Reply to Moltchanova’s “A Pragmatic Definition of Nationhood”
I find much to admire in Professor Moltchanova’s paper, in particular, her discussion of potential versus vacuous political cultures, which I hope will be the subject of an expanded discussion in later works. In my comments, however, I will confine myself to her approach to defining nationhood.
What considerations should guide us in giving a definition
of “nation”? That depends on the goal
that motivates our taking on the task.
The etymological approach, for example, looks at the root or roots of
the word as well as the circumstances surrounding its initial coining. (For example, Eric Hobsbawm reports that
prior to 1884 the Spanish word nación
meant “the aggregate of the inhabitants of province, a country or a kingdom”
and also, (rather confusingly) “a foreigner”.)
I think this approach is valuable to the extent that it shows us the
evolution of the term, the progress of which can indicate to modern observers
what political or social forces caused alterations in the term’s usage. (Hobsbawm’s intent is to demonstrate how
relatively modern the contemporary usage of “nation” is.) I do not think that original usages of terms
should be prioritized or that we should assume they are somehow still encoded
in the DNA of the contemporary word. If
our goal is to investigate the concept behind the primary contemporary use of
“nation”, a more direct approach is good old-fashioned conceptual analysis,
whereby definitions are proposed and tested against modern uses of the term in
various contexts. For this approach I do
not see that there are any specific constraints on the definition other than
that either a majority or an expert community should assent to the
results. If one were adopting this
method, one would at least have to consider the common identification of state
with nation implicit in such phrases as International Affairs,
That this is so is no earth-shaking revelation. Her paper, after all, is called “A Pragmatic Definition of Nationhood,” and she makes clear that the purpose her definition is designed to serve is a narrow legal one. However, it is not the case that she intends to offer an entirely new stipulative definition, because her definition, to serve its stated purpose of serving “as an appropriate conceptual background for the settling of self determination claims advanced by different national groups and for the regulation of these groups’ relations in multinational states” [2], must avoid alienating those self-styled national groups, in particular, those of long standing who would presumably be in a position to veto it. We should say, then, that she is offering a precising definition; a definition that captures the important essence of one use of “nation” while sheering away the flabby excess relevant only to alternative or colloquial usages.
Again, this methodology is very common in analytic philosophy, and is the one that most of the writers who have offered definitions of “nation” (such as those aforementioned who distinguish nations from states) have taken. I mention it only because, with this approach in mind, I find the first of Moltchanova’s constraints somewhat puzzling.
I take the point of the struggle to be recognized as a nation in the legal sense that concerns Moltchanova is that the groups concerned assume that nations have at least a prima facie right to statehood. That would mean that a constraint on the definition of “nation” is that such bodies be capable of statehood. (So, for example, size has heretofore been taken to be an important criterion, particularly in the liberal heyday of the principle of nationality in the 19th century[1]; the pejorative term Balkanization was coined to describe the granting of statehood to entities too small to be viable.)
Moltchanova, however, suggests otherwise. She wishes to separate the definition of nation from any normative conclusions about what rights such bodies should possess. She writes of rules adjudicating rights claims of nations that they could equally possibly “recognize the universal right to self-determination but disassociate it from the acquisition of statehood” (p. 1). In fact, as I understand it, her first constraint on the definition of nation is precisely that we cannot assume that nations are by definition entitled to anything:
A definition should not determine the normative content of the principles designed to regulate relations among national groups with respect to their self-determination claims. [2]
However, having said that, she goes on to state:
Hence, the first constraint on a definition of nationhood is that it should not introduce inequality between state and non-state national groups. (2)
This seems to be making the distinct point that the
definition of nation should not give privileged status to those nations that
are already in possession of their own states over nations thus far denied
statehood. Such a constraint makes
sense, but seems almost redundant given that nations would only demand statehood if they lacked it. Perhaps she is suggesting that in a case where
a state is divided between a majority nation which has hegemonic control over
the apparatus of statehood (
Setting aside the background conditions of Moltchanova’s definition for the moment, let us look at the content of her definition. As with Tamir and Miller, who themselves were influenced by Renan, Moltchanova’s definition combines objective and subjective elements. The former to ensure that simply wishing does not make it so (that is, although Benedict Anderson’s description of nations as “imagined communities” has been frequently cited with approval, not just any community can imagine itself into nationhood), the latter to distinguish nations from (politically) passive bodies, like Margalit and Raz’s example of “the fiction-reading public”.[2] Such “combination” views, although they avoid the pitfalls of each individual approach taken by itself, must show that their list of criteria are not arbitrary or unjustly exclusionary, particularly in light of the fact that those lists have been arrived at in an attempt to include nations of long standing. And this is a particular concern given the arbitrating purpose Moltchanova’s definition is intended to serve. Her suggestion is that
a nation is characterized by a political culture which is associated with self-determination and with which people self-identify. (4)
That self-determination is picked as a feature definitive of nations certainly suggests to me that there are grounds for assuming nations have the right to self-determination, but Moltchanova insists that:
The new definition…does not imply the right to self-determination. For example, a group may qualify as a national group because it possesses the right kind of political culture; however, group members may perceive their self-determination as trumping that of others’. In this case they do not have a right to self-determination. (5)
Why, though, would we want to include “being associated with” self-determination into our definition of “nation” if it were not the case that being a nation gave one self-determination rights? It is analogous to making “capability of moral agency” a criterion of personhood, while simultaneously insisting that the issue of whether or not persons have moral standing is to be discussed later.
Furthermore, when Moltchanova fleshes out what the right kind of political culture requires, C1 either appears to be violated or to set the bar to achieving statehood ridiculously high. She writes that individuals share such a political culture, and are thus co-nationals, when “they share their relations to political structures expressing the nation’s self-determining power” [7]. Now, I took C1 to insist that a definition of “nation” should not preclude non-state bodies achieving this status. But can a non-state really have political structures that express self-determining power? Moltchanova’s answer might be that the definition of “political structures” could be stretched, particularly in the case of a potential political culture. But, if the philosophical discussion of abortion has taught us anything it is that potential is not actual, and presumably the interests of actual (in this case state-possessing) nations would therefore automatically take precedence.
Furthermore, even if we can stretch the definition of political structures, it still seems that the criteria of nationhood are incredibly demanding for a status that carries no normative weight. Now it appears that a body that possesses political structures that express self-determining power does not yet have a right to statehood (or even more limited self-government).
Perhaps we can settle this if we suggest that nationhood is a status that bears prima facie rights, but that these can be overridden by practical concerns. Thus, we could divide entities into three groups:
1. Non-nations
2. Nations with actual rights (to statehood, or some lower level of politically recognized self-determination)
3. Nations whose prima-facie rights cannot be realized because of pragmatic concerns (several equally-deserving nations co-existing)
If this is a viable model, then I think we need to alter C1 to read:
Nations must be the kind of bodies that are capable of exercising a right to statehood should circumstances permit that right to be realized.
Admittedly this is vague, and a sophist could argue that an individual could be capable of self-rule should circumstances make her instead several million individuals, but I think the intent is clear.
However, Moltchanova presents the fact that her definition of “nation” does not grant state-rights as an advantage, because it undercuts the worry that groups will undergo “strategic mobilization” to meet the criteria of nationhood if the prize is a right to self-determination (12-13).
But, either the status of nation is completely meaningless,
or it is the case that achieving national status is a crucial stepping-stone to
attaining statehood, in which case I fail to see that the worry has been
undercut. Besides which, if a body has
mobilized to the point that it has political structures, I would say it is
already a potential threat to a state that contains it.
To summarize, as I see it, given Moltchanova’s position, her discussion of nationhood looks like a red herring. If nations are what concern us, either we are interested in codifying our actual, potentially muddled, usage of the term “nation”, in which case C1 makes sense, but this definition is unlikely to be of use to nascent non-state political communities, and be inherently conservative, or, “nation” is defined by analogy with “moral person” as an entity possessing at least prima facie rights, which leaves the door open for novel organizations to claim rights of self-determination (as, for example, Brian Walker’s suggestion of a Queer Nation)[3]. Moltchanova’s view seems to straddle both alternatives uncomfortably.