Towards a Realist Theory of Nationalism?
Realpolitik and the threshold principle within nineteenth century nationalism
Rasmus Glenthøj, Associate Professor, PhD
Department of Language, Culture, History and Communication, University of Southern Denmark
E-mail: rasmusg@sdu.dk
Keywords
Nationalism, pan-nationalism, threshold principle, realism, war.
Abstract
Nationalism is in general understood as an ideology that strives for the creation or the maintenance of nation states and is often linked to aggressive and chauvinistic notions. In this paper, I will argue that although this definition of nationalism may capture the essence of many instances of modern-day nationalism it does not capture much of nineteenth century nationalism.
For nineteenth century liberalists, the political ideal was an independent citizen with high capacity, a knowledgeable person who was not dependent on others. It is no surprise, therefore, that liberalists believed that the ideal nation was an independent polity rich in resources. The ideal of independence was, however, not reserved for liberals. It was also found amongst conservatives, radical democrats, and Marxist as they all saw viability as a crucial criterion for (national) statehood.
Hence, to nineteenth century nationalists the challenge lay in determining the degree to which the nation’s independence could be realised. If we understand being independent as having political sovereignty, military capacity, one’s own culture and economic independence, then the point made by many nationalists was that small nations, like weak individuals, risked losing their independence, their distinctiveness and their dignity. It was a fear that arose out of their view of Europe’s political development, history, and the experiences during the Napoleonic Wars.
A mutual security system that was outlined in Vienna and harmed out in the wake of Waterloo. However, it was highly exclusive and hierarchical. For states of the second or third order, it meant an institutionalisation of the loss of independence and for nationalists within these states it created a sense that their states had taken a step backwards in a time that was moving forwards. The continent’s newly won security, therefore, filled them not with a sense of stability but with a fear of annihilation.
This suggests that Eric Hobsbawm may have been right in claiming that liberal nationalism of the day was characterized by a ‘threshold principle’ that restricted the nationalist principle to those nations that either had created or could create large states. The threshold principle ensured that only nations of a sufficient size had the political, military, economic and cultural resources necessary to create nation states. According to the mindset, there was a hierarchy between nations that meant that small nations were either annihilated or forced to unite with closely related peoples.
This viewed of the nation implied a ‘realist’ view of international relations as the threshold principle claimed that that only nations with sufficient resources could survive, develop, and have any real independence. This made fear and the pursuit of power prime drives not only in international politics, but also for a certain type of ‘realist’ nationalism. It was clearly expressed post-Napoleonic Europe and gained further momentum in the wake of the 1848 revolutions and with the advent of Realpolitik and the destabilisation of the European Concert caused by the Crimean War. German and Italian unification nationalisms can be seen as expressions of the threshold principle along with cases of nan-nationalism such as Scandinavianism and the different Pan-Slavic movements.
Within international relations there is tendency use realism and Realpolitik interchangeably. However, as shown by the British historian John Bew in his conceptual history of Realpolitik, the present-day perception of the term is closer to concepts such as Machtpolitik and Weltpolitik. Hence, a straight line between the original meaning of Realpolitik and realism cannot be drawn. Nonetheless, a connection between the original meaning of the concept and ‘liberal realism’ can be made (just as Marx and Engels’ ideas of nationalism have associated with both Realpolitik and ‘utopian realism’).
The concept itself was framed by the liberal journalist Ludwig August von Rochau in 1853. As he saw it, power was only legitimized by success, and in international politics power was solely wheeled by great powers. The division of the German nation into numerous states made it weak and threated its survival. Therefore, “a superior force” had to swallow the others to unify the nation hereby gather its resources. In short, Rochau’s Realpolitik was inseparable from his liberalism and nationalism and very much in tune with the ’threshold principle’. While the latter is a analytical concept, it encapsules a clearly ‘realist’ nationalism found across the political spectrum in the nineteenth century.