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Liberal nationalist versus postnational social integration: on the nation's ethno‐cultural particularity and ‘concreteness’ *
Author(s) -
Abizadeh Arash
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
nations and nationalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.655
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1469-8129
pISSN - 1354-5078
DOI - 10.1111/j.1354-5078.2004.00165.x
Subject(s) - nationalism , reification (marxism) , argument (complex analysis) , normative , sociology , democracy , concreteness , politics , ethnic group , political economy , liberalism , nationality , epistemology , political science , positive economics , law and economics , law , anthropology , economics , philosophy , immigration , biochemistry , chemistry
. Liberal nationalists advance two claims: (1) an empirical claim that nationalism is functionally indispensable to the viability of liberal democracy (because it is necessary to social integration) and (2) a normative claim that some forms of nationalism are compatible with liberal democratic norms. The empirical claim is often supported, against postnationalists' view that social integration can bypass ethnicity and nationality, by pointing to the inevitable ethnic and cultural particularities of all political institutions. I argue that (1) the argument that ethno‐cultural particularity demonstrates the need for nationalist integration depends on an implausible reification of national identity at the level of social theory, and that (2) this reification ironically serves to undermine liberal nationalists' normative claim.