Conference paper

Democracy and Nationalism - Unity or Contradiction?

Egbert Jahn ; University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany

Abstract

ln Eastern Europe democracy has only one, in most cases certainly very
small and weak chance, namely as a national democracy, as dcmocracy in nation
stutes with a more or less explicitly pronounced raison d'etat. A nation state
is thought of exclusively as an ethnocracy, as self-determination of the people
in an ethnic sense, as thc rule of the nation (ethnos) over itself. The East
cannot imitate the Western history of state nationalism and of the development
of Western democracy; it must create democracy and the state of law out of
its own experiencecs and historical presuppositions. The creation of a nation
state through ethnonationalism is clearly a historical presupposition for the
coming into being of stable states, which is an inavoidable condition for the
development of economic and cultural aspects of civic society as well as of
democratic structures.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

112186

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/112186

Publication date:

1.12.1992.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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