ABSTRACT
As we saw in Chapter 1, much has been written in recent years about the relationship between nationalism and liberalism, the main point at issue being the reconcilability of the two value systems with each other. A number of political theorists tend to assert that the two systems are not as antithetical or mutually exclusive as most twentieth-century liberal thinkers and scholars would have one believe. The theorists in question claim that liberalism and nationalism can be reconciled and so combined as to enhance each other, as they have, according to them, gone hand-inhand at certain periods in the past. The discussion takes a philosophicalanalytical turn, or tends to focus on the historical development of the relationship between the two movements, but in most cases the two approaches are combined and the historical approach is adduced in order to corroborate the philosophical assertions. A constantly recurring theme in the relevant literature is the invocation of nineteenth-century thinkers such as J.S. Mill, Mazzini, and others as examples of liberals whose work and public activity exhibited such a degree of sympathy for, or participation in, the nationalist movements of their time, that they can be taken to represent and exemplify the best expressions of a sound relationship between liberalism and nationalism. By the same token, there is a tendency to distinguish between “nationalism” – which, it is conceded, may have associations not wholly defensible in terms of liberal moral values – and the principle of “nationality,” which is held to be not only
defensible but also commendable. The very term is borrowed from the discourse of nineteenth-century thinkers, most notably J.S. Mill, and it is employed in an attempt to defend and promote a sanitized version of nationalism. Another line of argument adopted by some political theorists takes the form of a distinction between “nationalism” and “patriotism,” with the latter being presented as a form of particularistic attachment that can be distinguished from nationalism and its unsavory implications.2
