Nationalism: History,Present And Future

Isaiah Berlin said,"Nowadays, no political campaigns can be successful unless they work in conjunction with the passion of nationalism". Actually, the influence of nationalism has already exceeded the boundary of politics. In all kinds of collective occasion, such as celebration, fete, athletic competition, education, culture, performance and entertainment, we can taste the emotion of nationalism. With the impact of globalization, nationalism rises up once again, with the request of constructing national identity and maintaining state interest in a new epoch. It becomes an important power influencing the development of the state and the vicissitude of international transformation. Therefore, nationalism is an unavoidable thesis when we try to anticipate the development of human society in the 21st century.Nationalism is a historical phenomenon, rooted in various social structures and political cultures and seeks impetus and support from traditions. Nationalism is also a modern phenomenon, associated with nation-state, and reflects modern political, economic and cultural structures in the world. Therefore, tracing back the history of nationalism will enable us to have a deeper understanding of the causes and essence of modern nationalism , so as to have a better grasping of its future. Based on such a consideration, the thesis explored the history, present and future of nationalism with three parts.In part one I mainly analyzed the rising, type and general characteristics of early nationalism. Early nationalism may be traceable to Western Europe, which is closely related to the construction of early nation-state and the formulation of modernity in Western Europe. However, as the result of different historical and cultural conditions, early nationalism gets various appearances and developmental routes. We therefore have liberal nationalism in England, democratic nationalism in France, consolidated nationalism in Germany and constitutional nationalism in America. Taking it as a whole, however, the basic characteristics of early nationalism lie in taking nation-state construction as its target, with freedom and democracy as its core values . It is a product of human reason.With part two I analyzed the evolvement of nationalism and its influence in thetransitional process of its early version to a cosmopolitan tide. Firstly, I argued that the changes of early nationalism both promoted the building of the worldly colonial system and activated the rising of non-western nationalism. And the rapid development of non-western nationalism finally broke the worldly colonial system and built a worldly nation-state system. Secondly, non-western nationalism shows a characteristic sharply distinguishable from the early one along with the differences of historical background and cultural traditions. These differences even affected the process of the construction of non-western nation-states. Thirdly, nationalism has a built-in factor of violence, which becomes collective and institutional violence under the effect of nation-state.Part three focused on the rising, dilemma and future of nationalism in the age of globalization. Obviously, there is a profound relevancy between the revival of nationalism and the global crisis of nation-state. However, different attitudes and responses towards nation-state crisis lead to severe controversies within nationalism demonstrating the interior dilemma of nationalism. Therefore, I argued that the future of nationalism is not only related to the fate of nation-state, but also depends on the self-transforming and self-transcending of nationalism.