Is nationalism the cause or consequence of the end of empire?

Abstract

This chapter addresses the question of whether and to what degree nationalism was the cause or the consequence of imperial collapse. We go about this task in four steps. The first three steps use quantitative data that cover most of the world since 1816. In the first step, we simply analyze the temporal relationship between the transition from empire to nation-state and the foundation of nationalist organizations. We find that in the overwhelming majority, the latter precedes the former. We then proceed to a more fine-grained analysis and ask whether these nationalist organizations were perhaps inspired by imperial retreat from other parts of the empire, such that a partial imperial breakdown would further fuel the flames of nationalism elsewhere. No such effect emerges, however. In the third step, we determine whether nationalist mobilization is a cause for the individual transitions from empire to nation-state observed in the history of today's countries and find this to be the case, even if we take a host of other factors into account (including the weakening of empire through wars).In the fourth and most important step, we go beyond these coarse quantitative analyses and shift to empires as units of analysis, asking to what degree nationalism caused imperial collapse. Discussing the d e m i s eo ft h eO t t o m a n ,H a b s b u r g ,F r e n c h ,B r i t i s h ,P o r t u g u e s ea n d Soviet empires, we assess the varying degrees to which nationalist movements contributed to each imperial collapse and the extent to which each transition was due to other, unrelated factors, including the voluntary retreat of empire or the breakdown of empire due to defeat in international wars. We find that in all cases of imperial collapse nationalist movements played an important, and sometimes, crucial role (for the opposing view, see Betts

The decomposition of the Danish imperial monarchy

“…This lends support to the theories with which we began. Most obviously, this case fits in with the general insistence that nationalism destroyed empires (Hiers and Wimmer ). But support is also lent to Wimmer's suggestion that early civil society associations crossing ethnic boundaries are needed if a multiethnic nation‐state is to be created (Wimmer 2001: 247).…”

“…It is worth emphasising that secessionist movements have been defanged recently by the granting of voice, of varied kinds, not least in Aceh and in Tamil Nadu (Subramanian . But no empire was able to do this, with Wimmer himself insisting on seeing nationalism as a basic cause of imperial decline (Hiers and Wimmer ). Why was decompression impossible?…”

“…Some believe that the liberal experiments of the final years of the empire would have succeeded but for the impact of war. In contrast, others insist that nationalism would have destroyed the Habsburgs in the end, with Wimmer rejecting the ‘geopolitical view’ on the grounds that Austro‐Hungary might have collapsed before 1914 had the great powers not been determined to maintain its territorial status (Hiers and Wimmer ) . Given such disagreement, there is everything to be said for turning to Danish history as it can cast considerable light on the matter.…”

Still No Robust Evidence for World Polity Theory

“…Focusing on the French case, it suffices to say here that the decolonization of French West Africa owes much to the pressure of nationalist movements elsewhere in the empire—the defeat in Indochina in 1954, the violent nationalist struggle in Algeria, and the massive violence necessary to suppress an earlier Madagascar uprising against colonial rule. All of this is quite in line with the historical institutionalist argument about the specific configurations of power that make the creation of nation-states possible (for details, see Hiers and Wimmer 2013). Compared to these historical developments, the influence of discussions in UN committees, the International Postal Union, or the Afro-Malagasy Industrial Property Office (to cite just three of the IGOs considered in the corresponding dataset) must have been rather subtle indeed.…”

“…Historical institutionalism, on the other hand, does offer a diffusionist argument about why the nation-state model became the most attractive political organization in the modern world. As briefly mentioned in the original article and as one of us argued in detail elsewhere (Hiers and Wimmer 2013;Kroneberg and Wimmer 2012;Wimmer 2013), the first nation-states (e.g., Great Britain, France, and the United States) offered a new exchange relationship with the population: political participation for military support and taxes for public goods. The new relationship made these states more legitimate and more powerful than others because there was less resistance to raising taxes, the population had a stake in the political destiny of these states, and governments could mobilize the entire population for military service.…”