Political Science with MEPT72

@Norn: Nationalism is identity politics writ large and separatist. Not just "we're unique" but "we're unique and deserve our own state" and often "give it or we'll take it!".

@mmysqueent: it's hard to draw the line. But if someone accepts that there's a core of Britishness to the UK cultures they can still be Nationalist. Now I don't know the BNP well but I wouldn't be surprised if they try to push some version of cultural hegemony to reduce the cultural differences.

Keep in mind there is no culturally monolithic group of any size. Any country will have a rural vs urban divide. So the national identity will usually be "this is what you all should be like now try harder."

Competing groups will have very different ideas of what that is. It's possible to argue that all culture wars in politics are merely different groups fighting to achieve hegemony.

I know I've been a pain before arguing that America might not be a nation, and I think there's some truth to that

This is actually something I've been wondering for quite some time now.

Also, thanks for fully explaining what a "nation" is. Before I only had a very vague definition that I was going off of, and it was really bothering me.

Keep in mind this definition will get picked at by Anthony Smith, and some of the specifics of it are very tautological in that they're designed to further the argument that nations are only modern creations.

I thought only nation-states were a modern creation?

Or at least only recently became common? Relatively, so.

edited 3rd Dec '10 10:00:45 PM by LuckyRevenant

Isn't that how we differentiate the modern time period from the old one? "This one is the one with all the nation-states, this one is the one with kings and princesses and this one has assorted lengths of wire."

I'll get into it but a common defining trait of a nation is representative rule so yeah...

We'll get into it tomorrow in more detail.

Rational Choice and structure blend easily though because it's clear that there's a ton of interaction between them since structures create avenues for choice.

It should be noted that structuralism and culturalism are quite easy to reconcile as well: Culture is, after all, a structure... Even rational choice and culture can be reconciled (IE: if the cultural belief is that sacrificing prisoners of war to the rain god exists, doing so becomes a rational choice, since rationality is determined by context)

RE: Nationalism, it's probably worth introducing two german (what else?) terms: Staatsnationalism and Kulturnationalism, now, these two are terms are of 19th century origin and (more or less) only apply to european nations (and it is imperative here that they apply to *nations*)

It's largely (but not entirely) a distinction between two sets of european nations: The older, pre-modern (in the sense of existing before the modern era) states (examples: Denmark (although some particularities of danish history makes this debatable) Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands) and the newer nation-states created in the 19th century and afterwards.

The basic difference is this: In the state-nationalist countries the state preceedes any concept of a national identiy, and is/was an active force in creating such national identity. In the latter case the national identities preceedes the formation of a national state: Italians thought they were italians first, then they formed Italy. There was a swedish kingdom long before people started considering themselves to be swedes. (indeed it's hard to come up with a definition of "french" that doesen't imply "Citizen of the french republic")

edited 4th Dec '10 1:16:17 PM by Arilou

Well...a culture is a structure from a Structuralist POV...is how I understand it.

But a Culturalist would reject that somehow.

^ No, not really. Culturalists tends to view culture as the main and overarching structure. But they treat it like any other. (I kind of don't like culturalism as a separate theory, it doesen't really provide much information beyond "structuralists who think culture is a really, really important structure.")

Oh wow, thanks! That makes it a lot more clear.

If someone wanted to maximize utility they were best off to work as few hours as would sustain them and perhaps pay for a bit of socialization as almost all fun and luxury occurred from social interaction. So if we're using Rome as an example, the ideal would be to work just enough for basic domestic maintenance, food, and a bit of extra wine to drink with your friends, or food for a party. There was less incentive to work extra hours to buy a new TV new Stereo, or even travel as vacation was usually prohibitively expensive and out of the means of all but the ultra rich.

Here's an interesting point though: This switch in values is not something that came about naturally, it was something that was deliberately schooled. The first attempts at proto-industrial production constantly ran into the problem that people preferred to work less rather than get a higher wage. (but due to the way factories work, you need people to work full-time) turning apprentices into factory workers was a huge, painful and drawn-out process. In order for capitalism and the market economy to function you didn't just need new tech and financial instruments: You needed a change in the way people viewed time and work.

And quite a lot of violence, obviously.

RE: Classical Economics.

I find classical economics to, generally speaking, be an excellent (alomst tautologically simple) descriptive explanation of events. (the problem with utility-maximizing ideas is that anything can be rephrased into an utility-maximizing form, which makes it all but unfalsifiable)

The problem, I think, is that neo-classical economics tends to ignore the fact that force is perfectly able to fit into their system: There's no real reason except moral sentimentality to exclude eg. threats, theft, and other acts of force and violence from economic activity. A threat is after all only a specific kind of offer (I perform a service for you, IE: not killing you, in exchange for something you can give me that I want IE: Your money) and will be rejected or accepted on pretty much the same grounds as any other (do I value the service, do I think it can be provided, how big is the cost to me, etc. etc.)

The core assumption that people are utility maximizers is fairly unfalsifiable. How ever for making predictive as compared to descriptive works you tend to simplify to one type of preferences.

I'm not sure what your point about force is other than that you could put it in Neo-Classical terms so yeah...?

Possibly true, granted the reading I did on the era didn't mention those, but at the same time if people don't realize the things they can get with wealth or the things still aren't there yet early attempts at wage labor will fail.

Culture vs Structure: the importance is the genesis of culture. Structuralists will view it as being formed by social and political institutions, culturalists as being organically created through the population.

I still personally maintain that Rational Choice can most easily incorporate the other elements as variables that effect cost benefit, but as I said, I'm biased in that I'm most familiar with that style of thinking due to my education in economics.

Edit:

Airlou: it's important to note that most modern culturalists aren't that might be why you're viewing it as so closely tied to structure. Back in the day it was a more separate and distinct field, one rife with ethnocentricism and the like as well. Largely discredited in that form it's moved on to be a hybrid with others. However if you're doing work that spans multiple fields or reading those older works it's worth knowing about.

It's also worth noting that Italian identity as a nation is not much older than the existence of Italy, most Italians thought of Italy as a region and their home was the city state.

Also worth noting that Italian national identity isn't holding up well.

edited 4th Dec '10 5:16:33 PM by MEPT72

I'm not sure what your point about force is other than that you could put it in Neo-Classical terms so yeah...?

Well, that's rather my point. Neo-classicists (admittedly I'm more used to dealing with economists rather than social scientists of that bent) tends to get very upset when it is pointed out that robbery is a perfectly rational response to certain situations. It disturbs their models or something.

Culture vs Structure: the importance is the genesis of culture. Structuralists will view it as being formed by social and political institutions, culturalists as being organically created through the population.

The point is that "culture" itself is a social institution. Or can at least easily be treated as such.

It's also worth noting that Italian identity as a nation is not much older than the existence of Italy, most Italians thought of Italy as a region and their home was the city state.

Yes, but the point is that Italy (and Germany, as well as many eastern-european countries) did have a sense of "national awakening" before they had a state to belong to. (Ireland is another example, btw.) Britain, France and Sweden did not: Their states pre-existed (and in some sense created) their national identities.

edited 4th Dec '10 6:36:03 PM by Arilou

Really? huh, most I've seen tend to leave such things out just for the sake of simplicity, but I've seen people use those models to predict what conditions will make someone rob.

Force and rational choice is kinda an interest of mine, I'm considering examining and attempting to categorize and model authoritarian regimes under rational choice.

Edit:

To a dyed in the wool culturalist it wouldn't be, it'd be what caused institutions but is itself the driving force. It's a matter of degrees, and as I said they're quite rare, I think only one or two of the works on my list are true culturalists, and one of them was out of the modernization movement as well.

To clarify: it's easy to examine culture as a social institution, but that's if you're using the institutional lens. If you're using the cultural lens you examine culture as the shared beliefs and symbols of a community that drive it to the actions and decisions they take and make.

Germany and Italy: The question is to what degree they were national identities created by elites. I don't disagree that they're different in someways, I'm just saying it doesn't really disprove Anderson's theory. Granted I think his theory is a bit to broad and should be tempered but that's me.

edited 4th Dec '10 6:38:27 PM by MEPT72

Note that I'm a historian and not strictly a poli-sci guy. We tend to have a fair bit more emphasis on the descriptive rather than predictive aspects.

Hey sorry I haven't added to this in a few days I've been pretty insanely busy lately, so when I'm not working putting substance up has been a low priority. I'll see if I can't get something up tomorrow.