Pan-nationalism
Encyclopedia
Pan-nationalism is a form of nationalism
distinguished by the large-scale of the claimed national territory, and because it often defines the nation on the basis of a ‘’cluster’’ of cultures and ethnic groups. It shares the general nationalist ideology
, that the nation
is a fundamental unit of human social life, that it is the only legitimate basis for the state
. Some pan-nationalisms, such as pan-Germanism
, were mono-ethnic, like standard nationalism. The prefix ‘pan-’ was used, because the ethnic Germans were dispersed over much of Central Europe. In other cases pan-nationalists speak of the ‘peoples’ (for instance ‘the Turkiç peoples’), whereas classic nation-states have one ethnicity, culture and language.
- nationalist claims on adjoining territories on the grounds that they from part of the national homeland. Scale is a factor here, however. Greater Albania
, even in the largest version, would still be a small country. An irredentist Greater Germany, even if it is limited to contiguous German-speaking regions, would have about 100 million inhabitants. Pan-nationalism is not the same as diaspora nationalism, such as Zionism
, which implies the concentration of a dispersed group on an ancestral homeland. Colonies
(other than settler colonies
) fall outside most definitions of a nation, since both coloniser and colonised recognise that they share no ethnicity, culture, and language.
Nationalist movements in large nations, such as the German and Russian nations, are therefore difficult to distinguish from pan-nationalist movements, and often there are explicitly pan-nationalist elements. Aside from these cases, however, most pan-nationalist movements failed. Specifically pan-national states are rare. Yugoslavia
attempted to unify a category of South Slavs
, the prefix ‘’jugo’’ means south. After 1945, it did recognise separate internal nations, with their own governments.
Other large states are difficult to classify as pan-national. Around 1942 Nazi Germany
controlled a vast collection of annexed territories, German-administered civilian entities, puppet states, collaborationist states, and front-line areas run by the military. The conquests were partly inspired by the idea of Lebensraum
, but that is not in itself a pan-nationalist concept. The Soviet Union
had a Soviet identity, but no ‘Soviet’ ethnicity, culture, or language. It was influenced by pan-Russian ideas, but also by other geopolitical ideals which implied a large territory. China
has a long tradition of cultural and administrative unity. (The fact that both China and India annexed
territories, does not necessarily make the state pan-national in character).
The general failure of the pan-nationalist movements is illustrated by several examples, which had a clear idea of their ideal state, but never got anywhere near achieving it. Modern Turkey
is the former core area of the Ottoman Empire
. The present state is closely modelled on the classic European nation state, and was a deliberate break with that empire. Beside the very strong Turkish nationalism there are three pan-nationalisms. In ascending order of scale: pan-Turkism
, a sometimes distinct pan-Turkic ideology referring to the Turkic peoples
, and pan-Turanism
, which covers most of central Asia
and even Finland and Hungary. As in Turkey, pan-nationalist movements often operate on the margin of a more limited ‘standard-nationalist’ movement, in the existing core area of the claimed mega-state.
Pan-Slavism
is another notable example of an influential ideal that never resulted in the corresponding mega-state - if Russian territory was included, it would extend from the Baltic to the Pacific (west to east) and right down to central Asia and the caucasus/black sea/Mediterranean in the south.
Pan-Americanism
as an ideal was influential around the time of the independence movements
in Latin America
. However, the new nation-states soon diverged in policy and interests, and no federation emerged. The term acquired another meaning, namely U.S.-led co-operation among the separate nation-states, with a connotation of U.S. hegemony
. That is why there is a pan-Latin-Americanism which proposes inter-Americanism with the United States
. An important exponent of this philosophy is Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre
, from Peru, while Bolivarianism represents a current variation on the theme.
has outlined the emergence of "macro-nationalism" in the late Cold War era, which kept a low profile until the September 11 attacks. Hegghammer traces the origins of modern macro-nationalism to both the Western counter-jihad movement and Islamic terrorist organisations such as al-Qaeda
. In the aftermath of the 2011 Norway attacks
, he described the ideologies of perpetrator Anders Behring Breivik
as "not fitting the established categories of right-wing ideology, like white supremacism, ultranationalism or Christian fundamentalism", but more akin to a "doctrine of civilisational war that represents the closest thing yet to a Christian version of Al-Qaeda".
their own state. This is more popularly and historically known as self-determination
.
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
distinguished by the large-scale of the claimed national territory, and because it often defines the nation on the basis of a ‘’cluster’’ of cultures and ethnic groups. It shares the general nationalist ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
, that the nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
is a fundamental unit of human social life, that it is the only legitimate basis for the state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
. Some pan-nationalisms, such as pan-Germanism
Pan-Germanism
Pan-Germanism is a pan-nationalist political idea. Pan-Germanists originally sought to unify the German-speaking populations of Europe in a single nation-state known as Großdeutschland , where "German-speaking" was taken to include the Low German, Frisian and Dutch-speaking populations of the Low...
, were mono-ethnic, like standard nationalism. The prefix ‘pan-’ was used, because the ethnic Germans were dispersed over much of Central Europe. In other cases pan-nationalists speak of the ‘peoples’ (for instance ‘the Turkiç peoples’), whereas classic nation-states have one ethnicity, culture and language.
History and outcomes
Pan-nationalism implies that the ‘national group’ is dispersed over several existing states. It is not identical to irredentismIrredentism
Irredentism is any position advocating annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, actual or alleged. Some of these movements are also called pan-nationalist movements. It is a feature of identity politics and cultural...
- nationalist claims on adjoining territories on the grounds that they from part of the national homeland. Scale is a factor here, however. Greater Albania
Greater Albania
Greater Albania or Ethnic Albania is an irredentist concept of lands outside the borders of the Republic of Albania that are considered part of a greater national homeland by most Albanians, based on the present-day or historical presence of Albanian populations in those areas...
, even in the largest version, would still be a small country. An irredentist Greater Germany, even if it is limited to contiguous German-speaking regions, would have about 100 million inhabitants. Pan-nationalism is not the same as diaspora nationalism, such as Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
, which implies the concentration of a dispersed group on an ancestral homeland. Colonies
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
(other than settler colonies
Settler colonialism
Settler colonialism is a specific colonial formation whereby foreign family units move into a region and reproduce. Land is thus the key resource in settler colonies, whereas natural and human resources are the main motivation behind other forms of colonialism...
) fall outside most definitions of a nation, since both coloniser and colonised recognise that they share no ethnicity, culture, and language.
Nationalist movements in large nations, such as the German and Russian nations, are therefore difficult to distinguish from pan-nationalist movements, and often there are explicitly pan-nationalist elements. Aside from these cases, however, most pan-nationalist movements failed. Specifically pan-national states are rare. Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
attempted to unify a category of South Slavs
Yugoslav Committee
Yugoslav Committee was a political interest group formed by South Slavs from Austria-Hungary during World War I aimed at joining the existing south Slavic nations in an independent state.Founding members included:* Frano Supilo* Ante Trumbić...
, the prefix ‘’jugo’’ means south. After 1945, it did recognise separate internal nations, with their own governments.
Other large states are difficult to classify as pan-national. Around 1942 Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
controlled a vast collection of annexed territories, German-administered civilian entities, puppet states, collaborationist states, and front-line areas run by the military. The conquests were partly inspired by the idea of Lebensraum
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...
, but that is not in itself a pan-nationalist concept. The Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
had a Soviet identity, but no ‘Soviet’ ethnicity, culture, or language. It was influenced by pan-Russian ideas, but also by other geopolitical ideals which implied a large territory. China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
has a long tradition of cultural and administrative unity. (The fact that both China and India annexed
Annexation
Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...
territories, does not necessarily make the state pan-national in character).
The general failure of the pan-nationalist movements is illustrated by several examples, which had a clear idea of their ideal state, but never got anywhere near achieving it. Modern Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
is the former core area of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. The present state is closely modelled on the classic European nation state, and was a deliberate break with that empire. Beside the very strong Turkish nationalism there are three pan-nationalisms. In ascending order of scale: pan-Turkism
Pan-Turkism
Pan-Turkism is a nationalist movement that emerged in 1880s among the Turkic intellectuals of the Russian Empire, with the aim of cultural and political unification of all Turkic peoples.-Name:...
, a sometimes distinct pan-Turkic ideology referring to the Turkic peoples
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
, and pan-Turanism
Turanism
Turanism, or Pan-Turanism, is a political movement for the union of all Turanian peoples. It implies not merely the unity of all Turkic peoples , but also the unification of a wider Turanid "race", also known as the controversial Uralo-Altaic "race," believed to include all peoples speaking...
, which covers most of central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
and even Finland and Hungary. As in Turkey, pan-nationalist movements often operate on the margin of a more limited ‘standard-nationalist’ movement, in the existing core area of the claimed mega-state.
Pan-Slavism
Pan-Slavism
Pan-Slavism was a movement in the mid-19th century aimed at unity of all the Slavic peoples. The main focus was in the Balkans where the South Slavs had been ruled for centuries by other empires, Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Venice...
is another notable example of an influential ideal that never resulted in the corresponding mega-state - if Russian territory was included, it would extend from the Baltic to the Pacific (west to east) and right down to central Asia and the caucasus/black sea/Mediterranean in the south.
Pan-Americanism
Pan-Americanism
-History:The struggle for independence after 1810 by the Latin American nations evoked a sense of unity, especially in South America where, under Simón Bolívar in the north and José de San Martín in the south, there were cooperative efforts. Francisco Morazán briefly headed a Federal Republic of...
as an ideal was influential around the time of the independence movements
Simón Bolívar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...
in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
. However, the new nation-states soon diverged in policy and interests, and no federation emerged. The term acquired another meaning, namely U.S.-led co-operation among the separate nation-states, with a connotation of U.S. hegemony
Hegemony
Hegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force. In Ancient Greece , hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states...
. That is why there is a pan-Latin-Americanism which proposes inter-Americanism with the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. An important exponent of this philosophy is Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre
Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre
Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre was a Peruvian political leader who founded the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance political movement.-Life:Haya de la Torre was born in the northern Peruvian city of Trujillo...
, from Peru, while Bolivarianism represents a current variation on the theme.
Recent developments
Thomas Hegghammer of the Norwegian Defence Research EstablishmentNorwegian Defence Research Establishment
The Norwegian Defence Research Establishment is a research institute that conducts research and development on behalf of the Norwegian Armed Forces and provides expert advice to political and military defence leaders...
has outlined the emergence of "macro-nationalism" in the late Cold War era, which kept a low profile until the September 11 attacks. Hegghammer traces the origins of modern macro-nationalism to both the Western counter-jihad movement and Islamic terrorist organisations such as al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
. In the aftermath of the 2011 Norway attacks
2011 Norway attacks
The 2011 Norway attacks were two sequential terrorist attacks against the government, the civilian population and a summer camp in Norway on 22 July 2011....
, he described the ideologies of perpetrator Anders Behring Breivik
Anders Behring Breivik
Anders Behring Breivik is a Norwegian terrorist, paranoid schizophrenic and the confessed perpetrator of the Norway attacks on 22 July 2011: the bombing of government buildings in Oslo that resulted in eight deaths, and the mass shooting at a camp of the Workers' Youth League of the Labour Party...
as "not fitting the established categories of right-wing ideology, like white supremacism, ultranationalism or Christian fundamentalism", but more akin to a "doctrine of civilisational war that represents the closest thing yet to a Christian version of Al-Qaeda".
Other definitions
Over the past few years, pan-nationalism has also been used by organizations such as the Pan-Nationalist Movement, to describe a political ideal which seeks to give every nation, described as an amalgamation of ethnicity and cultureCulture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
their own state. This is more popularly and historically known as self-determination
Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...
.
Examples
See also
- AtlanticismAtlanticismAtlanticism is a philosophy of cooperation among Western European and North American nations regarding political, economic, and defense issues, with the purpose to maintain the security of the participating countries, and to protect the values that unite them: "democracy, individual liberty and...
- CaliphateCaliphateThe term caliphate, "dominion of a caliph " , refers to the first system of government established in Islam and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah...
- ColonialismColonialismColonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
- DiasporaDiasporaA diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
- EmpireEmpireThe term empire derives from the Latin imperium . Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples united and ruled either by a monarch or an oligarchy....
- ImperialismImperialismImperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
- UmmahUmmahUmmah is an Arabic word meaning "community" or "nation." It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or the whole Arab world...