Adapting Nations

Beschreibung

“This book throws light on the complexities of the ‘national’”.
—Aurélie Lacassagne, Université de Hearst, Canada

“The authors have properly reinstated the concept of the nation to its intellectual importance.”
—David McCrone, University of Edinburgh, UK

Nations adapt. Nations are resilient both within and outside the boundaries of statehood. Yet scholarship tends to downplay nationhood, as it focuses on the polity. As a consequence, the investigation of modern societies, though usually articulated around the nation-state model, falls into state-centrism, whilst neglecting the other side of the coin. This book initiates an interdisciplinary debate that encourages research in a field that has largely been overlooked in European social and political sciences. The analysis, offered by the authors, reinstates the concept of the 'nation' beyond the traditional, and somewhat dichotomous, schools of thought, hence neither judging the nation as a mere invention nor as a deterministic product of history. The book provides those interested in nationalism with new approaches to exploring national identity and its connection to statehood. By using concepts inspired by political science and sociology, namely habitus, survival unit, polity, hysteresis, and so forth, the different chapters of the volume revitalise the inquiry of the dimensions and features in which the nation and the identification they engender become tools of adaptation in relation to the transformative reality of our own contemporaneity. The authors thus contextualise the latter via the mid-range concept of national resilience at both meso- and macro-levels. 

Alon Helled is a postdoctoral fellow and adjunct lecturer in the History of International Relations at the University of Turin, Italy. He is also a teaching assistant on the History of Modern Israel and History of the Middle East courses at the University of Florence.

Carlo Pala is a political scientist who has taught Political Science and Science of Public Administration at the University of Sassari, section of Nuoro, Department of Law, Italy. He is also an associate fellow at the interdisciplinary laboratory Arènes at the Institut d’Études Politiques (IEP), Rennes, France.

Nations adapt. Nations are resilient both within and outside the boundaries of statehood. Yet scholarship tends to downplay nationhood, as it focuses on the polity. As a consequence, the investigation of modern societies, though usually articulated around the nation-state model, falls into state-centrism, whilst neglecting the other side of the coin. This book initiates an interdisciplinary debate that encourages research in a field that has largely been overlooked in European social and political sciences. The analysis, offered by the authors, reinstates the concept of the 'nation' beyond the traditional, and somewhat dichotomous, schools of thought, hence neither judging the nation as a mere invention nor as a deterministic product of history. The book provides those interested in nationalism with new approaches to exploring national identity and its connection to statehood. By using concepts inspired by political science and sociology, namely habitus, survival unit, polity, hysteresis, and so forth, the different chapters of the volume revitalise the inquiry of the dimensions and features in which the nation and the identification they engender become tools of adaptation in relation to the transformative reality of our own contemporaneity. The authors thus contextualise the latter via the mid-range concept of national resilience at both meso- and macro-levels. 

Autor*in

Alon Helled

Themen in »Adapting Nations«

Nations National identities politics statehood sociopolitical processes resilience

Stimmen zu »Adapting Nations«

“Several times declared dead and buried, nations and nationalism have in fact shown tremendous resilience; this book provides great insight as to how.” (André Lecours, Professor of Political Science, University of Ottawa)

“This book, which can serve as a reference text on the study of the nation, offers a coherent and solidly constructed theory, building on what sociological and political science knowledge has produced so far.” (Angelo Panebianco, Emeritus Professor of Political Science, University of Bologna)

“This book deserves a wide readership for the light it throws on the complexities of the “national” and the importance of national resilience in the current troubling world disorder. An original and groundbreaking must-read for all social scientists.” (Aurélie Lacassagne, Full professor and Rector, Université de Hearst, Canada)

“By using the novel concept of “national resilience", this thought-provoking book challenges readers to reconsider traditional approaches to nationalism and national identity. Founded on 7 analytical-conceptual dimensions and 6 indicators, it provides a new and compelling lens for the study of collective resilience, strength and perseverance at a time when every nation in the world is bound to face a set of human-induced crises of potentially cataclysmic proportions. A must-read for anyone looking to approach the study of nationalism through an insightful exploration of the new challenges of our time.” (Daniele Conversi, Research Professor, University of the Basque Country (EHU/UPV))

“The authors have properly reinstated the concept of the nation to its intellectual importance. Their interest in ’national resilience’ is both subtle and powerful.” (David McCrone, Professor of Sociology, University of Edinburgh)
“Engaging with a remarkably wide range of scholarship, this insightful book by Helled and Pala develops an approach that paves the way for a whole new research field on the phenomenon of the nation.” (Fabio De Leonardis, Shanghai International Studies University)

“« Les nations ne sont pas quelque chose d’éternel. Elles ont commencé, elles finiront», wrote Ernest Renan in 1882 in his famous speech Qu’est-ce qu’une nation ? In the meantime, willy-nilly we are still living in the age of nations 150 later. That’s why books like this one are important and necessary. Without reducing the nation to nationalism, of confusing it with the state, this unorthodox essay at the crossroad of historical sociology and political theory explores the concept of ‘national resilience’ and its operationalization in order to help us understand how and why for centuries nations have been ‘adapting’.” (Florence Delmotte, Department of Political Science, UCLouvain Saint-Louis, Brussels)

“By grasping “resilience as a factor central for the understanding of the survival of states and nations, Helled and Pala have contributed a thoroughly original and creative viewpoint to the political sociology of states facing threats by forces from outside or also from within.” (Helmut Kuzmics, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Graz)
“A dense and passionate reflection on the current national reality, not as much as resistance to mutations and crises but as the evolutative resilient capacity of adaptation facing them. The book is a healthy and original renewal of the sociopolitical studies on nations in modern societies.” (Jean-Louis Briquet, Professor of Political Science, CESSP, Department of Political Science, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

“Drawing from a broad range of historical and contemporary examples, this book presents a theoretically informed, well-documented argument for shifting beyond the usual nexus of nationalism, national identity, and the nation-state. Instead, it advocates for a deeper exploration of national resilience. How do nations endure, adapt, and revive? How do their fortunes intertwine with those of states as social survival units? What role does national habitus play in stabilizing diverse nation-constructs? Alon Helled and Carlo Pala offer a fresh perspective on these and other fundamental questions in nation studies.” (Marta Bucholc, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Warsaw)

“In times of the rebirth of nationalism around the world, this book timely provides and original analysis; a must-read for anyone seeking profound insights on this issue.” (Mara Morini, Professor of Political Science, University of Genoa)

“National Resilience is a significant contribution to the study of nationalism. Its focus on the resilience of nations provides a novel perspective that will enrich future scholarship.” (Michel Huysseune, Professor of Political Science, Free University of Brussels)

“In their outstanding analysis, Helled and Pala offer a novel reflection on the process of collective identification that gave rise to national identities, or more specifically, concrete historical nations. Instead of resistance being used as a dominant interpretative device, they propose a concept of national resilience as a dynamic process based on the capacity to adapt to, or even embrace, multifaceted crises in order to survive, regenerate and reproduce as a nation in time and space. The book's rigorous attempt to disentangle the concept of nation from nationalism and violence, preserving the civilizational achievements of mutual recognition of differences and inclusive citizenship, makes it an exceptional contribution to our understanding of the contemporary world.” (Tatjana Sekuliċ, Associate professor of Political Sociology, University of Milan-Bicocca)

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