Sinisa Malesevic - Is Nationalism Intrinsically Violent.pdf

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Is Nationalism Intrinsically Violent? Siniša Malešević

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University College Dublin Published online: 25 Feb 2013.

To cite this article: Sinia Maleevi (2013) Is Nationalism Intrinsically Violent?, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 19:1, 12-37, DOI: 10.1080/13537113.2013.761894 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13537113.2013.761894

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Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 19:12–37, 2013 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1353-7113 print / 1557-2986 online DOI: 10.1080/13537113.2013.761894

Is Nationalism Intrinsically Violent? SINISˇ A MALESˇ EVIC´

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University College Dublin

This article analyzes the complex and contradictory relationships between nationalism and organized violence. The author challenges the approaches that see nationalism as being inherently linked with violence and demonstrates that nationalist ideology by itself is rarely a main cause of hostile acts. The article focuses on the different forms of organized violence including wars, revolutions, terrorism, and genocide. It aims to show that the relationship between violence and nationalism cannot be properly captured by the dominant intentionalist, naturalist, and formativist perspectives. Instead the case is made that the emphasis should be given to the long-term historical processes and the relative modernity of both nationalism and organized violence. The author argues that it is very difficult to generate sustained and organized violent nationalist action. The mutation of nationalist doctrines into violent acts is generally a product of unintended structural circumstances and is characterized by its temporary nature and volatility. More specifically, this process is usually generated by the coercive bureaucratization, centrifugal ideologization, and their capacity to be embedded in the networks of microsolidarity.

INTRODUCTION It seems it is quite difficult to provide a vivid representation or graphic depiction of nationalism that does not include acts of violence. From the famous nationalist paintings of Delacroix, Manet, Goya to Hollywood blockbusters such as Braveheart, Top Gun, The Patriot, 300, or Captain America, nationalism is stereotypically portrayed through the prism of excessive violence. Despite the historical and geographical varieties, there is a tendency to associate nationalist discourses with images of bloodshed, killing, dying, martyrdom,

Address correspondence to Siniˇsa Maleˇsevi´c, UCD School of Sociology, Newman Building, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. E-mail: [email protected] 12

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suffering, and destruction. The birth of American and French nationalism is traditionally articulated through the images of violence unleashed by the two revolutions. South American nationalist aspirations, exemplified in the struggles of Simon Bolivar, are deeply linked to the experiences and shared memories of the bloody wars of independence from Spanish and Portuguese rule. Both the National Socialist and the Hutu Power radical nationalisms are usually seen as the root cause of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide respectively. When discussing so-called minority nationalisms, including the Chechen, Basque, or Tamil, there is a propensity to identify such ideologies with violent insurgencies and terrorism. Academics, too, are not immune to making such associations. Even though there is widespread recognition that not all forms of nationalism are violent, most scholarly analyses operate on the principle that there is, what Weber would call, a strong elective affinity between nationalism and violence. This article challenges such views and attempts to show not only that there are no natural linkages between nationalism and violence, but more importantly, that the connections between these two phenomena can only emerge under specific historical conditions. In particular, I focus on the significance of organizational, ideological, and microsituational factors, whose coalescence is necessary for making nationalism seem intrinsically violent and, violence appear to be inherently nationalist. The first part of the article critically reviews the three dominant interpretations that insist on the intrinsic link between the two phenomena whereas the second part develops an alternative heuristic model that emphasizes the historical contingency of the relationship between organized violence and nationalism.

ASSUMING CAUSALITY: INTENTIONALISM, NATURALISM, AND FORMATIVISM Although most scholars clearly recognize that not all forms of nationalism are virulent, there is a tendency to assume that nationalism more than most other ideologies is prone to violent outbursts. The fact that throughout history many radical nationalists have openly advocated the use of violence has reinforced the view that nationalism and violence often constitute each other. For example, the Italian nationalist poet, Gabriele D’Annunzio, interpreted history through the prism of perpetual violent struggle between nations: “Civilization is nothing but the glory of incessant struggle. When man is no longer a wolf for other men, a nation will and must always be a lioness to other nations.”1 In a similar vein, a German nationalist historian, Heinrich von Treitschke, argued that “war is the mightiest and most efficient moulder of nations. Only in war does a nation became a nation” and hence “only brave nations have a secure existence, a future, a development: weak and cowardly nations go to the wall, and rightly so.”2 These and many similar

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public pronouncements of nationalists have reaffirmed a view, already shared by a number of scholars, that nationalism and violence are closely related phenomena. This tight connection between the two was generally taken for granted and the focus has shifted towards questions such as the following: Who engenders nationalist violence? Is violent nationalism rooted in the actions of specific individuals, groups, or social structures? And do strong nationalist bonds ultimately lead towards violent action or is it the other way around, that is, that violent contexts generate and enhance nationalist identifications? There are three influential and quite distinct perspectives that aim to provide answers to these questions: (1) The intentionalist models, that see powerful individuals as generating much of nationalist violence; (2) the naturalist approaches that view universal ethnocentrism and nationalist ideologies as the primary cause of violent behavior; and (3) the formativist positions that focus on the context of violent experiences that enable the emergence of nationalist doctrines.3 The intentionalist accounts have traditionally dominated journalistic and other popular interpretations of violent nationalist conflicts. Nevertheless, intentionalism has experienced a significant revival in the recent academic analyses of fascism, Nazism, Stalinism, and insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.4 In these approaches, most forms of organized violence including genocides, wars, and terrorism are traced directly to the intentions and actions of powerful statesmen and ideologues. Thus, personalities and stern ideological commitments of Adolf Hitler, Shamil Basayev, Velupillai Prabhakaran, Mehmed Talaat, or Slobodan Miloˇsevi´c are regularly identified as the key variables in explaining the origin of the Holocaust, the suicide terrorist actions against civilians, or the genocidal slaughters of Armenian and Bosniak populations, respectively.5 However, intentionalism has been rightly criticized for ignoring the complexity of sociological and historical processes that created the conditions for the emergence of such powerful nationalist leaders willing to use violence. Without denying the culpability of individual leaders who made the crucial decisions to use violence on a mass scale, a number of recent studies have emphasized that, in most instances, the transition to organized violence was mediated by contingent social processes often beyond individual control. In contrast to the popular views that see revolutions, wars, and genocides as calculated and well-planned events, many macrosociological studies show otherwise. Therefore, we now have concrete evidence that revolutions are rarely the product of deliberate, predetermined, planning; instead they often result from the breakdown of the above caused by dramatically changed geopolitical conditions.6 Similarly, much of modern warfare is too complex and too contingent to be initiated by the free wills of individual leaders even in the context of highly authoritarian states.7

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Nor do genocides follow this simple top-down formula. Rather than relying on the prearranged and clearly developed scenarios that are simply executed when conditions are ripe, most genocides develop through the gradual process of radicalization when other possibilities fall short. In Mann’s view, murderous ethnic cleansing is often a by-product of organizational failure to implement other options. It is a kind of Plan C, developed only after the first two responses to a perceived ethnic threat fail. Plan A typically envisages a carefully planned solution in terms of either compromise or straightforward repression. Plan B is a more radically repressive adaptation to the failure of a Plan A, more hastily conceived amid rising violence and some political destabilisation.8

The key point is that while powerful nationalist leaders certainly matter, they are not sufficient to turn nationalist ideologies into mass-scale violent behavior. There have been thousands of nationalist ideologues who advocated the use of violence, but very few of these, even when in positions of power, have embarked on violent rampages. One should distinguish clearly between the rhetoric and the practice of nationalist violence.9 In contrast to intentionalists, the naturalist approaches devote less attention to individuals and much more to the culture or biology of the group. Thus, historians such as Burleigh, Keegan, and Goldhagen among others see nationalism as an ancient and omnipotent cultural force that by itself is capable of—and prone to—spawning large-scale violent actions.10 For Burleigh, the cultural foundations of Irish nationalism in Northern Ireland have given birth to terrorist violence. In Keegan’s understanding, warfare is not a political phenomenon but is entirely cultural whereby entrenched and mutually exclusive nationalist passions lead to violent confrontations. In this view, there is no significant difference between the contemporary wars such as those in the former Yugoslavia and those fought in antiquity. Keegan deems them all “ancient in origin,” “fed by passion and rancours” and inspired by nationalist ambitions. So in his view, the violent conflicts of Serbs and Croats in the 1990s resemble the Greco-Persian wars of fifth century BCE where “the Greeks took pride in their freedom and despised the subjects of Xerxes and Darius for their lack of it [and] their hatred of Persia was at root nationalistic.” In a similar fashion, Goldhagen interprets the Holocaust as being deeply rooted in the “eliminationist mentality” of anti-Semitic beliefs and cultural practices of German population since medieval times.11 The naturalist approach also has a biological, neo-Darwinian, version. In sociobiological accounts, both nationalism and violence are seen as being ingrained in human nature and shaped by genetic imperatives. The key argument is that all animals, including human beings, are biologically programmed to be nepotistic creatures who favor kin over non-kin and close

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kin over distant kin. In this context, nationalism is understood to be just a form of a universal phenomenon that is ethnocentrism—an extension of kinship. Violence too is conceptualized as a universal phenomenon: An optimal means to maximize one’s chance for survival.12 All neo-Darwinian approaches insist that the link between violence and nationalism stems from the incessant competition of genes, and thus species, over scarce resources. As the originator of modern sociobiology, E. O. Wilson argues: “war is a straightforward example of hypertrophied biological predisposition . . . . The force behind most warlike policies is ethnocentrism, the irrationally exaggerated allegiance of individuals to their kin and fellow tribesmen.”13 The naturalist theories of nationalism and organized violence have been rigorously criticized for their biological or cultural determinism. More specifically, Brubaker, Banton, and Maleˇsevi´c have identified the major problems with the groupist and essentialist analyses that tend to reify group membership and to assume that cultural or biological differences by themselves automatically translate into collective action.14 Both sociobiologists and cultural naturalists wrongly presume that the mere fact of sharing the same language, common descent, or religion will inevitably and unproblematically generate group solidarity. Nevertheless, nations and ethnic groups are not fixed and stable entities but dynamic networks of individuals. Since Weber, it has become apparent that group membership does not emerge from biological or cultural similarity but from prolonged political mobilization. Not only that group solidarity cannot be taken for granted but the cultural and biological markers that define groups also tend to vary substantially. As Brass and Breuilly among others have shown, nationalist mobilization often entails arbitrary selection of cultural or biological markers whereby, in some historical moments, shared language matters more than religion, common descent, or shared physiognomy and in other times it is the other way around.15 Finally, the assumption that one’s biology or shared culture somehow presupposes violent intergroup confrontation is empirically unfounded. As Laitin demonstrates, even in the African continent, often seen as the epicenter of violent ethnic conflicts and nationalist wars, violence is used only sporadically: “the percentage of neighbouring ethnic groups that experienced violent communal incidents was infinitesimal—for any randomly chosen but neighbouring pair of ethnic groups, on average only 5 in 10,000 had a recorded violent conflict in any year.”16 If there was a simple causal relationship between violence and nationalism, this planet would experience many more genocides, revolutions, and wars than it actually has. Whereas the intentionalist and naturalist positions tend to be popular outside of academia, it is the formativist perspectives that have the upper hand among mainstream social scientists. Formativism largely dismisses the views that nationalist violence is a product of individual pathology or that cultural and biological similarities foster violent conflicts. Moreover, many formativists are skeptical towards the view that nationalist ideologies by

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themselves encourage violent action.17 Instead their focus is on the opposite side of this relationship; rather than nationalism causing violence, they argue that the experience of violence is likely to engender strong nationalist attachments. Although there are a number of distinct formativist perspectives, including the neo-Durkhemian, instrumentalist, and realist approaches, they all insist that instead of being a cause of violence, nationalism is a byproduct of confrontation and violent social action.18 Thus, realist accounts see the emergence of nationalism through the prism of anarchical international order.19 The argument is that the geopolitical instability creates a “security dilemma” whereby the lack of mutual trust leads individual nationstates towards ever increased military build-ups that ultimately foster and are enhanced by resurgent popular nationalisms. In this context, nationalism becomes an important military asset: “States or stateless groups, drifting into competition for whatever reason, will quickly turn to the reinforcement of national identity because of its potency as a military resource.”20 For the instrumentalist approaches, nationalist solidarity is a direct outcome of coordinated self-interest.21 In this view, extreme events such as revolutions, wars, or terrorist attacks undermine regular market situations, bring greater insecurity, diminish mutual trust and shift the patterns of competition. Whereas stable environments promote individual competition, violent contexts stimulate group conflict. In times of war and other forms of organized violence, individuals can gain more by amplifying their cultural, biological, or political markers. In other words, from this perspective, nationalism is a product of self-interest–driven collective action in which individuals utilize their shared markers in times of profound crisis. Neo-Durkhemian accounts differ from realists and instrumentalists in one sense as they focus much less attention on the direct impact of violence and more on the significance of past, violent events when accounting for the formation of present day national identities.22 More specifically, they argue that nationalist ideologies are built from the shared imagery of “blood sacrifice,” that is the common myths and commemorations of past revolutions, wars, genocides, and other traumatic events. Since neo-Durkhemians conceptualize nationalism as a form of civil religion and nations as moral, sacred communities, they see the commemorations of violent martyrdom (such as the monuments to the “glorious dead”) as crucial in maintaining a sense of national identity. From this interpretation, the rituals of collective remembrance that celebrate the victimhood or heroism of past wars, genocides, revolutions, or terrorist attacks establish ethical parameters for the entire national community and, in this way, bind posterity in an ethical obligation towards those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Simply put, nationalism is an upshot of the shared and periodically remembered violent pasts. There is no doubt that the formativist perspectives contribute a great deal to our understanding of the complex relationships between violence

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and nationalism. Security dilemmas, individual self-interest, and public commemorations of past, and violent events all play a significant role in linking nationalism with violence. However, the fact that all these factors add to the social contexts where violence becomes nationalized does not mean that they inevitably create a causal relationship between the two. Whereas rituals of collective remembrance, the shared social action of rational actors, and military strength are functional to national solidarity in times of crisis, such processes by themselves do not create nationalism. Not all security dilemmas lead to greater popular nationalist expressions. The experience of war, revolution, or terrorism does not necessarily result in greater homogenization; instead, it can just as often shatter the existing national identifications as was the case in 1918 Germany, or mid-nineteenth-century Mexico or Peru. Similarly, not all instances of commemorative ritualism of a violent past enhance national identification, as is fairly obvious when comparing and contrasting the pre-Weimar and contemporary Germany or pre- and post-WWII Japan.23 Furthermore, the leading formativist approaches cannot explain how exactly violence becomes nationalized and nationalism violent. If nationalism is conceptualized as a relatively recent historical phenomenon and violence as having a much longer past, it is not clear when, how, and why violent actions engender nationalist beliefs and practices. How is it that organized violence can foster the emergence of nationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries but not in the twelfth or thirteenth centuries? Why can political leaders and ideologues mobilize popular support for wars and revolutions in the modern age but not before? Why is it more difficult to popularly justify the use of violence in imperial conquests than in insurgencies, wars, revolutions, terrorist attacks, and even genocides that are waged in the name of national liberation? To answer some of these questions and to better understand the relationship between nationalism and violence, it is important to decouple the two phenomena, to explain their historical origins and development, and to see under which conditions they encourage each other. To sum up, despite the prevalence of perspectives that nationalism and violence are conceptual twins, there is nothing inherently violent in nationalist ideologies. Although political leaders can give direction and stimulate the transformation of nationalism into violence and vice versa, the individual agents, regardless of how powerful they are, usually cannot create nationalism or violence ex nihilo. Likewise, although different cultural practices, biology, geopolitics, shared historical experience, and individual self-interests all can contribute to the formation of both nationalist doctrines and violent acts, nationalism is neither the direct cause nor the consequence of organized violence. Thus, the key focus must be on when and how nationalism metamorphoses into organized violent action and when and how violence becomes infused with nationalist discourses.

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NATIONALISM AND ORGANIZED VIOLENCE: DEFINITIONS AND ORIGINS Before attempting to provide an answer to the questions raised above, it is important to define the key terms as both nationalism and organized violence are contested concepts. Definitions of nationalism vary and range from those that identify nationalism with separatism and state break-up, those that focus on the distinct cultural and discursive practices present in cultural, economic, or political nationalist movements, and those that analyze nationalism as a universal phenomenon present in all modern states.24 I define nationalism as an ideology that is grounded in the popularly shared beliefs and practices that conceive the nation as the most important unit of human solidarity and political legitimacy. Such units are also envisaged as sovereign, independent, and free. Nationalist doctrines appear in a variety of forms but they generally share the perception that a nation is the self-evident and natural form of human organization defined by its inimitable characteristics. In the view of nationalists, all human beings inevitably belong to a specific nation and any expressions of disloyalty to one’s nation are understood to be a form of grave moral shortcoming.25 The concept of violence is even more contentious, with scholars sharply disagreeing whether violence should be understood in a narrow or a wide sense. This dispute is particularly visible when discussing organized forms of violence (often termed also as political violence, social violence, or collective violence). While some scholars operate with very wide definitions of collective violence that encompass many forms of unequal relationships between human beings, others restrict socially violent action to the use of physical force. For example, Bourdieu’s idea of symbolic violence and Galtung’s notion of structural violence both conceptualize collective violence in a broad sense.26 For Bourdieu, symbolic violence is a form of coercive domination enforced through cultural reproduction that involves imposition of culturally arbitrary “pedagogic action” on the subdued individuals. Galtung goes even further and defines structural violence in terms of structural constraints on human beings to realize their full potential. In his view, this can include the lack of political power and unequal access to resources, education, health, or legal protection. Others such as Tilly, Collins, or Pinker limit social violence to physical harm.27 My view is that the former understanding is so wide that it renders the concept of violence meaningless while the latter is too narrow to capture the processes that involve coercive action but do not necessarily result in intended physical injuries. For example, collective forms of violence can include such phenomena as the ever-increasing coerciveness of the criminal justice system or the coercive criminalization of interpersonal relationships.28 Thus, by “organized violence,” I mean the relatively ordered, structured, and coordinated social action that intentionally or unintentionally inflicts physical damage, injury, or death or results in

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coercively forced behavioral change. Such social action can take several forms including warfare, revolutions, armed uprisings, genocides, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, insurgencies, violent rebellions, civil strife, riots, or gang fights, among others.29 What is immediately clear from these two definitions is that nationalism does not presuppose the use of violence nor does organized violent action entail reliance on nationalist discourse. Indeed most forms of violent action—from the peasant jacqueries and imperial conquests of previous periods to contemporary intergang clashes and Salafist terrorist suicide bombings—have little or nothing to do with nationalist ideologies. Similarly, most expressions of nationalism, including the cultural agitations to standardize or institutionalize particular vernacular languages, the propagation of consumerist practices that stimulate the purchase of “national products,” and the calls for political autonomy for a distinct national community, generally do not result in violent conflicts. To fully understand why nationalism has often been linked to violence, it is crucial to trace the origins and development of both. This general misperception owes a great deal to the widespread view that strong national identifications and, even more so, violent actions come naturally and easily to human beings. Hence, if being violent is not difficult and being attached to one’s nation is natural, then it seems obvious that whenever there are competing national interests at stake that nationalism will lead to violence and vice versa. However, much of the recent scholarship has convincingly shown that human beings as such have little propensity towards either violence or nationalism. The classics of nationalism studies have made it clear that rather than being a primeval and natural condition of human beings, nationalism is a historically contingent and novel phenomenon brought about by unprecedented structural changes over the past three centuries.30 As both Gellner and Anderson emphasize, nationalism could not emerge in the world of empires, city-states, or composite kingdoms as they all, unlike their modern-day organizational progeny nation-states, utilized cultural differences in a strictly vertical sense. In other words, whereas in nation-states shared culture is used in the horizontal, trans-class, sense that helps homogenize populations and distinguish, for example, French from Germans or Russians, in the premodern universe, culture served to reinforce the distinctions between the aristocracy and the illiterate peasantry. More importantly, the profoundly hierarchical and stagnant economic and political structure of the premodern world made no room for the politicization of cultural differences and an overwhelming majority of individuals tended to identify in local (village, kinship, town) or transnational terms (religion, imperial doctrine, mythology). Hence, there is no nationalism without standardized vernaculars, full literacy generated by the state-sponsored educational systems, the society wide “high culture,” advanced division of labor, centralized constitutional

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state, the developed infrastructural capacity including state wide transport and communication networks, and a substantial degree of urbanization and industrialization. Bluntly put, despite the romantic imageries offered by nationalists, there is nothing natural and self-evident in privileging nations over other forms of group identity. While there is now a degree of consensus among most historical sociologists that nationalism is a modern phenomenon, this is not the case when organized violence is discussed. For one thing, most accounts still treat violent action in a Hobbesian tradition as something that inevitably accompanies human relations and in that sense is a timeless phenomenon. From this perspective, if not constrained by an external power, individuals will quickly and easily slide into a war of all against all. These views underpin the “greed versus grievance” debates on civil wars and revolutions, the sociopsychological profiling of genocide perpetrators, and the behavioralist interpretations of terrorist motivation, among others. However, as Collins has powerfully argued and documented, it is very difficult to initiate violent action. Despite the boundless boasting, human beings are generally wary, fearful, and incompetent at violence. Moreover at the micro-, interpersonal level, most acts of violence are messy, of short duration, and riddled with tension and fear. The key finding of this research program is that for violence to be effective it requires organization. In other words, as Collins emphasizes: “if it were not socially well organised, wide-participation fighting would not be possible.”31 For another thing, if violence is conceptualized in these terms, it means that organized action is at the heart of most forms of violent deeds. Nevertheless what is significant about this type of violence is that it too has developed very late in human history. Despite the views shared by many academics that wars, revolutions, genocides, and terrorism are as old as the human race, much of recent archaeological, anthropological, and sociological research indicate that there was very little if any organized violence on this planet until the early Mesolithic period. Our predecessors, hunter gatherers, lived in very small, nonsedentary, and highly mobile groupings with flexible membership and weak social ties. They inhabited an extremely sparsely populated planet and spent most of their life scavenging, gathering fruits and seeds while fearing and trying to escape the large predators. Hence, for 99% of our existence on this planet, there were no organizational means, need, or interest to engage in protracted violent conflicts.32 As Otterbein, Kelly and Ferrill among others show, the institution of warfare is only around 10,000 years old. The simple hunter gatherers did not (and, among the surviving such groups, most still do not) fight wars.33 It is not an historical accident that war and civilization emerge at the same time in human history because war, just like other forms of organized violence, entails the presence of complex social organizations.34 Furthermore, once warfare became fully institutionalized, it remained a prerogative of the small, elite, sections of different societies. Thus, until the modern era, most wars were

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limited, resulted in relatively small casualties and involved not much more than ritualistic skirmishes between aristocrats. It is only in modernity that wars start to subsume large sectors of the population and that they became truly massive events and processes that affect entire societies. This is even more the case with most other forms of organized violence. Revolutions are social phenomena that proliferate in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and “seem not to have occurred at all before the seventeenth [century].”35 Similarly, although there were instances of mass murder throughout recorded history including the Roman annihilation of Carthage in the second century BC or the religious pogroms against Jews and Muslims (Moors) in fifteenth-century Spain, the fully fledged genocidal projects emerge only in the late nineteenth century.36 Even terrorism is a distinctly modern phenomenon. Despite the rare historical precedents such as the Jewish Zealots of first century Judaea, the eleventh-century Hashshashin order of Syria and Persia, or the British Gunpowder plot of the early seventeenth century, terrorist activity becomes a mass phenomenon only in the modern era.37 Hence, the fact that both nationalism and organized violence appear on the historical scene at the same time is not coincidental. There are sound structural reasons for this that need to be carefully unpacked. Nevertheless their near-simultaneous origin and development has created an optical illusion that the two are mutually interdependent and that one is bound to cause the other. This, however, is not the case. Such illusory correlation between nationalism and organized violence stems from the fact that they both, like many other social phenomena, emerge and develop through similar long-term historical processes. Thus, rather than focusing on nationalism or organized violence per se, it is crucial to tackle the sociohistorical processes that have given birth to both phenomena and that have inadvertently brought them closer together.

MAKING NATIONALISM VIOLENT AND VIOLENCE NATIONALIST: THE LONG-RUN VIEW Cumulative Bureaucratization of Coercion As I have argued in my previous work, to understand the workings of contemporary social and political orders, states, nationalisms, wars, and many other large-scale phenomena, it is necessary to take a longue dur´ee perspective and to trace their developments over long stretches of time. More specifically, it is paramount to engage with three such processes: the cumulative bureaucratization of coercion, centrifugal ideologization, and the social envelopment of microsolidarity.38 By cumulative bureaucratization of coercion, I mean an open-ended historical process that encompasses the constant increase of organizational power and competence for coercive action and the ability to internally pacify

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the social environment under one’s control. This ever-increasing organizational capacity is reflected in the activities of both state and nonstate actors. States tend to monopolize the use of force over the territories they control, whereas nonstate actors utilize their organizational might to successfully dominate their membership and to inflict symbolic or real damage to the state’s coercive and ideological monopolies. Despite occasional ups and downs throughout history, the coercive power of social organizations has been cumulative, as it kept substantially increasing over the past ten thousand years. Moreover its organizational power—including the unprecedented infrastructural reach, deep societal penetration, and wide territorial scope—has dramatically intensified over the last two centuries.39 These organizational advancements were vital for the transformation of warfare and for the proliferation of revolutions, insurgencies, terrorism, and genocides. It is the extensively increased organizational capabilities of states that were fundamental in making wars more protracted, more destructive, and more frequent in early modern Europe.40 The bureaucratization of warfare was reflected in the greater organizational ability of states to implement the policies of mass conscription, to deploy the new industrial, technological, and scientific inventions for military purposes, and to coerce the population to provide a productive impetus for the war effort. Despite the hints of revolutionary zeal, the military successes of the French and American republics were firmly rooted in their organizational and coercive advancements: meritocratic principles of promotion, capacity to successfully recruit, to train, to arm, to feed, to clothe, to deploy, and to coordinate huge numbers of soldiers, the organizational capacity to police and shame unwilling recruits, the substantial improvement in logistics, communication, and transport, and so on.41 As Tilly, McNiell and Giddens have shown, it was preparations for war and the conduct of warfare that were at the heart of fiscal reorganization and concentration of administrative resources of states. Increased organizational capacity was a precondition for the industrial, technological, and scientific developments that fostered the nineteenth- and twentieth-century phenomenon: the industrialization of warfare.42 Although the expansion of capitalism was pivotal in providing means for the industrialization of war (the mass production of armaments, military uniforms and equipment, canned food, barbed wire, the railway, telecommunications, etc.), it was the cumulative bureaucratization of coercion that played a decisive role in this process. The enhancement of organizational powers stimulated (and was further stimulated by) the centralization of the state, the professionalization of the military and civilian structures, the introduction of regulated systems of recruitment and promotion, the standardized recognition of educational credentials, the reorganization of the officer corps, and the further integration of military campaigns. The cumulative bureaucratization of coercion has significantly contributed to the emergence of the total wars of the twentieth century in which all resources, including entire populations, transport, trade,

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industrial production, and communications were placed at the disposal of the nation-state at war. Mass production, mass politics, and mass communications were all mobilized for mass destruction, as total industrialized warfare eliminated much of the distinction between state and society, military and civilian, and the public and private spheres. The cumulative proliferation of organizational power was equally instrumental in the advent of genocides. As both Mann and Bauman make evident, premodern polities lacked the organizational and technological know-how to implement mass murders on the scale witnessed in the Holocaust, the Armenian, or the Cambodian genocides.43 “The final solution” entails the existence of sophisticated administrative machinery, complex, and ordered division of labor, advanced science and technology, potent industrial capacity, clearly established hierarchies, and the vastly expanded infrastructural reach of the state. Hence, for Bauman, the bureaucratic, dull, and businesslike routine that is ordinarily associated with modern-day civil services, big corporate organizations, or mass-producing factories was just as discernible in the extermination camps of the Nazi empire: Rather than producing goods, the raw material was human beings and the end product was death, so many units per day marked carefully on the manager’s production charts. The chimneys, the very symbol of the modern factory system, poured forth acrid smoke produced by burning human flesh. The brilliantly organised railroad grid of modern Europe carried a new kind of raw material to the factories.44

The key point here, as Shaw emphasizes, is that genocides are always organized and executed by the repressive apparatuses of the state including military and police often aided by paramilitary units, political parties, and intelligence services.45 Hence, without complex social organization, that is the modern state, genocides could not have happened. It is not a historical accident that the twentieth century has witnessed more genocides than any other time in human history. In a similar vein, revolutionary violence requires the presence of the state. Jeff Goodwin puts it bluntly: [P]rior to the emergence of consolidated national states, social revolutions as we now understand them . . . were simply impossible. Until the modern era . . . there existed no institution with sufficient infrastructural power to remake extensive social arrangements in fundamental ways.46

In other words, any systematic attempt to use revolutionary means to overthrow or seize the state is premised on the existence of such an entity in the first place. While human history is littered with cases of riots, rebellions, and uprisings, it is only in the modern era that one encounters the phenomenon of social revolution—an organized and forcible transfer of state power. The

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historical sociologists have convincingly demonstrated not only that “revolutions are not made, they come,” as Skocpol and Phillips put it, but also that revolutionary action depends heavily on the organizational might of the state. As long as there is no profound conflict between political elites and the government is in full control of its military and police apparatuses, the possibility of a successful revolutionary takeover of state power is minimal.47 Both Skocpol and Goldstone have documented that the advent of revolutions is regularly linked with the weakening of state capacity. This can be triggered by a comprehensive defeat in war, natural disasters, economic collapse, sudden food shortages, or some other catastrophic events. For Goldstone, most revolutions emerge as an outcome of three interdependent processes: the fiscally and organizationally drained state incapable of collecting revenue and other resources, the presence of deep conflict between ruling elites and budding popular discontent. In his view, these three processes often transpire in the context of a substantial demographic boom.48 Hence, it is temporary organizational breakdowns and, I would add, the augmented organizational capabilities of nonstate actors that are likely to create an opportunity for revolutionary action. Once the state authorities are unable to collect taxes, to provide employment, or to provide educational opportunities to their everincreasing populations, they will not be in position to pay their civil servants, police, military, and judiciary. The fact that successful social revolutions are quite rare and temporary phenomena indicates that despite periodic historical reversals the bureaucratization of coercive power continues to operate as a cumulative process. Finally, terrorism too requires advanced organizational capacity. Since the key aim of most terrorist organizations is not to crush their (usually much stronger) opponents but to communicate a particular message in a spectacular way, their success is premised on their organizational and coercive might. What characterizes most successful terrorist activity is the presence of well-coordinated, highly disciplined, secretive, and hierarchically ordered, but very flexible, social organizations. To counter the force of the modern state, terrorist organizations have tended historically to imitate and adopt the organizational and technological advancements pioneered by states. Thus, emergence of the first terrorist activities in the late nineteenth century coincided with the invention and availability of dynamite that provided an opportunity for small numbers of highly committed individuals to inflict fear through random bombing campaigns and assassinations of political leaders.49 The organizational potency of terrorist groups has substantially grown throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. From Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Freedom; ETA) and the Tamil Tigers to Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia; FARC) and Al Qaida, radical organizations have developed complex and reliable systems of recruitment, professional training, financing, and promotion based on one’s skill, competence, and the degree of ideological commitment. Furthermore, to evade the omnipotent state apparatuses,

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terrorist organizations have developed highly hierarchical and centrally coordinated network structures that foster autonomy, self-reliance, inventiveness, and flexibility of individual cells. As Pape and Sageman convincingly show, the most effective terrorist organizations rely on knowledgeable and extremely self-disciplined volunteers who employ an elaborate division of labor and extensive planning of their missions.50 Most such groups are composed of highly skilled and well-qualified experts, with a predominance of engineers, who exhibit goal-driven patterns of behavior and utilize the most advanced organizational and technological mechanisms to achieve their political aims.51 More recently, the expansion of the Internet and new social media has proved particularly useful in increasing the organizational capacity of terrorist networks. Hence, in this case, too one can clearly identify the significance of the cumulative bureaucratization of coercion.

Centrifugal Ideologization Although neither violence nor nationalism could be sustained for long without the grip of social organizations, bureaucratic power in itself is not enough to produce or maintain either. Since human beings are creatures endowed with, and constantly thirsting for, social meanings, there is no large-scale modern social organization that can be successful without a degree of popular legitimacy. Political legitimacy can be, and historically has been, generated in a variety of ways. However, over the last three centuries, it was the mass ideological doctrines that played the crucial role in justifying the existence of most powerful social organizations such as the nation-state. To historically contextualize how the majority of modern-day individuals have become receptive to ideological messages, it is necessary once again to take a longue dur´ee view. More specifically, I conceptualize this long-term historical transformation through the notion of centrifugal ideologization.52 This concept refers to an organizationally generated, mass-scale process whereby specific ideological doctrines gradually, but almost entirely, start to permeate diverse social strata in different societies. The ultimate outcome of this process is a greater ideological unity among disparate individuals inhabiting the same social or political space. This historically contingent, uneven and contested process is expressed in the way that different social strata became highly receptive not only to ideological justification of particular forms of social action but also for ideological mobilization in the pursuit of such action. Although this process is initiated by cultural and political elites, it gradually developed into a mass phenomenon involving civil society networks, organized political parties, social movements, and many state and parastate organizations all pursuing specific normative vistas and advocating particular blueprints of the better future. Therefore, to understand the development of different forms of organized violence, such as terrorism, war, revolution, and genocide, it is

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paramount not only to look at their organizational growth but also to briefly explore their ideological underpinnings. While there is no doubt that the institution of warfare precedes the modern age, there is a substantial difference between wars waged before and after modernity. Whereas in the premodern world, (as noted above) most wars were fought by aristocratic elites who generally were not expected to acquire popular justification for their violent adventures, in the modern age, all wars require some kind of popular legitimacy. In other words, military successes in contemporary wars are premised on the ability of states to secure mass mobilization and popular justification for their war effort. In this sense the Napoleonic wars, the Anglo Boer wars, the Crimean war, and many nineteenth- and early twentieth-century imperial military adventures in Africa and Asia were all waged relying extensively on popular support on the “home front.” This ideological support was often articulated in the form of imperial civilizing missions, Darwinist inspired supremacist beliefs, or specific nationalist doctrines. In some instances, such as the second Boer war or Russo-Ottoman war, the highly ideologized public opinion was ahead of the rulers in advancing the belligerent foreign policy and in spreading militaristic messages.53 However, the key point here is that modern wars did not create ideological citizens ex nihilo. Instead the centrifugal ideologization of the masses was a gradual process that developed much more in times of peace than war.54 Ever-increasing organizational powers created the conditions for mass ideologization; the substantial increase in literacy rates, the introduction of compulsory primary education, the availability of affordable mass media, and the expansion of civil society networks were all instrumental in making ordinary citizens receptive to a variety of ideological messages including diverse nationalist doctrines. If this was not the case, modern wars, unlike their traditional predecessors, would not be able to trigger the already developed and well-established nationalist sentiments. Simply put, the outbreak of war does not create nationalism but rather it just provides conditions for the mass-scale expression of popular ideology developed in times of peace over long periods of time. Gradual mass-scale ideological transformation often preceded revolutionary upheavals too. The ideas of the Enlightenment that framed the revolutionary outcomes in France and the United States and shaped their new constitutions were heralded at least a century before these violent events took place. Similarly, the communist and Islamist ideals that underpinned the 1917 October Revolution and the 1979 Iranian revolution, respectively, developed many years before they were instituted as the dominant normative ideologies in the two states. As Skocpol shows, the Iranian revolution owes a great deal to the oppositional and essentially nationalist, ideological discourses that united the excluded Shia clergy and the traditional bazaar merchants who, inspired by the Shia mythology that counterpoises the willing martyr Hussein against the unscrupulous usurper caliph Yazid, spearheaded the

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mass revolt against Reza Pahlavi. In this ideological narrative, Pahlavi became the modern equivalent of Yazid and the revolutionaries identified themselves with the martyrdom of Hussein. Although the revolutionaries drew on traditional religious mythology, their ideological zeal was profoundly modern and nationalist in its totalist ambition that made no room for ideological compromises.55 In this sense, there are clear parallels between the views of Jacobins and the Shia Islamists. The French revolutionaries insisted on “inflexibility of justice” and the necessity of exporting the revolution abroad arguing that “we cannot be calm until Europe, all Europe, is in flames.”56 In a very similar fashion, the Iranian revolutionaries saw themselves as fulfilling a specific ideological blueprint that quickly found its way into the new constitution that advocates the principle of “extending the sovereignty of God’s law throughout the world” on Iranian, nationalist, terms.57 These uncompromising ideological vistas are even more pronounced in the context of genocides. As Bauman, Levene, and Mann demonstrate convincingly, genocidal projects entail not only a substantial degree of organizational development but also highly articulated ideological blueprints.58 The organized attempts to annihilate “kulaks” and other class enemies in the Soviet Union, China, or Cambodia were often based on similar ideological vistas to those doctrines that fostered the genocides of Herreros and Namas, Armenians, Jews, or Tutsis. In all of these cases, one encounters the Enlightenment- and Romanticism-inspired utopian outlooks that espouse strong engineering ambitions and advocated the creation of a new and perfected social order that would establish a class, ethnicity, or race based purified polity. For Mann, murderous ethnic-cleansing policies are unlikely to happen without coherent ideological doctrines that invoke the democratic principles of popular rule whether in the form of demos or ethnos. Nevertheless, although cumulative bureaucratization of coercion and centrifugal ideologization provide conditions for the proliferation of different ideological doctrines and the organizational means to implement a genocidal project, they do not by themselves cause genocides. For if this was the case, genocide would not be such a rare occurrence. Simply put, for genocide to materialize, one needs advanced social organizations and mass ideologies but the very presence of these two will not automatically generate a genocidal situation. Terrorism too is a product of ideological advancement. The most successful terrorist organizations justify their existence and mobilize public support through direct reference to specific ideological doctrines from nationalism, anarchism, socialism, Islamism to liberalism. The ideological messages play an important part in mobilizing individuals to join terrorist organizations and most such organizations stimulate their membership to acquire greater knowledge of their respective ideological doctrines. Moreover, as the process of centrifugal ideologization advances, the terrorist networks tend to be dominated by well-educated middle class individuals. For example, the active members of Al Qaeda usually came from middle or upper class backgrounds.

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The extensive empirical research on the profile of an average terrorist indicates that most have higher education with the predominance of degrees in science, medicine, and, most of all, engineering.59 In many cases, the firm ideological commitment emerges in the context of a secular or secularizing society. Most nationalist organizations that are traditionally characterized as terrorist such as ETA, the Tamil Tigers, or the Provisional IRA are governed by secular and modernist, Enlightenment-enthused, ideological principles. The significance of the secularizing and modernizing social environment is just as visible in the development of religiously framed terrorism. For example, the obsession with religious ideological purity so prominent among Salafist groups often emerges as a direct response to, what they believe to be, the unprecedented secularization and modernization of their societies. Hence, many Islamist suicide bombers grew up in distinctly secular families where they were exposed early to different ideological worldviews.60 Nevertheless, while ideology is crucial in recruiting individuals to join terrorist organizations, there is no direct link between strong ideological commitment and violence. For example the Black Tigers, the elite units of Tamil Tigers, who were responsible for the most spectacular cases of suicide bombing before 9/11, were not ideological zealots. Although they were fully loyal to the cause of Tamil nationalism, their membership was not based on the strength of one’s ideological commitment. On the contrary, the individuals involved in assassinations and suicide missions tended to be chosen from among those who exhibited strong self-discipline, a degree of asceticism, personal responsibility, and the strategic understanding of the terrorist mission.61

Microsolidarity The cumulative bureaucratization of coercion and centrifugal ideologization furnish the structural conditions for the development of both nationalism and organized violence. Without the workings of these two long-term historical processes, it would be difficult to imagine how thousands, and in some cases millions, of individuals would be legitimately compelled to fight, to kill, to die, or to provide the support for such actions in wars, revolutions, genocides, insurgencies, or acts of terrorism. Moreover, without these two longue dur´ee processes, it is highly unlikely that an overwhelming majority of individuals would see their nations as the most significant units of identity, solidarity, and sovereignty. Nevertheless, as human beings generally are not puppets of historical tides but are self-reflective creatures capable of free and meaningful action, neither nationalism nor violence can transpire without tackling this microcontext. As I have argued previously, to fully understand how human beings become receptive and responsive to organizational demands and ideological appeals, it is vital to explore the social dynamics of microsolidarity.62 Large-scale social organizations such as nation-states or business corporations are formal, anonymous, bureaucratic,

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and essentially cold entities. In contrast the small-scale, face-to-face groups, such as families, lovers, friendships, kinships, or neighborhoods, are characterised by informality, familiarity, and a sense of close attachments. Most individuals attain fulfilment, comfort, security, and love in such small-scale, intimate groups that thrive on direct interaction. Hence, in order to succeed, social organizations have to emulate these microgroupings and to utilize the social energy generated in the pouches of microsolidarity. In other words, the ultimate success of specific social organizations depends on their capacity to ideologically and organizationally penetrate the microworld and to link disparate pockets of microsolidarity into a relatively coherent, all embracing, macronarrative of ideological unity. Studies on the behavior of soldiers on the battlefield clearly show that while ideology and coercive power are indispensable in mobilizing individuals to join military organizations and to support the war aims, it is the microsolidarity with their comrades that incites their willingness to die, to kill, or to fight in these wars.63 Moreover, empirical studies indicate that, once on the battlefield, the willingness to kill or die does not come from strong nationalist feelings, or any other ideological commitment, but principally from the sense of responsibility and attachment to one’s platoon or regiment.64 As both Dollard and Graves demonstrate, during WWII, most American and British soldiers on the frontline openly conveyed their dislike for the expression of patriotic sentiments that were often seen as “remote” and were “at once rejected as fit only for civilians, or prisoners.”65 Similar feelings were just as present among the Wehrmacht soldiers who fought to the bitter end not for Nazi ideals but out of a sense of loyalty towards their friends and family.66 It is only when these strong emotions of solidarity with one’s immediate groups are harnessed by social organizations such as militaries and nation-states that ideologization and bureaucratization manage to envelop entire societies. Furthermore, as Kalyvas demonstrates, expressions of malicious nationalism during civil wars should not be taken at face value since such rhetoric is often used to settle personal scores and to express private grievances: “rather than reflecting the politicization of private life, civil war violence often privatizes politics.”67 The significance of microsolidarity is even more discernible in the context of revolutions. Although the revolutionaries are driven by specific ideological ambitions and their success is largely determined by the quality of their organizational muscle, there is no effective revolutionary action without in-group solidarity. The conspiratorial character of most revolutionary organizations is built on, and tends to reinforce, feelings of attachment, loyalty, trust, and exceptionalism among revolutionaries. As Billington shows, the early revolutionary movements such as Italian Carbonari or Greek Philiki Hetairia were composed of secret fraternities of young men who devised complex rituals of initiation and devoted their lives to what they saw to be a noble cause. They tended to share a utopian, romantic worldview but their

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motivation was maintained and enhanced by joint social action and “by the experience of camaraderie within their own small groups.”68 However, being an active member of a secret revolutionary nationalist cell does not automatically indicate that an individual will embark on a lifelong violent career. Neither does it imply that strong nationalist commitment will generate that violence. For one thing, as made plain by Skocpol, Goodwin, and Collins, revolutions are not made by highly determined and secretive conspirators; they happen for a variety of structural reasons. Hence, while microsolidary is important to keep revolutionaries together, it in itself is not the root cause of revolutions. For another thing, as several meticulous studies demonstrate, the violence produced in revolutionary uprisings is generally a by-product of unintended consequences and is undertaken by a very small number of individuals.69 Despite the prevalence of belligerent rhetoric among revolutionaries, an overwhelming majority of conspirators never engage in actual violent acts. Furthermore, notwithstanding the loud nationalist pronouncements of such movements as Philiki Hetairia or Carbonari, the members of such groups had little or no understanding of what nations and nationalisms are about and the vocal links made between nationalism and violence were rarely if ever translated into concrete social action.70 Even the perpetrators of genocide derive much of their motivation from the hubs of microsolidarity. There is no doubt that mass participation in genocides, such as those in Rwanda and the Holocaust, could not happen without the presence of powerful and coercive social organizations and widespread mass ideologization. However, the actual social mechanics of genocide implementation on the ground depends on the small-group dynamics. As Collins and Klusemann convincingly show, much of the killing in genocides is a product of collective action by well-integrated small cohorts of perpetrators who in addition to organizational supremacy manage to establish emotional dominance as well. Since killing other human beings is never easy, the tendency is to create specific situational emotional dynamics where the perpetrators utilize their emotional dominance and solidarity to firstly emotionally and organizationally overpower their victims and then to utilize this microsolidarity to commit mass killings. Klusemann’s study on the behavior of Serbian forces in Srebrenica clearly shows the significance of that microgroup dynamic: In the Srebrenica case, we saw an emotional flow over time with a buildup phase and a situational trigger when the peace-keeping commander showed himself paralyzed in the face of an implicit threat to kill both U.N. troops and refugees, and the defeated Muslims themselves turned passive. It was at this moment that the local commander gave the order for the massacre. Locally given orders to kill, where they occur, are themselves the result of micro interactions and their emotional outcomes.71

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In-depth interviews with genocidaires in Rwanda also stress the significance of local, microdynamics for killings. Browning’s study on the behavior of ordinary Germans demonstrates how the process of radicalization is contested and develops gradually whereby the microgroup dynamics fosters the transition from the reluctance to kill towards routinization of mass murder.72 Similarly Mann’s studies on the social profile of genocide perpetuators indicate that their decision to take part in the mass murder was not principally driven by strong nationalist convictions.73 Since terrorist activities by definition involve a small number of clandestine activists the centrality of microgroup dynamics is even more prominent. Both the decisions to join the terrorist organizations and the execution of terrorist activities generally have less to do with deep ideological commitments and much more to do with microgroup solidarity. As Sageman’s meticulous studies on Salafist-inspired terrorism demonstrate, peer groups and family networks have proved vital in recruiting individuals for suicide missions.74 This seems to be the case with other terrorist organizations too, including nationalist-inspired movements such as ETA, the Tamil Tigers, or Chechen separatist organizations. In all of these cases, it is the microuniverse of family, friends, neighbors, peers, and one’s locality that has proved critical in maintaining a sense of belonging to a wider terrorist network.75 In most instances, the process of radicalization is a collective, rather than an individual, phenomenon as becoming a terrorist nearly always involves joining the organization together with significant others—friends, peers, or family members. This small-group social cohesion is further reinforced through the terrorist actions and isolation from the mainstream society: “The relative isolation of the individuals from the surrounding society beforehand appears to play an important role in creating group cohesion, solidarity and a sense of common purpose.”76 Moreover the intensified feelings of microsolidarity contribute substantially to a sense of personal responsibility towards one’s microgroup and the willingness to use violence tends to stem much more from this sense of personal obligation than from strong nationalist commitments. As Hopgood documents for the Tamil Black Tigers, “a heightened sense of personal responsibility” was crucial for their willingness to volunteer for the suicide missions. The intensive training for such missions increased “the sense of being ‘chosen’, of being one of the elect with others, and therefore of having a special obligation to one’s own comrades to uphold the honour of the unit.”77

CONCLUSION So what makes nationalism violent and violence nationalist? The simple answer to this complex question is that both phenomena are the product of

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similar historical processes. In other words, rather than focusing on the question of which comes first and whether there is a causal relationship between the two, it is more fruitful to explore their parallel historical trajectories. The fact that both nationalism and organized violence develop quite late in human history tells us more about the atypical character of both of these phenomena. Neither nationalism nor organized violence come naturally to human beings. Instead, they both emerge as an outcome of the interconnected long-term historical processes that are the cumulative bureaucratization of coercion, centrifugal ideologization, and the social embeddedness of microsolidarity. Furthermore, these ongoing structural processes remain vital in maintaining and reproducing both organized violence and nationalism throughout the globe. Notwithstanding the centuries of coercive bureaucratic pressure and mass ideologization, individual human beings remain largely unenthusiastic about killing or dying for abstract nationalist principles. Even when individuals couch their willingness to die or kill for the nation, behind this rhetoric one will regularly find that their genuine commitment really extends no further than people they know, love and care about and whose approval they seek: their family, friends, lovers, or neighbors. If it was not for the continuous, and largely uninterrupted, presence of coercive administrative and ideological apparatuses able to penetrate the intimacies of micropersonal worlds, there would be neither nationalism nor organized violence. The fact that the two phenomena emerge through the same structural processes and both intensify at the same historical moments in time has led to the widely shared misperception that nationalism and organized violence are intrinsically linked. Nevertheless, as argued in this article, the relationship between the two is indirect and for the most part, weak. For, if this was not the case, there would be many more instances of nationalist-inspired wars, terrorisms, genocides, and revolutions than there actually are. In fact, it is very difficult to make nationalism violent and violence nationalist. The political leaders of nation-states and social movements have to put in a lot of effort to make this happen. Even after decades of organizational and ideological work, there is no guarantee that in times of grave calamity, such as during wars or revolutions, nationalist sentiments will generate violent action and vice versa. The relationship between organized violence and nationalism is always fragile, and, even when states or social movements are successful and manage to mobilize large number of individuals to fight, to kill, or to die in wars, revolutions, genocides, and terrorism, this connection does not last for long. Once revolution is achieved or war won, no state authority requires nationalist-inspired violent groups. Even when genocide and terrorist acts are committed, there is no need to keep the perpetrators of these violent acts on a permanent nationalist footing. Once the structural support is removed, this already tenuous relationship between nationalism and organized violence quickly evaporates.

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NOTES 1. Gabriele D’Annunzio, “Letter to the Dalmatians,” in Adrian Lyttelton, ed., Italian Fascism: From Pareto to Gentile (New York: Harper & Row, 1973 [1919]), 185. 2. Heinrich von Treitschke, Selections from Treitschke’s Lectures on Politics (London: Gowans & Gray, 1914), 39 and 11. 3. Siniˇsa Maleˇsevi´c, Nation-States and Nationalisms (Cambridge: Polity, 2013); Siniˇsa Maleˇsevi´c, “Nationalism, War and Social Cohesion,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 25(2): 143–51 (2011). 4. Roger Eatwell, Fascism: A History (London: Pimlico, 2003); Roger Griffin, Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007); Bruce Hoffman Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006). 5. Thomas Scheff, Bloody Revenge: Emotions, Nationalism, and War (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000); Eatwell, Fascism, 24–47; Sabrina Ramet, “Explaining the Yugoslav Meltdown,” Nationalities Papers 32(4): 33–78 (2004); Neil De Votta, Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004). 6. Randall Collins, Macrohistory: Essays in Sociology of the Long Run (Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 1999); Jack Goldstone, Revolutions and Rebellions in the Early Modern World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1978). 7. Jack Levy and William Thompson, Causes of War (Oxford: Blackwell, 2010). 8. Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 7. 9. Maleˇsevi´c, Nation-States, 28–45. 10. Michael Burleigh, Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism (New York: Harper Collins, 2009) 287–345; John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Vintage, 1994), 192; Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and The Holocaust (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996); and Daniel Goldhagen, Worse than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the On-Going Assault on Humanity (New York: Public Affairs, 2009). 11. Burleigh, Blood and Rage, 287–345; Keegan, History of Warfare, 192; Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, 15–17. 12. Azar Gat, War in Human Civilization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); J. van der Dennen, The Origin of War (Groningen: Origin Press, 1995); J. van Hooff, “Intergroup Competition and Conflict in Animals and Man,” in J. van der Dennen and V. Falger, eds., Sociobiology and Conflict (New York: Chapman and Hall, 1990), 23–54. 13. Edward. O. Wilson, On Human Nature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978). 14. Rogers Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004); Maleˇsevi´c, Nationalism, War, 144–50; S. Maleˇsevi´c, “The Chimera of National Identity,” Nations and Nationalism 17(1): 272–90 (2011); S. Maleˇsevi´c, Identity as Ideology: Understanding Ethnicity and Nationalism (New York: Palgrave, 2006); and Michael Banton, The Sociology of Ethnic Relations 31(7): 1267–85 (2008). 15. Paul Brass, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison (New Delhi: Sage, 1991); and John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983). 16. David Laitin, Nations, States, and Violence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 4–5. 17. A. Wimmer’s recent work is a partial exception here as he argues that nationalism is both the cause and the consequence of wars, mostly generated by the imperial breakdowns. See Andreas Wimmer, The Waves of War: Nationalism, State Formation and Ethnic Exclusion in the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); and Andreas Wimmer and Wesley Heirs, “Is Nationalism the Cause or Consequence of the End of Empire?,” in J. A. Hall and S. Maleˇsevi´c, eds., Nationalism and War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 18. S. Maleˇsevi´c, The Sociology of War and Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 184–91. 19. Barry Posen, “Nationalism, the Mass Army, and Military Power,” International Security 18(2): 80–124 (1993); R. Jervis, “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30(2): 167–214 (1978). 20. Ibid., 122. 21. Laitin, Nations, States, 48–60; R. Wintrobe, Rational Extremism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Michael Hechter, “Explaining Nationalist Violence,” Nations and Nationalism 1(1): 53–68 (1995).

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22. Anthony D. Smith, Ethnosymbolism and Nationalism: A Cultural Approach (London: Routledge, 2009); Anthony D. Smith, Myths and Memories of the Nations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); John Hutchinson, “Warfare, Remembrance and National Identity,” in A. Leoussi and S. Grosby, eds., Nationalism and Ethnosymbolism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 42–54; C. Marvin and D. Ingle, Blood Sacrifice and the Flag (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 23. Maleˇsevi´c, Nationalism, War and Social Cohesion, 147–51; Maleˇsevi´c, The Sociology of War and Violence, 187–90. ¨ 24. Umut Ozkırımlı, Theories of Nationalism (New York: Palgrave 2010); Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism (London: Routledge, 1998). 25. Maleˇsevi´c, Nation-States and Nationalisms, 70; John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), 2. 26. Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990); Johan Galtung, “Violence, Peace and Peace Research,” Journal of Peace Research 6(3): 167–91 (1969). 27. See Charles Tilly, The Politics of Collective Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Randall Collins, Violence: A Micro Sociological Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); Steven Pinker, Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined (New York: Viking, 2011). 28. Sylvia Walby, “Violence and Society: Introduction to an Emerging Field of Sociology,” Current Sociology 61(1): 6 (2013); C. Hoyle and A. Sanders, “Police Response to Domestic Violence,” British Journal of Criminology 40(1): 14–36 (2000). 29. Maleˇsevi´c, Nation-States and Nationalisms; Maleˇsevi´c, The Sociology of War. 30. Ernest Gellner, Thought and Change (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1964); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983); Breuilly, Nationalism and the State, 8–46; Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), Volume 1. 31. Collins, Violence, 11. 32. John Horgan, The End of War (New York: McSweeney’s, 2012); Maleˇsevi´c, The Sociology of War, 89–102; Douglas Fry, Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 33. Keith Otterbein, How War Began (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004); Raymond C. Kelly, Warless Societies and the Origin of War (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000); and Arthur Ferrill, The Origins of War: From the Stone Age to Alexander the Great (London: Thames and Hudson, 1985); Fry, Beyond War, 32–56. 34. Maleˇsevi´c, The Sociology of War, 21–44; W. Eckhardt, Civilizations, Empires and Wars: A Quantitative History of War (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1992). 35. Jeff Goodwin, “State-Centred Approaches to Social Revolutions: Strengths and Limitations of a Theoretical Tradition,” in John Foran, ed. Theorising Revolutions (London: Routledge, 1997), 14. 36. Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Mark Levene, Genocide in the Age of Nation-State (London: I. B. Taurus, 2005); Alex Hinton, Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). 37. Riaz Hassan, Suicide Bombings (London: Routledge, 2011); Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); Martha Crenshaw, Explaining Terrorism (London: Routledge, 2010). 38. Maleˇsevi´c, Nation-States and Nationalisms; Maleˇsevi´c, The Sociology of War; Maleˇsevi´c, Nationalism, War and Social Cohesion; S. Maleˇsevi´c, “Obliterating Heterogeneity through Peace: Nationalisms, States and Wars in the Balkans,” in J. A. Hall and S. Maleˇsevi´c, eds., Nationalism and War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 5–8. 39. Maleˇsevi´c, “Obliterating,” 262–63; Maleˇsevi´c, The Sociology of War, 5–8, 92–130. 40. Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital and European States (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992); Charles Tilly, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” in P. Evans, D. Rueschemeyer, and T. Skocpol, eds., Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 41. A. Forrest, “The Nation in Arms I: The French Wars,” in C. Townshend, ed., The Oxford History of Modern Warfare (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 55–73; Michael Howard, War in European History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976). 42. Tilly, Coercion, Capital, 66; William McNiell, The Pursuit of Power (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982); Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence (Cambridge: Polity, 1986).

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43. Mann, The Dark Side, 27–98; Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Polity, 1989). 44. Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 8. 45. Martin Shaw, War and Genocide: Organised Killing in Modern Society (Cambridge: Polity, 2003). 46. Jeff Goodwin, No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945–1991 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 14. 47. Peter Calvert, Revolution (New York: Praeger, 1970). 48. Theda Skocpol, “Rentier State and Shi’a Islam in the Iranian Revolution,” Theory and Society 11(3): 265–83 (1982); Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Jack Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). 49. Michael Burleigh, Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism (New York: Harper Collins, 2009). 50. Robert Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Random House, 2006); Sageman, Understanding Terror, 18–54. 51. Diego Gambetta and Steven Hertog, “Why Are There So Many Engineers among Islamic Radicals?”, European Journal of Sociology 50(2): 201–30 (2009); Pape, Dying to Win, 24–33. 52. Maleˇsevi´c, Nation-States and Nationalisms, 15–19; Maleˇsevi´c, The Sociology of War, 8–11 and 130–31. 53. J. A. Hobson, The Psychology of Jingoism (London: Grant Richards, 1901). 54. Maleˇsevi´c, Obliterating; Maleˇsevi´c, Nationalism, War and Social Cohesion. 55. Skocpol, Rentier State, 271–74. 56. William Doyle, The French Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 52. 57. Con Coughlin, Khomeini’s Ghost (London: Macmillan, 2009), 167. 58. Bauman, Modernity and Holocaust, 65–79; Levene, Genocide, 112–136; Mann, The Dark Side, 1–36. 59. Gambetta and Hertog, “Why Are There So Many Engineers,” 36–56; Pape, Dying to Win, 10–25; Sageman, Understanding Terror, 3–45. 60. Hassan, Suicide Bombings, 8–34; Sageman, Understanding Terror, 28–66. 61. Steven Hopgood, “Tamil Tigers 1987–2002,” in D. Gambetta, ed., Making Sense of Suicide Missions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 62. Maleˇsevi´c, Nation-States and Nationalisms, 14–18; Maleˇsevi´c, Nationalism, War and Social Cohesion, 142–161; Maleˇsevi´c, The Sociology of War and Violence, 179–200. 63. Collins, Violence, 24–68; Joan Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing (London: Granta, 2000); Richard Holmes, Acts of War (New York: Free Press, 1985). 64. Maleˇsevi´c, The Sociology of War and Violence, 219–32; Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That (New York: Doubleday, 1957); John Dollard, Fear in Battle (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977). 65. Graves, Goodbye to All That, 157. 66. Sonke Neitzel and Harald Welzer, Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing and Dying (New York: Knopf, 2012); Edward Shills and M. Janowitz, “Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wermacht in World War II,” Public Opinion Quarterly 12(2): 280–315 (1948). 67. Sthatis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 14. 68. James H. Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of Revolutionary Faith (New York: Basic Books, 1980), 130. 69. Collins, Violence, 24–68; John Foran, “The Comparative Historical Sociology of Third World Social Revolutions: Why a Few Succeed, Why Most Fail,” in J. Foran, ed., Theorising Revolutions (London: Routledge, 1997), 227–67; Richard Lachmann, “Agents of Revolution: Elite Conflicts and Mass Mobilization from the Medici to Yeltsin,” in J. Foran, ed., Theorising Revolutions (London: Routledge, 1997), 73–101. 70. Maleˇsevi´c, Nation-States and Nationalisms, 56–77; Victor Roudometof, Nationalism, Globalisation and Orthodoxy: The Social Origins of Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001). 71. Stefan Klusemann, “Micro-Situational Antecedents of Violent Atrocity,” Sociological Forum 25(2): 272–95 (2010); Collins, Violence, 59–88.

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72. Scott Straus, The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006); Chris Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: Harper Collins, 1992). 73. Mann, The Dark Side, 1–36; M. Mann, Fascists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 74. Sageman, Understanding Terror, 40–58. 75. Hassan, Suicide Bombings, 40–48; Collins, Violence, 36–49; Hopgood, Tamil Tigers, 72–79; and Luca Ricolfi, “Palestinians, 1981–2003,” in D. Gambetta, ed., Making Sense of Suicide Missions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 77–129. 76. Hassan, Suicide Bombings, 40. 77. Hopgood, Tamil Tigers, 76.

Siniˇsa Maleˇsevi´c is a Professor and Head of the School of Sociology at University College Dublin. He is also a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. His recent books include Nation-States and Nationalisms (Polity, 2013), The Sociology of War and Violence (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and a volume coedited with John A. Hall, Nationalism and War (Cambridge University Press, 2013).