primordialism (2)
TRANSCRIPT
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PrimordialismTihomir Cipek
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What we today refer to as primordialism isthe oldest paradigm that has beenemployed to explain nations andnationalism. It was first adopted bynationalists themselves.
It holds that nations are natural and that
is why they exert so much influence inhuman experience.
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Because it is intrinsic for human beings to formthis group, primordialists would maintain that wecan find nations in any epoch of human history.They would not hesitate, therefore, to claim that
the ancient Israelites, to take one example,constituted a nation, although they would notdeny that there are nations which have emergedmore recently.
Because nations are part of human nature, theycan be found anytime, everywhere. Theemergence of a new nation is, then, oftenexplained as an awakening of a dormant entity.
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Cliford Geertz
Cliford Geertz, who studied new states inAsia and Africa that achievedindependence after the Second WorldWar, for instance, has noted that thenew states are abnormallysusceptible to serious disaffection
based on primordial attachments(Geertz 1973/2000: 259).
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What brings primordialisam?
The theorie of primordialism brings to thestudys of nations and nationalism theissue of loyalty and emotion thatmodernist approaches are often unable toaddress directly.
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Two things divide modernists from primordialists in thedebate about nations and nationalism. Both agree thatsocial groups (the wes) have always asserted acollective identity, distinguishing themselves from othergroups (the thems), often in similar ways by ensembles
of shared symbols and historical narratives. Whether thisreflects primordial structures of social life or, at a greaterremove, Darwinian patterns for species survival, neednot concern us here.
Unlike primordialists, modernists believe that, however
long the real or ascribed historical continuity betweengroups claiming the same name, earlier collectivescannot be confused with the modern, essentiallyclass- or rather literacy-linked concept of the linguisticnation and the essentially state-linked concept ofnationalism.
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Nationalism and State
BulidingTihomir Cipek
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Nation-State
The state is a political and geopoliticalentity, while the nation is a cultural andethnic one.
The term "nation state" implies that thetwo coincide, but "nation state" formationcan take place at different times indifferent parts of the world, and hasbecome the dominant form of worldorganization.
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Which came first, the nation or thenation state?"
A) The nation existed first, then nationalistmovements arose for sovereignty, and thenation state was created to meet that demand.
B) Some "modernization theories" of nationalism
see it as a product of government policies tounify and modernize an already existing state. C) Most theories see the nation state as a 19th-
century European phenomenon, facilitated by
developments such as mass literacy and massmedia.
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Theodor SchiederTheorie ofNation State Building
1) stage of nation state development.Existing political order was changed by thepeople revolution (France, England).
2) in the second stage nation-states werebuilt in the 19th century by unifying ethnicand culturally related groups. Unifying isdone under the guidance of the mostpowerful principalities or small kingdoms(Italy, Germany).
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3) In the third stage; nation-states wereconstituted by separation from the greatempires, for example from the Austro-Hungarian
and Turkish (Serbia, Greece etc.). 4) In the fourth stage. Nation-states were
formed thanks to the disintegration of the SovietUnion. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia. (Croatia, the
Czech Republic. Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia,Slovakia etc., 22 states)
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In France, Eric Hobsbawmargues the Frenchstate preceded the formation of the Frenchpeople. Hobsbawm considers that the state
made the French nation, not French nationalism,which emerged at the end of the 19th century,the time of the Dreyfus Affair.
At the time of the 1789 French Revolution, only
half of the French people spoke some French,and 12-13% spoke it "fairly", according toHobsbawm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hobsbawmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_Affairhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_Affairhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hobsbawm -
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Is the process of forming a nationalstate inevitable?
Yes, that is an essential part of themodernization of European society.
No, it si not necesery?
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Westphalian system
The idea of a nation state is associated with the rise ofthe modern system of states, often called the"Westphalian system" in reference to the Treaty ofWestphalia (1648).
The balance of power, which characterizes that system,depends for its effectiveness upon clearly defined,centrally controlled, independent entities, whetherempires or nation states, which recognize eachother's sovereignty and territory.
The Westphalian system did not create the nation state,but the nation state meets the criteria for its componentstates.
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Nationalism as a form of politics. Anationalist argument.
There exists a nation with an explicit andpeculiar character.
The interests and values of this nationtake prioritiy over all other interests andvalues.
The nation must be as independet asposisible.
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Power, in the modern world, is principallyabout control of the state.
John Breuilly identifies three different functionsperformed by nationalist ideas:
a) cordination, the use of nationalist ideas to
promote the idea of common interest amongsta number of elites;
b) mobilization to generate suport for politicalmovement from diferent social groups;
c) legitimacy to justify the goals of the politicalmovement to build the national-state.
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Globalization
It has been speculated by proponents ofglobalization that the concept of a nationstate may disappear.
Such ideas are sometimes expressedaround concepts of a world governmentand global democracy.
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Ideology of Globalization (ManfredSteger)
a) the spread of free-market capitalism createsthe impression that it is completely natural,
b) no one managed globalization,
c) globalization benefits all,d) globalization contributes to the spread of
democracy in the world (democracy and the
free market are synonymous),e) globalization requires war against terrorism
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Contemporary changes areweakening the nation-state?
Capitalism, now become global, transnational,post-industrial, informational, consumerist,neoliberal and restructured, is undermining thenation-stateits macroeconomic planning, its
collectivist welfare state, its citizens sense ofcollective identity, its general caging ofsocial life.
New global limits, especially environmental and
population threats, producing perhaps a newrisk society, have become too broad and toomenacing to be handled by the nation-statealone.
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A) State institutions, stille providenecessary conditions for social existence:like economic, ideological and military
institutions. How great is its threat to the nation-state?And just how global and/or transnational
is it?
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After all, more than 80 per cent of world production isstill for the domestic national market.
The national economy is presumably considerably lessintegrated than the statistic suggestsespecially in
backward countries and bigger advanced countries likethe USA. The ownership, of multinational corporations (including
banks, mutuals and insurance ) remaindisproportionately in their home state, and they still
lean on it for human capital (education),communications infrastructures and economicprotectionism.
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Clash of civilizations
In the 1993 Foreign Affairs article, Huntingtonwrites: It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of
conflict in this new world will not be primarily
ideological or primarily economic. The great divisionsamong humankind and the dominating source ofconflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain themost powerful actors in world affairs, but the principalconflicts of global politics will occur between nationsand groups of different civilizations. The clash of
civilizations will dominate global politics. The faultlines between civilizations will be the battle lines ofthe future.
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Typologies of
nationalism
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The conceptual language ofnationalism
Primordialism: Nation is based upon a natural, organic community, with natural
rights to self-determination,
It defines the identity of its membersfeeling of innate andemotionally powerful attachment to it,
The only authentic nationalism is ethnic nationalism Ethnic community claims common ancestry
ethnic community constitutes an ethical community
socio-bilogical selfish-gene explanation or innate power ofcultural affinities
another primordial explanation is perennial socialization
Strategy of showing itself as self-evident
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Th t l l f
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The conceptual language ofnationalism Situationalism:
ethnic and national ids. are resources employed by groups of
individuals for the pursuit of their common interests, utility of ethnicity and nationalism, and the form which they
take, will vary in response to changing situations,
Modernist variant: n-s emerged because they were usefuleconomic units for the earlier stages of industrialisation,
For the self-realization it is useful to ally with others infuncitional aggregation
The general assumption: beneficial and equal interactions withothers are likely to lead individuals to identify with theinteractive community.
Both ethnicity and nation refer to the political defence of
rational attachments to the interactive community Problems in explanation: prejudice, national features,
conformism
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The conceptual language ofnationalism Constructivism:
N.Id. is constructed on the basis of ideological frameworks whichoffer simplistic formulas of identiy, and diagnoses of contemporaryproblems, to otherwise confused individuals
It denies that nations are real substantive entities,
the perception by those involved that their nations are real is aform of ideological consciousness
N.Id. is contingent
one of mechanisms
labels rarely freely or consciously chosen,nor are they usually constructed in isolation.
Why is it so successful in its ideological support?
offer individuals the ideological myths of ancestry, kinship,permanence and home,
Attenuation and disruption of face-to-face communities
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Are there two nationalisms?
Prpi (2004): Territorial spreading of the nation-state occured as thecorruption of its original idea of the state founded on the law. Good-civic and bad-ethnocultural nationalism?
Is nationalism a Janus who wears almost everywhere two faces;and you have scarce begun to admire the one, ere you despisethe other?
Ethnocultural (integral, organic, ascriptive, exclusive orradical) = intrinsically authoritarian and collectivist
Civic(liberal,political, social or voluntarist) = at leastpotentially democratic and individualistic.
How the distinction has been employed in the literature?
Problems with the way in which it has been linked to theliberal-illiberal dichotomy?
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t t t
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e st nct on etweenethnocultural and civic
nationalisms
Civic nationalism? A sense of community which is focused on the belief that residence ina common territorial homeland, commitment to its state and civilsociety institutions, generate a distinctive national character and civicculture, such that all citizens, irrespective of their diverse ancestry,comprise a community in progress, with a common destiny.
distinction between the two is difficult because both forms in theirmythology use the language of the family Distinction rational-irrational started with Marx.
Apparent exeptions?
Most nationalisms contain ingredients of both the civic and ethnoculturalforms
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o ern s c cons ruc v sapproaches:
imagined communitiesand
invented traditions
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Umut zkirimly (2010)modernistic interpretations
Common denominators: modernity of nationalisms and nations
Nationalism precedes, instigates or creates the
nations Socio-cultural and political transformations
theories
Benedict Anderson (1936 - ) Eric Hobsbawm (19172012)
Ernest Gellner (19251995)
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Benedict Anderson
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread ofNationalism (1983) Nationality and nationalism are cultural artefacts of a particular kind.
how they have come into being?
in what ways their meanings have changed over time?
why they command such profound emotional legitimacy? It is an imagined political communityand imagined as both
inherently limited and sovereign(6).
Imagined
Limited
Sovereign Community
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Benedict Anderson Conditions of emergence?
Gradual decline of religious community and dynastic realm fromthe 17th century Explorations and contact with the non-western world Gradual decay of the sacred latin language
Christian conception of time (symultaneity) was replaced by the
idea of homogenous empty time New imagination is expressed in novels and newspapers Mass consumption of the newspapersmass ceremony
print-capitalism Createdunified fields of exchange and communication below
Latin and above the spoken vernaculars. Gave a new fixity to language which further helped to build theimage of antiquity of the nation.
Created new languages-of-power Rise of the official nationalisms
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Eric Hobsbawm Political transformations
Nations and nationalisms are products of social engineering invented traditions?
a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitlyaccepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek toinculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition,which automatically implies continuity with the past
Fabrication of the nation existence in the past
peek of invented traditions in the period from 1870 to 1914
3 major mechanisms: primary education, public ceremonies andthe mass production of public monuments
Distinction: the political duties of citizens to the nation override allother obligations.
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Eric Hobsbawm Nations and nationalism are dual
phenomena: constructed essentially from above, but which
cannot be understood unless also analysedfrom below, that is in terms of the
assumptions, hopes, needs, longings andinterests of ordinary people, which are notnecessarily national and still less nationalist
But, the views and needs of ordinarypeople are not easy to discover. How would you do that?
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Ernest Gellner
Nations: invented in particular socio-cultural context.
Nationalism is primarily a political principle which holds that thepolitical and the national unit should be congruent.
In most of human history political units were not organized along
nationalist principles. boundaries of city-states, feudal entities or dynastic empiresrarely coincided with those of nations.
Ethnic origins of the rulers in pre-modern times was notimportant for the ruled.
How and why did this happen?
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Ernest Gellner Crucial: the relationship between power and culture
hunter-gatherer stage: no stateno room for nationationalism
Agro-literate societies: complex system of fairly stable statuses
Industrial societies:a high culture pervades the whole of society,defines it, and needs to be sustained by the polity
Need for impersonal, context-free communication anda high level of cultural standardization.
Society is based on the idea of perpetual growth continuoustransformation of the occupational structure
Egalitarianism and specialization
The imperative of exo-socialization is the main clue to why state andculture must now be linked, whereas in the past their connection wasthin, fortuitous, varied, loose, and often minimal. That is whatnationalism is about.
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Psychoanalytic and
deconstructivereadings of the
Nation
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Nation and national identity
Nation: socio-political formation Identity constructionscontingent, socially produced
Paradox: it is construed, not natural, but national attachments andidentifications resist fluidity
Strong psychic investment L. explanation: 3 fundamental orders of experience
Symbolic: social discourse
Imaginary: idealistic pictures
Real: beyond comprehension
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Culture, language,
religion, history,territory, ...Collective body, nationalbeingIndescribable, sublimeobject of enjoyment,
Agalma
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Jouissance = sense of fullness
Impossible goal as permanent conditionexperienced as lossproduces desire to attain it again
Fulfillment: repetitively promised in political discourse in various forms(good life, just society, diff. utopias)
Partial jouissancethats not it feeling
Failure to attain full identity and permanent (impossible) enjoyment istransposed and projected into disturbing fantasy of the theft of
enjoyment.
The Other is accused for excessive enjoyment.
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National identification in war?
all relations get distorted and national identif. prevails Elaine Scarry - the motives which usually trigger war are not linked to
the inner logic of the war itself.
The war: contest over who will be quicker to inflict injury on the other.
True aim: to destroy the very way the enemy perceives itself, theway it forms its identity.
by destroying the way people imagine their homeland (fantasy)
By inflicting wounds, torture, rape...the aim is also to shatter the fantasy
structure of the individual
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Creation and transgenerationaltransmissions of traumas
Trauma produce: pain, sense and memory of loss, victimization,exploatation and images of enemies
Abraham and Torok (1986, 1994); Derrida (1999)could assumethe form of phantom or spectre
When?
When we refuse to mourn. Introject the loss and work-trough the trauma
Incorporate the lost body and act-out
Why to mourn at all? Why is this process of such importance?
Mourning is constitutive for the subject Melancholia
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Theory of the Crypt
constituted in the Self whenever the process of mourning is unsuccessful. a foreign body inside of the Ego, created through the process of
incorporation
How is created the crypt?
Demetaphorization and objectivation Preservative repression
The purpose of such cryptic incorporation?
To stay the same...
Another condition for cripts to be created:
Love objects doings are the shameful secret
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Transgenerational phantom It passes from the ancestors unconscious to the offsprings and works like
a ventriloquist Haunting is transgenerational
Subjects are phantom carriers
Phantoms doesnt have its own crypt.
Are these phenomena discernable at the collective level?
Sarah Henstra (2009) - group psychology is strongly aligned with thestructure of aggrieved subject
National identity as affective structure
Double identification: with a leader and a group
Internally directed violence is similar to the melancholic ego Nat. feeling itself is constituted on melancholic desire
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War on Terror as refusal to
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War on Terror as refusal tomourning
Judith Butler (2004) Precarious life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence
The place of violence in such relation?
In theWoT violence, excluded humans, such as civilian enemycasualties are considered as unreal
No obituaries for the war casualties that the USA inflicts
Violence itself is derealized through prohibition of certain images,disavowals and suppresion of dissent
What is encrypted in this case?
Sense of First Worldliness
where is in this example of transgenerational phantom?
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B d th N ti d
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Beyond the Nation andnationalism?
Nation: analytical concept vs. naturalized concept Brubaker (2004):
We need to break, for example, with the seemingly obvious anduncontroversial point that ethnic conflict involves conflict between ethnicgroups.
How to do that?
Nation has a performative character. By invokingthem we evokethem,summon them, call them into being.
We should try to account for the ways in which the reification and
crystalization of group feeling can work
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Old and New
Nationalisms
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Nationalism, Old and
New
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Historical time of Nationalism Nation-state is a West European invention?
Late 18th to mid 19th centurynat. movements
Products of the long 19th century (17751914) and short 20thcentury (19141991)
Before?
Natiosomething completely different Tribe
traditional communities of erstwhile strangers (universities,monasteries, military...)
From the 16th century aristocratic ruling class or persons oflearning (intelectuals)
After?
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The Political Unconsciousin Croatia and the EU:
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Mladen Dolar (1990)
Can one venture to say that Yugoslavia isthe Schauplatzof the European unconscious,or that the unconscious is structured like
Yugoslavia? (p.1)
- Is this applicable to Croatia as well?
- The Political Uncoscious (Fredric Jameson)
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Political Unconscious
a guiding metaphor : Freudian hierarchical model forexploration of society and history
therapist: speach hidden manifestations of the
Unconscious Jameson: cultural artifacts modes of production
Texts as psychiatric patients
Manifest narrativeeffectivelly mediateslatent orunconscious Real that is expressed in the relationship ofthe text with the History.
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Political Unconscious
History: Real and narrativeReal history: as the Lacanian Realabsent
cause
..a process without thelos or a subject...aseamless web, a single inconceivable andtransindividual process
Not directly available, only through mediating
forms, such as narrativeAccess to the Real History takes place throughits
narrativization in the political unconcious
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Levels of the political
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Levels of the politicalunconscious
3 concentric frames for interpretation in phases
1. Political historyin the cronology of relevant occurences2. Societal orderas a space of antagonisms3. General historyas a sequence of modes of production
1. The texta single cultural artifact as a simbolic act inthe political context
- the imaginary resolution of some Realcontradiction
2. Single texts from the 1st level are parts of wider colective dialoguebetween classes (ruling and oppressed)
- dialogues produce ideologemes
3. Modes of production- as total societal orders - every social formation consists in thesimultaneous overlay and coexistence of severalmodes of production
- the object of analysis is cultural revolution
Horizons of the political unconscious in
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Horizons of the political unconscious inCroatia
(1) Tudjmans speach in November 1996.
CT Of the Black, Yellow, and Green Devils
imaginary mapping of the political antagonism
for legitimating its own position of power and imagining its own politicalparty as anexclusive protector of national identity
victory over enemies is promissed for the futurethe romantic vision offunctioning of political history
The close political context: demonstrations for local radio
The Reason: peculiar interpretation of the EU politics towardWestern Balkans as a new dictate for integration
further relocation of Croatia out of CE.Consequence: Article 135. par. 2. to the Constitution and
strenghtening of isolation politics
Horizons of the political unconscious in
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(2) main antagonism: integration vs. fragmentation
particular CTs comprise wider ideological debate around theideologeme of YUsignifier by which either/or against which is considered(de)legitimation of the political community througout the 80-iesuntil today
since the disintegration of SFRY till today:Antagonism: integration vs. fragmentation:politico-symbolical escape from the Balkans in
(Central) Europe
Steps: state independence + war victory + EUTo analyse such bipolar oppositions Jameson uses Greimassemiotic square
Horizons of the political unconscious inCroatia
Horizons of the political unconscious in
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(2) main antagonism: integration vs. fragmentation
Independence Integration
Non-independenceNon-integration
EU
Regionalapproach
Remainingin the
Balkans
Politicalisolation
Horizons of the political unconscious inCroatia
Horizons of the political unconscious in
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(3) ideologeme of YU was effective in different societalorders, with the potential of reproduction
How to determine dominant modes of production andways of their symbolization?
1980-1990: increasingly dysfunctional self-managingsocialism
1990-2000: authoritarian national capitalism
2000- : late capitalism with detrimental mechanismsof past social formations
How the dominant structural features of theseformations have been realized at the level of CTs?
Horizons of the political unconscious inCroatia
Horizons of the political unconscious in
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80-ies:
the termination of Tito - a unifying symbol and supreme arbiter inpolitical issues
Deep economic crisis, disfunctioning of institutions, unresolvedsocial problems,increased social and interethnic tensions
Party elites fragmented themselves according to republic-national
lines Cleavage between centralization-decentralizationof the state andaccording to the need for improving market economy (South-East vs. North West)
The paralelismof conspiratorial texts and main antagonisms andprocesses in collapsing of societal order
Tito vs.Great forces and Party factionsbehind-the-scenes governance of alienated centers of powerCounter-revolutionary critiques of soc. past vs. White Book The Memorandum of SASA 1986.
Horizons of the political unconscious inCroatia
Horizons of the political unconscious in
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90-ies: features of autoritarian national capitalism Arbitrary and autocratic rule of the President
Criminal privatization and tycoonization of economy
Clientelism
Abuse of secret services Attempts to control the media
Long-lasting isolationism in international politics
Nationalism, tolerance of neo-ustashism and frequent use ofthe logic of inner and outer enemies
Mode of production of enemies perpetuated itself, especially duringthe first years in 2000ies
Gradual weakening of such conspiratorialsubtext
Horizons of the political unconscious inCroatia
Horizons of the political unconscious in
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2000-ies: Democratic consolidation
Strenghtening of institutions
Approaching the EU criminal privatization of the state for party aims
Spill-over of disatisfaction with political elitesinto general mistrust and cynicism
Latent fear of EU
Horizons of the political unconscious inCroatia
Horizons of the political unconscious in
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The comparison of the EU with Yugoslavia might be rough,but the similarities could not be overlooked
Starting from differences in the development of individualconstituent parts, the fact that the EU has also a problemwith deciding what is democratic: one person one vote or
one country one vote.In the EU, many, clearly natural problems, are also coveredup with some European brotherhoodand unity
Even the EU exists and expands itself by relying on
democratic deficit. When people are against something, e.g.constitution, bypasses are invented, such as the Lisbon
Treaty, which replaces the constitution.
Horizons of the political unconscious inCroatia
Horizons of the political unconscious in
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The biggest danger for the EU is exactly what I call theYugoslav syndrome: it is a conviction that everyone isexploited.
That conviction grows with the worsening of the economicsituation; in Yugoslavia this conviction had been growingsince the eighties. At the end we Slovenians had exploited theCroats; the Croats exploited the Serbs, the Serbs theSlovenians. Because of that, a long-lasting crisis is the most
dangerous thing for the EU.
Horizons of the political unconscious inCroatia
Dangerous analogies: YU and EU
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Dangerous analogies: YU and EU1. Sentiment of being exploited Fear ofGrexit domino effect Cyprus Agambens
LatinEmpireOscar Lafontaine
BO: hard-working, law-abiding Northvs. lazy, licentiousSouth
cunning Northvs. nave South
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Dangerous analogies: YU and EU
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3. YU as an embodiment of theconvergence between socialism andcapitalism
EU as a synthesis of the energy and
freedom that come from liberalism withthe stability and welfare that comefrom social democracy
- a combination of democracy and
capitalism - alternatives in the multi-polar world
- absolute deprivation, especially youth72
Dangerous analogies: YU and EU
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Predicting Future of the EU
Simon Hix (2011)three possiblescenarios
20% possible scenarioReal Crisis
60% possible scenarioMuddlingthrough
Most unlikely scenarioDemocratic EU
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The End of the Nation?
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Nation-state as a model?
After 1945 its sovereignty has beenoutreached by transnational power networksof global capitalism and postmodernity?
EU as an evidence of n. sovereignty
fragmentation? Is this process global or somwhere more
expressed? Different reasons for losing strenght?
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Impact of globalization What is the inner fabric of globalization? Economic internationalization World-wide division of labour
Transnationalization of trade, production and finance
Internationalization of constitutional law Transport and communication revolutions
Transformation of geopolitics
In this way the power of global culture, global
communication, the global market and related factors,including that which has been called postmodern, penetratethrough the imagined boundaries of nation state,conditioning and shaping the national will and constructingthe perspective of the possible and desirable from which itsrelative powerto exert sovereignty will be excercised
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Impact of globalization What is the inner fabric of globalization? New problems arise which demand global solutions Individuals become more and more mobilemigrations
Global interdependency in economy, politics and culture
Culture and capitalism merge into postmodernhyperspace.
Metaphor of postmodernity: Hotel Bonaventura
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National Culture and Language
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National Culture and Language For how long will they be able to resist the pressure of globalization?
Will they be able to survive without the protective umbrella of the nationstate?
National state is just one of a number of possible organizationsneeded for the preservation of national culture.
Ulf Hannerz (1993): several scenariosof gradualenlargement
of human ecumene:1. Global homogenization annihilation under the pressure of
western culture values, beliefs...
2. Saturationin chain of succeding generations periphery absorbs
elements of the western c. and graduallydisintegrates
3. Corruptionperiphery adopts products of mass, rather thenhigher culure and distorts received
values in order to adjust them to local ways oflife