas in the 1700s, 500 years of non-Slavic influence had made the two distinct from each other and from the Russian eastern-Slavs.

Moldovans, however, are ethnically identical to Romanians, and Moldova was a part of Romania until it was taken by Russia in 1940.

However, when Russia took over, they increased the size of Moldova by adding to it a chunk of the Ukraine. In that chunk (Trans-Dneister), the majority are Ukrainian and Russian and oppose Moldovan reunification with Romania.

MULTINATIONALSTATES

Central Asian StatesThe new central Asian states fit the definition of a nation-state to varying degrees.

However, they provide a good example of why multinational states are often more peaceful than nation-states.

COUNTRY ETHNICITY RELIGION LANGUAGE

TURKMENISTAN 85% Turkmen(also in Russia)

Muslim Altaic

UZBEKISTAN 80% Uzbek(also in Kyrgyz and

Tajik)

Muslim Altaic

KYRGYZSTAN 69% Kyrgyz15% Uzbek 9% Russian

Muslim Altaic

KAZAKHSTAN 67% Kazakh18% Russians

MuslimOrthodox

AltaicIndo-Euro

TAJIKISTAN 80% Tajik15% Uzbek1% Russian

MuslimMuslim

Orthodox

Indo-EuropeanAltaic

Indo-Euro

STATUSPeaceful

Peaceful

Kyrgyz hate Russians for stealing farmland

Peaceful due to economy

Infighting in Tajik group between former communists and Muslim fundamentalists

MULTINATIONALSTATES

RussiaRussia recognizes 39 nationalities within its borders, many of whom want independence.

Overall 20% of Russia’s population is non-Russian, but some areas have particularly high number of non-russians.

Many of these groups are clustered either along southern borders with other countries or in the western corner of the country near the Volga.

Independence movements in various places are flourishing because Russia is less willing to suppress the movements than the Soviet Union was.

Chechens have been particularly troublesome.

Chechnya came under Russian control in the 1800s. When the USSR fell, Chechens declared independence, but Russia ignored the declaration.

In 1994, Russia sent troops into Chechnya to set an example to other ethnic separatists and to control petroleum deposits in the regions so that it could attract foreign investment.

MULTINATIONALSTATES

The Caucasus StatesThe Caucasus region sits between the Black and Caspian Seas just north of Turkey and Iran. The region is home to numerous ethnicities:

Major (Azeris, Armenians, Georgians)Moderate (Abkhazian, Chechens, Ingush, Ossetians)Minor but major elsewhere (Kurds, Russians)

The whole region was a part of the USSR who promoted allegiance to communism and squashed ethnic disputes.

Since the fall of the USSR, long-simmering conflicts have erupted again, as most ethnicities have grievances against most of the others.

Most also want to carve out their own nations.

The Caucasus is called a shatterbelt because of the disparity between ethnic and national boundaries and because of the desire of so many ethnicities to create new states.

MULTINATIONALSTATES

Azerbaijan Armenia GeorgiaAzeris are turks who migrated to the area in 8th and 9th centuries and blended with local Persians.

In 1828, northern Azeri territory was given to Russia and the Southern territory to Persia (Iran).

In 1991, Soviet Azerbaijan became an independent country but the western portion of the country is fragmented by a corridor of Armenia.

91% of Azerbaijanis are Azeri, but 24% of Iranians are also Azeri.

While Iranian Azeri’s participate in the government and economy, the language is restricted.

Armenians controlled an independent kingdom in the area over3,000 years ago.

When they converted to Christianity in 303, they lived as an isolated Christian enclave under Turkish Muslim rule.

In the late 19th century, the Turks massacred hundreds of thousands of Armenians and others were forced to migrate to Russian Armenia.

In 1921, Turkey and the USSR divided Armenia between them.

Soviet Armenia became independent in 1991. Armenians comprise 98% of Armenia.

Azeris and Armenians have both formed distinct nation-states.

However, the two now battle over the border between them, especially concerning an enclave of Armenians in Azerbaijan called Nagorno Karabakh.

After a 1994 cease-fire, the region now acts like an independent republic.

Georgia’s population is more diverse than the other two.

84% Georgian, 7% Azeri, 6% Armenian, 2% Russian, 3% Abkhazian/Ajar/Ossetian

Abkhazians and Ossetians have caused trouble in Georgia.

In the 1990s, Abkhazia declared Abkhazia to be an independent state

In 2008, Ossetians fought a war and declared South Ossetia to be an independent state.

Russia has recognized both independent states and sent troops to support them.

ETHNICREVIVAL

Multinational states encourage national rather than ethnic identity as a centripetal force to hold together larger groups of peoples.

Karl Marx, while criticized nationalism as a way for the wealthy to suppress the poor laboring class and proposed to replace ethnic identity with labor-class identity.

Communist leaders in Eastern Europe suppressed ethnic identities, forcing writers and artists to use “socialist realism,” suppressing local languages for Russian and minimizing the role of organized religion.

With the fall of communism, ethnic identity has returned over much or Europe, especially Eastern Europe.

The dissolution of the USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia gave numerous ethnicities the opportunity to form nation-states.

Minority ethnicities, however, found themselves either as minorities in multinational states or divided between numerous states.

The dissolution of the USSR, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia occurred largely because smaller ethnic groups opposed the dominance and oppression of the major ethnic group in the region.

Russians in the USSR; Serbs in Yugoslavia; Czechs in Czechoslovakia

Slovenia

Slovenia emerged from the former Yugoslavia.

Slovenes comprise 83% of the population, and almost all Slovenes live in Slovenia.

Because of the very close overlap of the borders of Slovenia and the territory of the Slovenes, Slovenia has been very peaceful.