Carlo Ruzza - Università di Trento 1 Nationalism and the Extreme Right in Europe Nationalism, like the modern age is the product of two revolutions: the

Carlo Ruzza - Università di Trento 1

Nationalism and the Extreme Right in Europe

Nationalism, like the modern age is the product of two revolutions: the Industrial revolution and the French revolution. Without them it would be impossible or very different. There are in fact many nationalisms, and there is a puzzle: why is nationalism such a successful story.

The industrial revolution made possible the sense of national community that comes from the destruction of localisms, from better transport etc. In the 1780 to 1800 there was the take off period: the creation of an urban proletariat. In the 1840s a massive construction of railways facilitated state and nation building.

The conceptual features and variations of Nationalism as a political concept are discussed by Freeden (1996)


The French Revolution The French Revolution was a state breakdown that acquired a

special meaning because of the existence of a set of ideas of the philosophes who saw in the dignity of people a counterpart to the power of the king. A discredited king was replaced by the idea of nation. In 1789 the Declaration of the rights of men and citizens stated that the source of sovereignty was the nation. Symbols had a powerful role in the Revolution as Lynn Hunt shows.

The French revolution made others aware of what could happen and of the risks and limits. That a doctrine can spread, that a social revolution is possible, that nations are independent of states, people independent of their rulers, that the revolution can spread. It was the revolution to put an end to all revolutions (until the Russian).


Nationalism of the 1830s

After the 1830s, the movement in favour of the revolution split. One product was nationalism. There were youth movements inspired by Giuseppe Mazzini (Young Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Germany, France) Members saw no contradictions between their demands and those of other nations. They felt united in an ambiguity of nationalism.

As the educated classes grew in the 1830s, they began to use national languages instead of foreign languages (Czech, Rumanian, Hungarian etc emerged as languages with textbooks). Nationalism was essentially a middle class issue, and for a long time remained such. However, while Western nationalisms are generally bourgeois phenomena, populist nationalisms are now also widespread as in the Lombard League


The role of these nationalist bourgeois classes was to:

Encourage political assertion of the community A movement to place the community in the homeland A movement to economic unity A re-education to national values, memories, symbols

which are the most potent aspect of nationalism. A movement to confer civil, social and political rights to

ethnic communities.


The essence of nationalism

Although there are different types of nationalism, they all share the belief that there should be continuity between a cultural and a political unit: the nation and the state.

The two main types are: civil-territorial ones and ethnic-genealogical ones.

In explaining nationalism social scientist are divided between a primitivist position and a cultural construction approach.


Common Elements of modern national identity (which define a nation) are:

a historic territory, or homeland Common myths and historical memories A common, mass public culture Common legal rights and duties for all members A common economy with territorial mobility for members.


Functions of National Identity

• National identity has several functions: It underpins the state, it provides social bonds, and it defines and locates individual selves in the world – in an Ethnic Community. An ethnic community can be distinguished by (Smith A.):

A collective proper name A myth of common ancestory Shared historical memories One or more differentiating elements of common culture An association with a specific homeland A sense of solidarity for significant sectors of the population.


Nationalism in Contemporary EU

The European Union is an area of relatively similar legislative and social dynamics. In recent years, broad geopolitical factors and the process of European integration have spurred comparable migration patterns and reactive social movements and parties.

Increased internal geographical mobility, and the arrival of an unprecedented influx of third world refugees and migrants have made ethnicity newly relevant and sparked reactive movements.


Extreme Right Movements

These movements are often locally active among the indigenous population in areas where new migrants have settled, often in large cities, and are frequently opposed by counter-movements that advocate ethnic tolerance.

The cultural exchanges between the two types of movements reflect debates taking place in public discourse, and in turn influences its formation.


The Extreme Right and Public Discourse

With Gamson (1992), I differentiate public discourse from its media aspect. The media is just one arena among others where a discussion on societal themes occurs. Thus, an important area of discourse such as the one on ethnic relations has a media dimension and is the subject of discussions in families, political parties, work organizations and other discussion arenas.


Other arenas in social life If the importance of the media arena is universally recognized,

it is also important to investigate the arena that takes place in the everyday life of inner cities where different ethnic groups interact with each others, with the images of each other reflected by the media, and with the social movement activists for whom they are relevant.

In fact, social movement demonstrations and other protest events are often the impetus for media coverage, and cadres' framing of issues is likely to be reported and thus constitute the initial presentation of topics. Topics are then re-elaborated in other arenas.


The Right and the Media

Whilst movement's themes have been accepted by the media, the solutions proposed have been re-evaluated according to largely independent dynamics emerging in the arena of media discussion.

A set of similar geopolitical conditions in Europe have sustained a a specific relation between anti-immigrant movements, the media and civil society. The frames produced by these movements have been accepted by the media only in their agenda-setting character.


Media and Publics

It is to media framings of the migrants’ issue that public discourse is sensitive. Specific networks re-elaborate media positions and produce autonomous frames on issues of multiculturalism. All over Europe, nationalist social movements have defined multiculturalism as a problematic phenomenon and a threat to indigenous populations and community integration.


Movements and Grievances

In stigmatizing migrants, right-wing movements have responded to a typical need of social movement: that of constitution an enemy that by virtue of its existence creates the 'us' versus 'them' feeling that supports activism and sustain their identity of challengers.

This enemy has varied in different countries, but it is often the last immigrant group arrived. Negative traits are ascribed to it, but this image change over time as new groups arrive and new framings emerge in public discourse.

The nationalist movement frame has emerged on the one hand on the basis of ethnic competition for resources of the welfare state, but equally important has been a need for community that the changing structure of several labour markets and patterns of urban life have undermined.


Cities, Migrants and the Right

Cities hold a special role in the formation of public discourse. Their size, concentration of the media, and of political and industrial elites makes them uniquely relevant in advancing and reflecting cultural change, and thus in constantly re-defining conceptions of the 'other'.

Specific sections of these cities are good indicators of processes happening elsewhere in other large cities, such as processes of change in family structure, the use of leisure time and patterns of occupational life. Other dynamics such as some political ones related to regionalist movements are unique, but crucial in influencing countries.


What differences?

As "notions of cultural difference and processes of boundary maintenance arise from aspects of social organization, not from 'objective' cultural difference" (Hyllard Heriksen 1993, p. 58), it is important to understand what are the relevant social patterns that sustain perceptions of difference.


The Discourse of the Extreme-Right

Typically the right claim that specific areas need to be protected from the economic or cultural predatory behaviour of nation states. They advocate an increase of various types of political and economic resources ranging from subsidies to depressed areas to the institutional protection of linguistic differences. Their independence claims range from limited autonomy in specific areas, to seeking secession and promoting ethnic nationalism and statehood.

Right-wing nationalist groups in contemporary EU claim to protect entire nation-states from cultural, economic or social threats and adopt right-wing doctrines, which typically idealize the state. Although recently right-wing movements have attracted much media attention, there is a paucity of academic work on them. This is due to several reasons.


The Extreme-Right as an Academic Topic In recent years, the field of social movement research has

traditionally specialized on intellectually sophisticated and socially middle-class movements such as the new-left, and the new social movements of the seventies and eighties, and to a lesser extent some new religious movements.

Both in its concepts, and general value orientation, the literature is ill equipped to tackle the often violent and uneducated right wing movements of the nineties. Furthermore, their nationalism has been taken as an unimportant corollary of their racist character and they have been neglected since their impact on public discourse was considered limited until recently.


Distinction between nationalism of the right and regionalism

The 'enemy' of regionalist and right-wing nationalist groups is different.

Regionalist parties are concerned with a specific dominant group of their nation-state such as the Basque and Catalan concern with the 'Castilians' or the Welch's concern with the English,

whilst the right-wing nationalists define the enemy in 'racial' terms as the 'non-whites'.


Occasional coincidence of regionalism and right-wing nationalism

The two sets of concerns can of course be both present at the same time, thus the Northern League is against both non-white immigrants and Italian southerners. But more frequently, there is a difference of political emphasis, which corresponds to a different characterization of the enemy, and the two types of movements propose different methods to enhance the communities of concern.

The idealized solution proposed by right-wing nationalist movements is the expulsion of immigrants or moves in that direction.

Regionalist parties, which range in political orientation are generally focusing on ensuring the institutional primacy of their nationals in their regions. However, in some cases, they might also advocate the expulsion of non-nationals from their territory such as is the case of parts of the Welch movement.


Boundaries

Boundaries between groups are maintained by aspects of cultural reproduction and occupational and lifestyle segmentation that this tradition has investigated. Ethnic separation can be assessed through Handelman (1977) typology of ethnic category, ethnic network, ethnic association and ethnic community.

Cultural differences and processes of boundary maintenance are rooted in aspects of social organization and not in 'objective' cultural differences. At the same time the role of the media should be considered independently in its function of cultural reproduction.

Documents

Carlo Ruzza - Università di Trento 1 Nationalism and the Extreme Right in Europe Nationalism, like the modern age is the product of two revolutions: the