* One key source of multicultural thinking stems from the attempt to refashion liberal beliefs to take into account the importance of communal belonging. In this view, individuals are seen as being culturally embedded creatures who derive their understanding of the world and their framework of moral beliefs and sense of personal identity largely from the culture in which they live and develop. Distinctive cultures therefore deserve to be protected or strengthened, particularly when they belong to minority or vulnerable groups. This leads to an emphasis on the politics of recognition and support for minority rights, which, in the case of national minorities, or ‘First Nations’, may extend to the right to self-determination. However, a more radical strain within multicultural thinking endorses a form of value pluralism which holds that, as people are bound to disagree about the ultimate ends of life, liberal and non-liberal, or even illiberal, beliefs and practices are equally legitimate.
* Only enforced assimilation or the expulsion of ethnic or cultural minorities will re-establish monocultural nation-states.
* The most common criticism of multiculturalism is nevertheless that it is the enemy of social cohesion. In this view, shared values and a common culture are a necessary precondition for a stable and successful society.
* A cultural nation (such as the Greeks, the Germans, the Russians, the English and the Irish) has a national identity that is rooted in a common cultural heritage and language that may long pre-date the achievement of statehood or even the quest for national independence. A political nation (such as the British, the Americans and the South Africans) is bound together primarily by shared citizenship and may encompass significant cultural and ethnic divisions. Similarly, political thinkers may advance rival civic and organic views of the nation. The ‘civic’ concept of nationhood, supported, for example, by liberals and socialists, is inclusive in the sense that it places heavier emphasis on political allegiance than on cultural unity, and stresses that the nation is forged by shared values and expectations. The ‘organic’ concept of nationhood (advanced by conservatives and, more radically, by fascists) is exclusive in that it gives priority to a common ethnic identity and, above all, a shared history.
* For over 200 years the nation has been regarded as the most appropriate (and perhaps the only proper) unit of political rule. Indeed, international law is largely based on the assumption that nations, like individuals, have inviolable rights, notably the right to political independence and self-determination. The importance of the nation to politics is demonstrated most dramatically demonstrated by the enduring potency of nationalism and by the fact that the world is largely divided into nation-states… Supporters of the national principle portray nations as organic communities. In this light, humankind is naturally divided into a collection of nations, each possessing a distinctive character and separate identity. This, nationalists argue, is why a ‘higher’ loyalty and deeper political significance attaches to the nation than to any other social group or collective body. National ties and loyalties are thus found in all societies, they endure over time, and they operate at an instinctual, even primordial, level.
* There are two contrasting views of the nation-state. For liberals, and most socialists, the nation-state is largely fashioned out of civic loyalties and allegiances, while for conservatives and nationalists it is based on ethnic or organic unity.
* The nation-state is widely considered to be the only viable unit of political rule and is generally accepted to be the basic element in international politics. The vast majority of modern states are, or claim to be, nation-states. The great strength of the nation-state is that it offers the prospect of both cultural cohesion and political unity. When a people who share a common cultural or ethnic identity gain the right to self-government, community and citizenship coincide. This is why nationalists believe that the forces that have created a world of independent nation-states are natural and irresistible, and that no other social group could constitute a meaningful political community. This view also implies that supranational bodies such as the European Union (EU) will never be able to rival the capacity of national governments to establish legitimacy and command popular allegiance. Clear limits should therefore be placed on, in this case , the process of European integration, because people with different languages, cultures and histories will never come to think of themselves as members of a united political community.
* Internally, nation-states have been subject to centrifugal pressures, generated by an upsurge in ethnic and regional politics. This has meant that ethnicity or religion have sometimes displaced nationality as the central organizing principle of political life.
* Those who criticize the nation-state ideal point out either that a ‘true’ nation-state can be achieved only through a process of ‘ethnic cleansing’ – as Hitler and the Nazis recognized – or that nation-states are always primarily concerned primarily with their own strategic and economic interests, and are therefore an inevitable source of conflict or tension in international affairs.
* Nationalism can broadly be defined broadly as the belief that the nation is the central principle of political organization. As such, it is based on two core assumptions: first, humankind is naturally divided into distinct nations, and second, the nation is a political community in the sense that it is the most appropriate, and perhaps the only legitimate, unit of political rule.
* Liberal nationalism assigns to the nation a moral status to the nation similar to that of the individual, meaning that nations have rights, in particular the right to self-determination. As liberal nationalism holds that all nations are equal, it proclaims that the nation-state ideal is universally applicable. Conservative nationalism is concerned less with the principled nationalism of self-determination and more with the promise of social cohesion and public order embodied in the sentiment of national patriotism . From this perspective patriotic loyalty and a consciousness of nationhood is largely rooted in the idea of a shared past, turning nationalism into a defence of traditional values and institutions that have been endorsed by history.
* It would be difficult to overestimate the significance of nationalism to modern politics . For over 200 years nationalism has helped to shape and re-shape history in all parts of the world, making it perhaps the most successful of political creeds. The rising tide of nationalism re-drew the map of Europe in the nineteenth century as autocratic and multinational empires crumbled in the face of liberal and nationalist pressures.
* A fear of disorder and social instability has been one of the most fundamental and abiding concerns of Western political philosophy. Order has, moreover, attracted almost unqualified approval from political theorists, at least in so far as none of them is prepared to defend disorder. However, there are deep differences regarding the most appropriate solutions to the problem of order. The public/natural order divide has profound implications for government and reflects differing views of human nature. At one extreme, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) argued that absolute government is the only means of maintaining order because the principal human inclination is a ‘perpetual and restless desire for power, that ceaseth only in death’.
* In modern politics, the conservative view of order links it closely to law, often viewing ‘law and order’ as a single, fused concept. Domestic order is therefore best maintained through a fear of punishment, based on the strict enforcement of law and stiff penalties, and on respect for traditional values, seen as the moral bedrock of society.
* The chief flaw of modernist thought, from the most postmodern perspective, is that it is characterized by foundationalism, the belief that it is possible to establish objective truths and universal values, usually associated with a strong faith in progress. Jean-François Lyotard (1984) expressed the postmodern stance most succinctly in defining it as ‘an incredulity towards metanarratives’. By this he meant scepticism regarding all creeds and ideologies that are based on universal theories of history that view society as a coherent totality.
* Realism, in its broadest sense, is a tradition of political theorizing that is ‘realistic’ in the sense that it is hard-headed and (as realists see it) devoid of wishful thinking and deluded moralizing. Key early thinkers in this tradition included Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) and Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). Realism has nevertheless had its greatest impact as a theory of international relations. Realist international theory is, primarily, about power and self-interest. The realist power-politics model of international politics is based on two core assumptions. First, human nature is characterized by selfishness and greed, meaning that states , the dominant actors on the international stage, exhibit essentially the same characteristics. Second, as states operate in a context of anarchy , they are forced to rely on self-help and so prioritize security and survival. Realist theory can therefore be summed up in the equation: egoism plus anarchy equals power politics.
* Realism can claim to be the oldest theory of international politics. It can be traced back to Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 bce), and to Sun Tzu’s classic work on strategy, The Art of War , written at roughly the same time in China. However, as a theory of international relations, realism took shape from the 1930s onwards as a critique of the then-dominant liberal internationalism , dismissed by some realists as ‘ utopianism ’. With the end of World War II and the onset of the Cold War, realism became the pre-eminent theory of international relations during the Cold War period. Among the reasons for realism’s dominance was that the Cold War, characterized as it was by superpower rivalry and a nuclear arms race , made the politics of power and security appear to be undeniably relevant and insightful.
