Institute for History Annual Report 2010 - O - Universiteit Leiden

Political Culture and
National Identities
Description
Leiden has its own tradition in the field of political
and national history. More than at other Dutch
universities, research is conducted into the
national, often political history of individual
countries in Europe and beyond. Such a focus on
national history is no longer common practice
within the field. However, if this focus is problematised,
it still remains a fruitful basis for a study of
the past. The construction of national identities is
not least a question of political action in the
broadest sense of the word, and it therefore makes
sense to study these matters in their relation to one
another. This step seems all the more obvious if, in
thinking of politics, we think primarily of political
culture: on the one hand, the cultural aspects of
the political realm itself, and on the other hand the
broad social-cultural and cultural-intellectual
embedding of politics. In both respects, political
culture has to a large extent developed in national
contexts and, conversely, ‘national identity’ is
often simply another word for traditions in the
field of political culture. Problematising ideas
concerning national identity is also closely related
to problematising the accepted assumptions about
established politics. Leiden more than any other
university offers an ideal environment for the
study of this complex, due to the presence among
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its historians of so many country specialists and
specialists in the history of the European Union.
The parallel presence of these specialisations does
not automatically lead to collaboration. Among
historians, it has long been a habit to concentrate
on one country and to study this country in its
unique characteristics (The German Sonderweg,
Great-Britain versus the Continent, l’exception
française, The Netherlands as an exception to the
general human pattern, American exceptionalism,
etc.), while the study of the history of Europe and
European unification was effected in a separate
area of research. In recent decades, an increasing
amount of criticism has been voiced concerning
the nationally-oriented historical tradition, and
calls have been made for more comparative
research. In practice, however, it proves to be far
from easy for a historian (as opposed to, for
instance, a sociologist) to study history from a
comparative perspective. Comparative history
begins with placing a number of national cases
side by side, but it is, of course, far more than that.
Expertise in the field of national history will
probably reach its full potential if, rather than
concentrating on separate juxtaposed national
cases, historians focus instead on the connections
between them. To this end, the German and
French history of ideas tradition has developed the
concept of ‘culture transfer’, i.e. the adoption of
foreign examples and the inspiration which they
engender. This concept can easily be transferred to
the political domain, for instance with regard to
social movement, parties and parliaments, and the
use of symbols and material objects. In the attempt