Abstract
This article explores nation building as an organizational accomplishment and uses the concept of boundary object to explain how the groups that compose the nation cooperate. Specifically, the article examines the mechanisms devised to secure a flow of money from the Irish-American and Jewish-American diasporas to their respective homelands. To overcome problems associated with conventional philanthropy, Irish and Jewish nationalists issued bonds and sold them to their American compatriots as a hybrid of a gift and an investment. In the Irish case, disagreements about the entitlement to the proceeds resulted in the termination of the bond project. In the Jewish case, the bond served as a boundary object allowing American and Israeli Jews to cooperate despite ongoing tensions. The Israeli bond provided Jewish-Americans with an additional way to invest themselves financially and emotionally in Israel. This bond is an example of a socio-technical mechanism used to create national attachments.
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Notes
The term socio-technical network or mechanism refers to a particular configuration of individuals, communities, and organizations as well as procedures, forms, objects, and machines that are assembled together in order to accomplish a task.
The case of diaspora bonds bears surprising contemporary relevance. Searching for alternatives to shrinking governmental aid to developing countries, the World Bank now advocates diaspora bonds as a solution to governments that have difficulties accessing credit in conventional markets (Ketkar and Ratha 2009). In the wake of Greece’s financial meltdown, the Greek government announced plans to launch diaspora bonds, hoping that the ability to borrow from diaspora communities would pave its way back to conventional financial markets (see Raskin and Petrakis 2010).
The sale of national bonds played a key role in several instances of national mobilization. The best-known example is probably the sale of American war bonds during the First and Second World Wars, which, in turn, served as an inspiration for the Irish and Zionist projects (see Kimble 2006; Samuel 1997). Incidentally, war bonds were at the basis of Robert Merton’s study of mass persuasion (1946). Merton, however, was uninterested in the bonds themselves or in nation building and, instead, explored the social psychological underpinnings of persuasion.
The article does not claim that the bond projects per se were the only or even the most important factors involved in these historical developments. Various other processes were surely involved in these developments. Nevertheless, the analysis of the bond projects contributes to our understanding of these trajectories.
That different members attribute different meanings to their national membership is not a new observation. David Kertzer, among others, claims that the multi-vocal and symbolic nature of the nation facilitates the tying together of disparate groups (Kertzer 1988; Verdery 1996). Such an assertion, however, does little to clarify how groups negotiate their differences when they surface in the course of interaction.
For a balanced assessment of Bourdieu’s contribution to gift theory and its place in his oeuvre, see Silber (2009).
In my understanding, there are no “failed” boundary objects. Objects that fail to mediate between groups are not boundary objects, regardless of their ambiguity or the intentions of those making them.
The framework offered in this section is relevant for a whole group of transactions where actors’ moral considerations play an important role in shaping economic decisions. Socially responsible investing (SRI) mutual funds, for example, take ethical values into consideration when they decide which stocks to purchase and sometimes pressure companies whose stock they own to change morally problematic practices. Jared Peifer shows that religiously oriented SRI investors hold onto their mutual funds with little regard to past performance or volatility (2010). In effect, Peifer demonstrates that these investors are willing to “gift” some of their money in order to support practices that they view as morally commendable.
The literature on debt and credit usually adopt the framework of market exchange (see Guseva and Rona-Tas 2001). But the risk involved in loans is not qualitatively different from the risk of no reciprocity in gift-giving.
For a loan really to approximate market exchange it needs to be liquid. Liquidity allows actors to close the time gap that separates it from market exchange for a known price.
Haydu analyzes across periods, but his approach can also be used for cross-case analysis.
Key figures in the mission were Patrick McCartan and Harry Boland, both members of the Dáil Éireann. Joseph McGarrity, a member of the Clan na Gael executive, was closely associated with them.
The UJA was created by the United Palestine Appeal, the Joint Distribution Committee, and the United Service for New Americans.
Data for this study were collected from the following archives: the American Irish Historical Society (AIHS), Villanova University Archives (VUA), the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS), and the New York Public Library (NYPL) in the US; Ben Gurion Archive (BGA), the Central Zionist Archives (CZA), and the Government Archives (GA) in Israel; and the Irish National Archives (NA), the Irish National Library (NL), and the University College Dublin Archives (UCDA) in Ireland.
NYPL/Walsh papers/27.
Lynch to chairmen of IVF committees, August 7, 1919, AIHS/FOIF papers.
The ACII was a committee of three dignitaries that the FOIF established in order to press for Irish independence at the Peace Conference in Paris.
Boland to Cohalan, September 11, 1919, UCDA/de Valera papers/P150/1134.
Proceedings from the Jerusalem Economic Conference, September 3, 1950, BGA, emphasis in original.
See memorandum by Glaser, August 30, 1950, CZA, Montor papers, A371/6.
Montor to Joseph Schwartz, June 14, 1951, CZA S43/79; Montor to AFDCI volunteers, January 28, 1952, CZA/S43/79; Montor to Friedman, February 12, 1951, CZA/A371/6.
See Securities and Exchange Act 1934, section 3(a) (4, codified at 15 U.S.C.§ 78c[a])(4).
Permutt to Goldberger, March 13, 1951, GA/Gal 47049/2.
Minutes of meeting with partners of Kuhn Loeb, December 14, 1950, CZA/A371/2.
“Israel Exposition,” undated booklet, GA/Foreign Affairs/2420/13.
GA/Foreign Affairs/2420/12.
See CZA/A371/10; CZA/Z6/582.
Eban to Sharett, June 30, 1952, GA/Foreign Affairs/2420/12.
January 18, 1951, CZA/Z6/505.
See “Outline of President de Valera,” NL/O’Mara papers/MS.21547.
Gallagher to O’Mara, December 12, 1919; Murphy to Walsh, December 29, 1919, NL/O’Mara papers/MS.21547; minutes of the FOIF national Council, January 9th, 1920, AIHS/FOIF papers/6/3.
April 6, 1920, AIHS/FOIF papers/8/6; AIHS/Cohalan papers/1/9.
AIHS/Cohalan papers/1/9.
De Valera to Cohalan, February 20, 1920, AIHS/Cohalan papers/4/1.
S. O’Mara to de Valera, August 12, 1921, NA/DFA/Prov. Govt/IFS/27/170.
Walsh to organizers, September 23, 1920, NL/O’Mara Papers/MS.21548/2.
S. O’Mara to de Valera, July 15, 1921, NA/DFA Prov. Govt./IFS/27/170; Hearn to Fawsitt, December 2, 1920, NL/McGarrity papers/MS.17447; O’Mara to O’Brennan, September 27, 1921, NA/DE 5/57/14). See also the New York Times report on April 29, 1921 and April 30, 1921, and the Irish World and American Industrial Revolution, October 8, 1921.
Charlotte Dunne to Lynch, April 8, 1920, NYPL/Maloney Collection of historical papers/4/5. Folders 5–9 in Maloney Collection contain hundreds of letters from angry subscribers.
See also Nunan to Boland, April 17, 1921, UCDA, de Valera papers/P150/1142; Ward to O’Mara, October 14, 1921, NA/DE/ 5/57/14; Irish Press December 17, 1921; Grace to O’Mara, October 7, 1921, UCDA/de Valera papers/P150/1204.
See Cohalan to de Valera, February 22, 1920, AIHS/Cohalan papers/4/1. For an even more detailed case of boundary work, see Bishop Michael Gallagher’s report on de Valera’s visit (April 9, 1921, McGarrity papers/VUA).
This process was not irreversible, as the surge in Irish-American activities in the 1970s demonstrates.
Although the image of Irish immigrants as poor and uneducated is anachronistic in this case. David Doyle shows that by the turn of the century, Irish immigrants reach parity with the rest of the white population in the United States (1976).
The Holocaust played a key role in the growth of the UJA in the 1940s. But, as we have seen, the Israel bond was in part a solution to a decline in Jewish giving, starting in 1948.
Memorandum by Milton Goldberger, November 16, 1953, CZA/A371/9.
Eban to Sharett, June 30, 1952, GA/Foreign Affairs/2420/12.
This is reminiscent of the case in 1919 when the FOIF extended de Valera a loan of $100,000. Later the FOIF agreed to receive bond certificates in lieu of payment (January 28, 1921, DE 5/57/14).
Fiscal Agency Agreement, May 1, 1951, GA/GL-47049/1. The Chase National Bank charged 5% commission for its services.
Ben Gurion to Eban, July 22, 1952, GA/Foreign Affairs/2420/13.
Eshkol to Venezky, June 10, 1953, CZA/A371/7.
On this point, see Brubaker and Cooper (2000, p. 14).
In transnational context, for example, the withering of a sense of belonging is treated as “assimilation” and is explained as an outcome of demographic processes. However, the Irish case suggests that the same phenomenon can sometimes be treated as an outcome of political processes of detachment.
The association between identity and non-instrumental action is particularly evident in primordialist or “strong” accounts of identity (see, for example Hutchinson and Smith 1996) but is evident in other quarters as well (see Cooper and Brubaker 2000).
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Acknowledgements
I am deeply grateful to Gil Eyal, William McAllister, Peter Bearman, David Stark, Nadia Abu El Haj, Allan Silver, Henry Wasserman, Bruce Zuckerman, Nancy Davenport, Uri Shwed, Zsuzsanna Vargha, Yuval Millo, Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, Robert Sussman, Nina Eliasoph, Paul Lichterman, Iddo Tavory, Yuval Yonay and Kevin Kenny for their insightful comments and suggestions.
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Lainer-Vos, D. Manufacturing national attachments: gift-giving, market exchange and the construction of Irish and Zionist diaspora bonds. Theor Soc 41, 73–106 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-011-9157-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-011-9157-1