Nationalism and Conflict in Post-Napoleonic Europe

• In Event: Nationalism, Origin Myths, and Violence

Abstract

Rather than being a spent force, nationalism is back with a vengeance. While populist nationalism constitutes a direct threat to democracy, it also has the potential of undermining peace. Yet, despite numerous studies on the link between nationalism and conflict, there is a lack of systematic empirical knowledge about this connection. While most of the contemporary conflict literature focuses on internal dynamics, understanding the full force of nationalism requires a holistic approach that considers both internal and external nationality problems. The historical and sociological literatures do a better job at contextualizing changing borders but offer less by way of systematic empirical coverage.

To overcome these limitations, we propose an explicitly spatiotemporal analysis of how nationalism transformed the state in Europe. Our starting point is Gellner’s classical definition of nationalism as a principle that requires congruence between states and ethnically-defined nations. Both internal and external violations of this principle generate grievances that increase the risk of specific patterns of civil and interstate conflicts. In particular, it is necessary to consider not only foreign rule as a source of conflict, but also division of existing or aspiring nations. We also consider how past status reversals reinforce these grievances. A loss of home rule and unity rather than a mere lack thereof raises the stakes. Nationalist leaders rely on narratives of “golden ages” to justify revisionist campaigns that destabilize state borders, thus increasing the risk of conflict.

In order to test these consequences of nationalism, we introduce new geocoded data on European state borders from 1816 to the present. In addition, we rely on a large number of stacked and georeferenced ethnic maps to create a new dataset of ethnic settlement areas that goes back to the 19th century. To study memories of “golden ages,” we also draw on existing data on European state borders dating back to 1100. Finally, we systematically link the state and ethnicity datasets to existing lists of intra- and interstate conflict. Together, these data resources break new ground in terms of spatially and temporally explicit information about conflict processes and border changes in Europe since 1816. They allow us to construct systematic measures of distinct types of nationality problems, as well as plausible proxies for imagined historical reference points.

As confirmed by the preliminary analysis, nationalism’s transformation of the state in post-1816 Europe constitutes a major, perhaps even the dominant, driver of conflict patterns during the two past centuries.

Authors

• Lars-Erik Cederman, ETH Zurich

• Yannick Immanuel Pengl, ETH Zurich

• Dennis Atzenhofer, ETH Zürich

• Luc Girardin, ETH Zurich

• Carl Müller-Crepon, Oxford University