A social theory of the nation-state : the political forms of modernity beyond methodological nationalism

206 Pages·2007·3.044 MB·English

by  Daniel Chernilo

A Social Theory of the Nation-State
A Social Theory of the Nation-State: the political forms of modernity beyond
methodological nationalism construes a novel and original social theory of the
nation-state. It rejects nationalistic ways of thinking that take the nation-state for
granted as much as globalist orthodoxy that speaks of its current and definitive
decline.
Its main aim is therefore to provide a renovated account of the nation-state’s
historical development and recent global challenges via an analysis of the writings
of key social theorists. This reconstruction of the history of the nation-state
isdivided into three periods:
(cid:2) classical (K. Marx, M. Weber, E. Durkheim)
(cid:2) modernist (T. Parsons, R. Aron, R. Bendix, B. Moore)
(cid:2) contemporary (M. Mann, E. Hobsbawm, U. Beck, M. Castells, N. Luhmann,
J. Habermas)
For each phase, it introduces social theory’s key views about the nation-state, its
past, present and future. In so doing this book rejects methodological nationalism,
the claim that the nation-state is the necessary representation of the modern
society, because it misrepresents the nation-state’s own problematic trajectory in
modernity. And methodological nationalism is also rejected because it is unable
to capture the richness of social theory’s intellectual canon. Instead, via a strong
conception of society and a subtler notion of the nation-state, A Social Theory of
the Nation-Statetries to account for the ‘opacity of the nation-state in modernity’.
Daniel Chernilois an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University Alberto
Hurtado in Chile and a Fellow of the Centre for Social Theory at the University
of Warwick in England.
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A Social Theory of the
Nation-State
The political forms of modernity beyond
methodological nationalism
Daniel Chernilo
First published 2007
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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© 2007 Daniel Chernilo
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Chernilo, Daniel.
A social theory of the nation state : beyond methodological
nationalism / Daniel Chernilo.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. National state. 2. Nationalism. 3. Sociology. I. Title.
JC311.C4574 2007
320.101—dc22 2007004843
ISBN 0-203-93265-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0–415–39914–9 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–415–43993–0 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–39914–2 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–43993–0 (pbk)
This book is dedicated to Paula

Contents
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
PART I
Understanding the nation-state 7
1 The critique of methodological nationalism:
a debate in two waves 9
2 A claim to universalism: breaking the equation
between the nation-state and society apart 21
PART II
Classical social theory 33
3 Karl Marx (1818–1883): the rise of capitalism and
the historical elusiveness of the nation-state 35
4 Max Weber (1864–1920): politics and the sociological
equivocations of the nation-state 49
5 Emile Durkheim (1857–1917): moral universalism
and the normative ambiguity of the nation-state 61
PART III
Modernist social theory 75
6 Talcott Parsons (1902–1979): the totalitarian threat
to the nation-state 77