National Collective Identity: Social Constructs and International Systems / Edition 1

by Rodney Bruce Hall

Overview

With the dissolution of Cold War tensions, as new states take shape around the world and as nationalist and ethnic conflicts come to characterize the international order, questions of national identity have become pivotal for peacekeepers, policymakers, and scholars. In National Collective Identity, Rodney Hall illustrates how centuries-old dynastic traditions have been replaced in the modern era by nationalist and ethnic identity movements.This book delineates three epochal changes in the international system: from the medieval, feudal-theocratic order to the dynastic-sovereign system in the sixteenth century, the territorial sovereign system in the seventeenth century, and finally, after the American and French Revolutions, the national sovereign system. In rich historical detail, this book reexamines a broad spectrum of international conflicts—including the Seven Years War, the Napoleonic wars, the Franco-Prussian War, the First World War, and the Cold War and its aftermath—in terms of the shifting sands of state identities through time.Arguing for the need to make a clear distinction between nation and state—one that has largely been overlooked in recent international relations studies on nationalism—Hall shows how an understanding of this dichotomy can help forecast the development of new states over time. National Collective Identity ascribes transformative power to social actors rather than viewing them as merely conditioned by the self-perpetuating logic of the state. In so doing, Hall presents a new theoretical model that accounts for human agency as an integral component of national systems.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231111515
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	02/10/1999
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Rodney Bruce Hall is a postdoctoral research fellow in international relations theory at the Thomas J. Watson Institute for International Studies and visiting assistant professor of international relations at Brown University.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments
Part I. Collective Identity and International Relations Theory
1. International Relations Without Nations?
2. Social Identities and Social System
3. Identities and Social Orders: International Systems in Modern History
Part II. Territorial-Sovereign Identity
4. Raison d'Etat and Territorial Sovereignty: Mercantilist Absolutism and Eighteenth-Century Imperialism
5. Territorial-Sovereign Identity and the Seven Years' War
Part III. National-Sovereign Identity
6. The Emergence of National-Sovereign Identity: Revolutionary Nationalism and Reaction
7. Use and Misuse of the Principle of Nationality: The Demise of the Second Empire and the Birth of the Second Reich
8. National Sovereignty and the New Imperialism: The Global Transmission of Bourgeois-National Identity and Culture
9. "Over-the-Top'' and "Over There'': Status Contests Among National-Sovereigns
Part IV. Conclusions and Implications
10. The Helpless Colossus: The Politics of Identity and Hopeful Nondeterminism

What People are Saying About This

Hayward R. Alker

This book exemplifies qualitative research at its historical and theoretical best.

— Hayward R. Alker, University of Southern California

Yale H. Ferguson

A cornucopia for the reader--rich with historical information, brillian insights, and important implications for international relations and comparative theory. This is constructivist thought at its non-state-centric best.

— Yale H. Ferguson, Rutgers University, Newark

Editorial Reviews

Hall's work provides an important link between international-relations theory and nationalism scholarship.

Nationalism and Ethnic Politics

A major constructivist statement. . . .an essential read for IR theorists.

Chris Brown

A cornucopia for the reader—rich with historical information, brillian insights, and important implications for international relations and comparative theory. This is constructivist thought at its non-state-centric best.

Yale H. Ferguson

This book exemplifies qualitative research at its historical and theoretical best.

Hayward R. Alker

A dense argument that readers without a grounding in social theory in general and international relations theory in particular would find quite difficult. Examines the consequences of the nationalization of state actors within a systems theory that seeks to explain epochal changes in the international systems, and that stems from changes in the social identities of the societies that construct these systems. Insisting on a distinction between discovering trans-historical social realities and ahistorical theorizing, draws specific examples from Europe. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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