Nationalism and International Relations

Abstract

The critical importance of nationalism in international relations is recognised in the received wisdom that ‘nationalism’ caused both World Wars in the twentieth century. Much of international history since 1800 has been concerned with nationalism, and in Europe it forced the break-up of the multinational Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires, the separation of Norway from Sweden and of Ireland from Britain. Also in Europe, nationalism unified Italy and Germany, so that each formed a ‘nation-state’, even if many ‘ethnic Germans’ still live outside Germany. After 1945 nationalism greatly increased the number of states in the world when the colonised peoples of the European empires in the Third World fought their way to independence. Then, after 1989, the European state system was transformed with the collapse of communism. Eighteen new European states appeared at the UN, and several more from Asia, all carved out of the USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Conversely, one state (the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany) disappeared in 1990, to be merged with the Federal Republic of Germany to form Germany. This was another triumph for nationalism. Thus the whole shape of the international system today is largely derived from nationalism and the effects of nationalist movements (Mayall, 1990).