Social Movements Theories and
Nationalism
Insights from theories of social movements can be applied to
Nationalist Movements, and can help to frame theories of
nationalism
 Three theories of
 1. Two approaches to
Collective Behaviour:
Nationalism:
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(a) Primordialist
(b) Modernist
(c) Ethnicists
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Symbolic Interactionist
Functionalist
2. Resource Mobilization
3. Political Opportunities
4. Identity Theories
Carlo Ruzza - Università di Trento
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1. Collective Behavior (CB)
• Although a preoccupation with political unrest
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is immemorial, typically the beginning of a
concern with social movements is put at the
end of the nineteenth-century with Gustave
LeBon (LeBon 1960).
LeBon’s concern with crowd behaviour was
based on a negative assessment of the
danger of phenomena that he considered
essentially irrational.
Carlo Ruzza - Università di Trento
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Symbolic Interactionism and Social
Movements
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Among symbolic interactionists, Blumer focused on
individuals’ motivation to join social movements and
on social-psychological dynamics of activism.
In this tradition (Ralph Turner, Louis Killian, Joseph
Gusfield). The original assumptions have then been
modified, whilst the concern for interaction has
remained. The assumption of an abnormality of
protest has been abandoned. The stress on
grievances as an explanation for the emergence of a
movement has been expanded to include a wider
array of factors.
Carlo Ruzza - Università di Trento
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Symbolic Interactionism and the
Creativity of Movements
• The early Collective Behaviour tradition was
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not univocally negative in identifying the role
of movements. There was also, the
acknowledgement of the creativity of social
protest.
Blumer stressed the emergence of new norms
in movements and hence their contribution to
cultural change.
Carlo Ruzza - Università di Trento
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Structural Functionalist and Social
Movements
• Parsons and Smelser, from a macro
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perspective, looked at social movements in
functionalist terms as an answer to social
strains.
Although employing very different
approaches, both SI and SF assumed that
social movements are the result of a
breakdown of social integration.
Carlo Ruzza - Università di Trento
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Smelser
• The Parsonian model, applied to social
movements by Smelser, assumed an
integrative role of values. Institutions translate
values into articulated social functions, and
institutionalization implies the codification of
general values into specific norms and
reciprocal expectations.
• This absence of conflict and assumption of
integrative dynamics has been criticised by
social movement researchers.
Carlo Ruzza - Università di Trento
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Theories of Nationalism
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The rise of the nation is often dated to the time
of the French Revolution
However, there is a debate on what is its
relation to the state and to modernity
Some see it as mainly the outcome of elites’
instrumental attempt to shape social change
Others see this instrumental use as based on
persisting pre-modern ethnic sentiments
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(a) Primordialists
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Historians like Frantisek Palacky, Eoin
Mac Neill and Nicolae Iorga saw nations
as evolving primordial entities. They
recognised that before the 18th century
nationality was subordinated to religion
and dynastic principles, but still thought
that nations existed before the
emergence of the idea of popular
sovereignty.
Carlo Ruzza - Università di Trento
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(b) Modernists
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Since the 60’s primordialists have been
criticised by various authors such as Carl
Deutsch, Ernest Gellner, E. Hobsbawm
and Benedict Anderson.
They see the nation as a modern
institution, and argue that the raise of the
nation as a widespread political model is
only two centuries old.
Carlo Ruzza - Università di Trento
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(c) Nations and Nation-States
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For modernists the nation can only be
understood in relation to the nation-state. The
nation-building process is a political one and is
rooted in the interests of state-builders.
“Nationalist elites invented nations” (Breuilly).
Historically, nations are significantly different
from previous units
They are artefacts of new print technologies,
territorial integration through transports, the
bureaucratic state, industrialisation
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Ethnicist Approaches
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Some theorists (i.e.Anthony Smith, John
Armstrong) accept the recent and political
manufacture of nations but argue that it was
only possible on a pre-existing basis – a body
of myths and symbols which persist over long
time.
They argue that states require more than
citizenship to sustain emotional commitment
and solidarity.
Carlo Ruzza - Università di Trento
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