Civil Society Theory and Euro-Nationalism - University of Sussex

CIVIL SOCIETY THEORY AND EURO-NATIONALISM
invoke ideal or abstract models. It is being argued that recognition
of the distance between the idea, or value, and its material
articulation means accepting that constitutional arrangements are,
of their nature, a process in continual evolution. In order for this
to be a democratic and potentially more peaceful process, the
implicit and polarising assumption that a clear dichotomy exists
between good state nationalisms and bad ‘micronationalisms’ has
to be dropped. The inherent nationalism of the contemporary state
system has to be recognised. The polarisation of the relationship
between universalising and differentiating tendencies for
politically opportunist motives has to be abandoned. And ways
have to be found to articulate minority interests as part of the
progressive transformation of the system of states.
Finally, this must not be construed as the sacrifice of the majority
through special treatment and concessions. A non-ideological
critique of nationalism will show that in reality, and within a form
of democracy which allows and foments self development, we are
all non-identical minorities.
The foregoing has argued that civil society theory generates a
rhetoric of banal state nationalism. Paraphrasing Tortella’s
description of the minority nationalisms, civil society theory might
also be described as a ‘sociological abstraction with an aura of
philosophy and objectivity which hides its political interests’.
Within the historiography, or what Fine terms the iconography, 41
of civil society theory, the concept of civil society (re)emerges within
grass roots mobilisation which distrusts and eschews traditional
state-oriented politics. One of the key aspects of civil society theory
is that, through what has been described as a process of
sacralisation, 42 it posits ‘civil society’ as the alternative to both the
nation (understood as the font of legitimacy and focus of identity
41 Ibid., p. 8.
42 Ibid. Also A.D. Smith speaks of ‘a semi-ideological account of nations and
nationalism ... that chimes with the needs ... of a mobile, universalist intelligentsia
... [and] is as much a myth, in the sense of a widely believed and dramatized tale
of a sacred past which serves present needs, as the myth of nationalism itself’
(Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995, p. 41).
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