Original scientific paper
Power and Ethnonationalism
Vjeran Katunarić
; Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The fact that modern development does not diminish the importance of ethnonational identity and conflict and the creation of nation-states is explained as an effect of the two-fold action of modern elites, both of the liberal and bolshevik type. The first (i.e. liberal) pattern seeks a universalistic form of legitimization, and it is based on the expansion of economic and (military-)political power in international dimensions: via the world market and (military-)political alliances. This pattern is chronically unstable due to cyclical economic crises and political tension and conflicts. The second pattern is particularistic and based on a deep-level fusion of the power and prestige of elites with local collective memberships and facets of meaning such as ethnonational identity and the nation-state. This pattern of power is more reliable and “familiar”, and it more easily withstands economic and political convulsions brought about by domestic and foreign actors. Therefore, ethnonational corporatism constitutes a framework for contemporary and probably for future (dis)integrative processes, or rather zig-zag movements in the power systems of Western and non-Western societies.
Keywords
power; ethnonationalism; nation-state
Hrčak ID:
127112
URI
Publication date:
30.12.1994.
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