Kevin Garcia
Professor Mary Anne Mendoza
Political Science 154C
8 July 2018
Under certain circumstances, ethnic groups are prone to nationalist self-determination movements. Nations with strong national sentiments and common descent-based attributes will seek independence if they have capable systems to govern themselves. Self-determination seeking nations are more likely to succeed if they share descent-based identities, strategically consider other challenging ethnic groups with the possible state response, and are institutionally capable to survive on their own.
Kanchan Chandra of the Department of Politics at New York University argues that “ethnicity either does not matter or has not been shown to matter in explaining most outcomes to which it has been causally linked by comparative political scientists. These outcomes include violence, democratic stability, and patronage" (397). She further improves her argument by suggesting that the concept of ethnic identity would be best substituted with concepts such as “descent-based identities or identities based on sticky or visible attributes” (Chandra 422). Descent-based attributes are defined by an “imagined community,” a section of a country’s population rather than the whole, eligible membership for all siblings in a category at any given place, and genetic heritage and features. Degree of stickiness, or constrained change, characterizes the change an ethnic identity can undergo in the short term but is held back by underlying reasons. Visibility refers to the ability to gauge some information about an individual’s ethnic identity through their appearance.
Chandra’s argument suggests that when trying to explain the causal chain for a nation seeking self-determination, ethnic identity is never the sole independent variable when associating it with the dependent variable. That means for nations seeking self-determination, some other variable or variables solidify their ethnic identity and perception of common history. This fixity along with a common culture, language, history, and conceptual autonomy fuel nationalist sentiments within the group. Nations that have such strong sentiments will then have a greater possibility of seeking self-determination from their current state.
Governments that must deal with nations seeking self-determination employ a strategy of reputation building. Barbara Walter explains that “future players and future stakes…strongly influence government decisions to cooperate or fight at least against ethnic minorities seeking self-determination” (313). Governments are less likely to concede if a large number of ethnic groups are in the state and the disputed land is of high value. Refusing one challenger deters future challengers.
Nations will have to consider the number of other ethnic groups in their country, the combined strategic value of future lands, and the size of their population when deciding to take separatist action. According to Walter, a government will be less likely to accommodate any given challenge if any of the three aforementioned variables have high values. Governments are influenced more by the risks and costs of future challenges than those of current ones. Additionally, democratic regimes are more likely to concede than less democratic ones. Nations that challenge for self-determination under democratic regimes are more likely to be offered both reform and increased territorial autonomy.
Partha Chatterjee illuminates the increased institutional capabilities of a self-determination seeking nation in “The Colonial State.” She claims that the colonial state as a modern regime of power “produces and facilitates…the value of state institutions created by the colonial state…the post-colonial state has only expanded and strengthened these institutions (Chatterjee 1). A “colonial difference” in British India was created through race, “which united the rulers and separated them from the ruled” (Chatterjee 2). In turn, Indian “nationalism claimed sovereignty over…language, religion, and civil relations arguing for an essential difference from the colonizer” (Chatterjee 4) while fighting to remove foreign influence from the established institutions.
This case exemplifies the effect common history and institutions has on an ethnic group that begins to perceive itself as a nation. Early colonial rule of India prevented indigenous attempts at centralization but economic and social institutions already in place accommodated and encouraged modern capital. India’s history as a capitalist nation led to their participation in colonial financial efforts. As a nation they eventually wished for autonomous subjectivity, as they realized they had the institutions and resources available to govern themselves.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s 1940 presidential address to the Muslim League in Lahore illustrates conflict that can exist between majority and minority ethnic nations within a state seeking self-determination. He wanted to “organize Muslim Leagues all over India” and use it as an institutional power against the conservative central government to promote freedom for all of India, not just “one section or, worse still, of the Congress caucus and slavery of Mussalmans and other minorities” (Jinnah 2). The Hindu majority in Congress drowned out the Mussalman minority opinion on the terms of independence from Britain. Jinnah fervently believed that Hindu-Muhammadan unity was impossible because the two were different and distinct social orders and offered the idea of “autonomous national states” as a solution (6).
Jinnah’s speech displays the strong sentiment of a nation seeking self-determination despite being a minority group in the colonial state. A nation with a small population which depends on itself will unlikely succeed in their self-deterministic goals no matter how strong the sentiment. Multiple nations who wish to challenge the state must coordinate their efforts or else one will lack negotiating power at the bargaining table.
Chandra excellently highlights the importance of descent-based attributes in determining a nation’s ethnic identity while Walter expands on the elements determining a governmental response to ethno-national arousal within the state. Chatterjee and Jinnah illustrate this in action with the case of Colonial British India. Many of the arguments found by Chandra and Walter make light of the events presented by Chatterjee and Jinnah and effectively prove that under the correct circumstances nations can succeed to an extent in self-determination movements.