Empires and Nations: Convergence or Divergence?

Abstract

It has long been the conventional wisdom that nations and empires are rivals, sworn enemies. The principle of nationalism is homogeneity, often seen in ethnic terms. Nations strive to embody, or to produce, a common culture. They express a radical egalitarianism: all members of the nation are in principle equal, all partake of the common national “soul”. Nations moreover are intensely particularistic. While they do not deny the existence of other nations, and of their right to cultivate their ways, they are generally concerned only with their own way, convinced that it is superior to the ways of all other nations. Nationalists, as John Breuilly suggests above, are highly inward-looking. They tend to celebrate themselves – “we English”, “we Germans”, “we French” – simply for their good fortune in being who they are, rather than for any cause or purpose in the world which might justify their existence.