[Part I]

Last week, I argued that Kosovo did not actually set a legal precedent for other breakaway regions but instead finally officially asked a question that has been asked for decades but never answered, namely, who gets to become a state?

From Non-Existent to Status Quo

Although the idea of a nation-state is taken by most to be axiomatic, it wasn’t always. In fact, nationalism itself only arose in the late 1800s. Indeed, one of the reasons attributed to World War I was the rise of nationalism which set off a series of small conflicts in, ironically, the Balkans. As we discussed in the last post, nationalism is a political ideology stating that a nation of people has the right to constitute an independent or autonomous political community based on a shared history and common destiny. Most nationalists believe the borders of the state should be congruent with the borders of the nation.

However, with the constant talk of tribes and ethnic and religious conflict today, most don’t stop to remember the days when the same was prevalent in Europe. Throughout most of history, most countries were in fact multiethnic empires. The great empires of history that we know, the Persian, Mongol, British, Austria-Hungary and Roman were comprised of many peoples and religions. In those days, the idea of a state having sovereignty over its own territory much less being ruled by the ethnic group that was the majority in it was unthinkable or even unimportant.

The Industrial Revolution

Some anthropologists argue that ethnicity is a constructed identity which arose out of contact with other groups of people and competition for resources. An isolated or remote village has no reason to think of itself as Apache, Persian, or Zulu. For ethnic identity to exist, there must be an “other” with which one can contrast himself. It is therefore natural that as the world became more connected, a new ethnic awareness arose among peoples all over the globe. Indeed, major countries like Germany and Italy were united very late in history (1871 and 1861) and were previously no more logically one nation than say Americans and Malaysians would seem to be. But the Industrial Revolution changed everything.

With the onset of the industrial revolution, two major changes occurred in societies around the world: the migration from rural to urban living and communications and transportation technology. Surviving on a farm and surviving in a city were two very different things. Being Armenian or Irish didn’t help you much in the country but it could give you a line on a job, the right neighborhood to live in, helpful neighbors and more in a city. In the vast impersonal new cities springing up, the same social and family networks no longer existed or functioned as in a rural setting. Even today, one finds Chinatown, little Italy, a Turkish quarter or Latino section of cities all over the world. In the impersonal and territorially neutral city, your people became your home.

It is therefore no surprise that ethnicity quickly became an issue in the late 1800s and early 1900s as Europe rapidly industrialized and urbanized. Indeed, as ethnic awareness grew, so too did idea of nationalism all over Europe and with it, violence and instability. What did it mean to be a German if you’d never met an Italian or Frenchman?

But before we continue, what exactly does ethnicity mean and what has the main organizing principle been for humans? After all, states are relatively new historically speaking. All this and more in the next post!

NOTE: Due to a high workload at the moment, posting will be somewhat sparse, but fear not the series will continue, albeit slowly.

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