Nationalism And State Building

Western Washington University Thomas Jefferson is often invoked as an advocate of limited government and a defender of individual rights. This article argues that rights were Jefferson's starting place. Jefferson also believed that American citizens should have opportunities to develop the capabilities necessary to enjoy the full use of their rights. Rather than thinking about Jefferson as progovernment or antigovernment, this article concludes that we must understand the particular kind of government Jefferson desired, the ends he had in mind, and why and how those ends differed from his Federalist predecessors. A better understanding of Jefferson's statecraft not only offers a new perspective on the relationship between government and rights in Jefferson's thought but also how and why Jeffersonians in power used the state to promote individual freedom.

"This is an exploratory paper on the topic of Ephemeral Nations in Latin America. A relevant moment in the Revolutionary era was the conformation of new Nation-States, of which Latin America provided the largest number. Some of them continue to exist, others failed: the Republic of Pernambuco (1817), the State of Cartagena (1812-1815), the Central American Federation (1823-1838), the Peru-Bolivia Confederation (1836-1839), the State of Los Altos (1838-1840), the Republic of Acre (1899, 1900, 1903), the Liga Federal (1815-1820), and the Republic of Entre Rios (1820), among others. Some of these states were assimilated into larger ones, others collapsed, forming new smaller nation-states. Their short-lived existence left behind a clear trace of traditional symbols and features of nation building, including coins, stamps, constitutions, flags, independence proclamations, etc. They also left a trail of unsolved questions about their failure.
The existence of ephemeral nation-states has been only marginally studied as historical footnotes. Instead, large amount of research has focused on studying the shaping of the current nation-states. The study of successful cases only shows one aspect of the phenomenon of the creation of the nation-state. Other aspects can be understood if the failing cases are studied in order to determine if the theories of nationalism, national building, and national identity, can survive a control group study. Questions concerning the theories of ethnic nationalism, imagined communities, the invention of traditions, and the modernity of the nation, will be explored.
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In this paper l deal on how national imaginaries are promoted by states to both national and foreign audiences. My hypotheses are, first, that stamps work as carriers of an official national imaginary, promoting a particular account of the history, features and development of the issuing nation; second, that political actors and groups within the country will try to influence such national imaginary, according to their own perceptions and goals. If that is the case, then by taking pieces commemorating a single event of key historical importance, but presented by different states, we should be able to compare how that event is interpreted in their respective national imaginaries, and also correlate such variations to their internal political environment.

"First issue of new academic journal. Studia Turkica Mongolica Tibetica Manchurica Sibirica Russica et cetera.

Tartaria Magna is a peer reviewed e-journal in Russian. Editors accept papers and reviews in English and provide Russian translation. We may consider publication of the papers and reviews that have been published in other journals within the period of 3 years. More info: www.tartaria-magna.ru"

Bengoetxea focuses on MacCormick’s contribution to the understanding of nation, law and state in contemporary Europe, and, in particular, on his concept of “internal enlargement”, or, to express it differently, the possibility that Member States divide or split into new Member States so as to realise the aspirations to self-government of region-states. He reflects on the correlation between MacCormick’s institutional theory of law, with his emphasis on non-state institutional normative orders, and his defence of “liberal nationalism”, as a legally differentiated and distinct form of liberal political philosophy. Bengoetxea considers in detail the key role that such a form of nationalism could play in rooting and providing support for the cosmopolitan telos which characterises the European integration project

This report will examine two referendums in Wales—the 1997 devolution referendum and the upcoming ‘powers referendum’ of 2011. It cites seven distinct pressures which are relevant to both referendums and draws lessons from the experience of the wafer-thin success of the 1997 campaign for the forthcoming 2011 referendum. In so doing, it draws on interviews conducted with key figures in the upcoming campaign, as well as other interested stakeholders, who identified these pressures as concerns. It argues that the success of the ‘Yes’ campaign will be dependent upon engaging with and overcoming these pressures.

Romanian nationalism during the national-communist times (1964-1989) has been considered by historians and political scientists as a consequence of international relationships. After the death of Stalin, Romanian communists searched for popular and international support against the control Soviet Union pretended to have on the country. However, the development of national discourse in a communist contest was forced by more than mere circumstances: Romanian public discourse floated around the nation since the 19th century, so communist intellectuals had plenty of national symbols and figures to rely on. The aim of the present paper is to show why Romanian national-communist cultural politics were based on the re-evaluation of cultural materials already present in the national cultural discourse. These cultural materials were merged in a Marxist-Leninist framework to be part of a nationalistic cultural project. The article discusses the centrality of the recovery of Romanian national ideology into the strategy of consent pursued by the communists, while showing the marginality of Romanian Communist Party in the interwar national discourse.