What is Liberal Nationalism?
Liberal nationalism is a tradition that tries to join two ideas often seen as opposed: loyalty to a nation and the liberal commitment to individual freedom and equal rights. It has two main strands. The first is the nineteenth century movement of liberal nationalists who fought for national independence or unification together with constitutions, elected parliaments and civil liberties. The second is a body of political theory, developed from the 1990s, which argues that a shared national culture gives citizens the trust and sense of common purpose that liberal democracy and a welfare state need. Unlike purely civic nationalism, liberal nationalism openly values a particular national culture, language and history, while insisting that nationalism must respect liberal limits.
Core beliefs
- Nations have a right to self-determination, ideally within a democratic state.
- A shared national culture gives individuals a context for meaningful choices.
- National solidarity supports democracy, trust and social justice.
- National claims must respect individual rights and the rule of law.
- Minorities within the nation deserve protection and fair treatment.
- Each nation should recognize the equal right of other nations to self-government.
History
Historians often trace liberal nationalism to the period after the French Revolution, when liberals across Europe and Latin America linked national independence with constitutional government. The Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini founded Young Italy in 1831 and argued that free nations would form a fraternal community of humanity. During the revolutions of 1848, liberal nationalists in the German states, Italy and the Habsburg lands demanded national unity and constitutions; in Hungary, Lajos Kossuth led a national revolt that was crushed in 1849. In 1861 John Stuart Mill argued that free institutions were very difficult to maintain in a state made up of different nationalities. After the First World War, the principle of national self-determination shaped the peace settlement. In the 1990s, political theorists revived the tradition, notably Yael Tamir in Liberal Nationalism (1993), David Miller in On Nationality (1995) and Will Kymlicka in Multicultural Citizenship (1995).
Variants
Nineteenth century liberal nationalism was a movement for unification or independence against empires and absolute monarchies. Contemporary liberal nationalism is a normative theory. Within it, Tamir stresses the cultural rather than state aspect of nationhood, Miller stresses the role of national identity in social justice and redistribution, and Kymlicka defends cultural rights for national minorities and Indigenous peoples. Some theorists apply liberal nationalism to stateless nations seeking autonomy, such as Scotland, Quebec and Catalonia.
Criticisms
Cosmopolitan critics argue that liberal nationalism gives moral weight to an accident of birth and can justify restrictive borders. Some liberals argue that a state promoting one national culture cannot be neutral among its citizens. Critics on the nationalist right argue that the theory is too thin and too open to change. Historians note that nineteenth century liberal nationalist movements sometimes denied to minorities the national rights they claimed for themselves, as in disputes within the Habsburg lands in 1848.
In practice
Liberal nationalist ideas influenced the unification of Italy, the national movements of Central Europe and the independence of states after 1918. Today they appear in policies that combine democratic citizenship with an official language, national history in schools and support for national cultural institutions, and in debates over autonomy for nations within larger states.