Part of the Radical Thinkers series. The modernity of racism and its relationship to contemporary capitalism. Forty years after the defeat of Nazism, and twenty years after the great wave of decolonization, how is it that racism remains a growing phenomenon?
What are the special characteristics of contemporary racism? How can it be related to class divisions and to the contradictions of the nation-state?
And how far, in turn, does racism today compel us to rethink the relationship between class struggles and nationalism? This book attempts to answer these fundamental questions through a remarkable dialogue between the French philosopher Etienne Balibar and the American historian and sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein.
Each brings to the debate the fruits of over two decades of analytical work, greatly inspired, respectively, by Louis Althusser and Fernand Braudel.
DOI: Balibar , I. Wallerstein Published Sociology Social Forces ion of the capitalist market, but with its concrete historical form: that of a 'world-economy' which is always already hierarchically organized into a 'core' and a 'periphery', each of which have different methods of accumulation and exploitation of labour power, and between which relations of unequal exchange and domination are established.
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Results Citations. Citation Type. Other theorists of nationalism tend to emphasize the modern nature of the phenomenon, insisting that none of the forms of identity that characterized society for long periods of human history share the vital ingredients of the modern understanding of the term. There are several variations on this perspective, some coming out of the Marxist tradition that dismisses nationalism, like religion, as yet another form of false consciousness, and others that view the emergence of nationalism as an integral element of modernity.
It is a variant on the divide and rule strategy that promotes ideological confusion and pits worker against worker on the basis of a totally irrelevant set of distinctions. Modernity theorists, meanwhile, do not link the rise of nationalism with the growth of capitalism alone but see it as stemming from a combination of political, social, and economic forces generated by the Enlightenment.
One result of the economic and political revolutions of the 18th and early 19th centuries , and the scientific and technological advances associated with these historical transformations, is the need for mass education to build a culturally homogeneous platform to sustain these developments Gellner, Central to these changes, and resulting as an unintended consequence of the functional requirements of a modern lifestyle, are conditions that encourage and sustain nationalism.
The ethnosymbolists, exemplified by the writings of Anthony Smith , and John Hutchinson , , take a middle position between modernist social construction and the sense of historical continuity. While Smith and his colleagues are fully aware of the cultural foundations of nations, they are also equally cognizant of the role of myths, symbols, and the frequently distorted collective memory that underpins all the major forms of nationalist movements.
This middle path between the extremes of construction and continuity provides a valuable balance that helps us to understand a wider range of nationalist movements, from those with a pedigree stretching back millennia to the nationalisms of the postimperial era during the 19th and 20th centuries. With the emergence of a variety of interpretations of how and when nationalism developed in modern society, much of the current debate concerns an assessment of the impact of such forces as globalization, religious fundamentalism, and international nonstate terrorism as factors that may shape the continuing importance, growing salience, or declining significance of nationalism in the future.
Is it possible that racism, ethnicity, and nationalism will become much less salient in the coming decades? If so, what would be the explanation for such trends? Social scientists do not have a particularly good record in predicting far into the future. While W. DuBois was remarkably prescient in seeing the power of the color line throughout the 20th century , other predictions have proved to be far less accurate.
The particular forms of identity that are likely to be salient or, in contradistinction, may quite probably diminish in significance in the decades to come remains an enduring question. Of the three elements, racism seemed, until the arrival of Trump, to be the least likely candidate for a rapid revival as a basis of group categorization.
There are several forces that could strengthen a general antiracist trend in modern global society. Olzak has stressed the need to integrate the changing nature of international organizations and processes into the analysis, particularly the complex ramifications of globalization with its impact on migration, transnational communities, suprastate institutions, and transnational corporations.
Increased diversity in all the major societies as a result of the global transformation of the world economy, and the interconnections of capital and labor, can be expected to increase during the successive decades of the century. This will apply not only to the postindustrial societies of the First World, but also to the intermediate developing economies and to the Third World. The sheer diversity of migration patterns, internal flows within regional free trade areas, transnational communities whose dynamics will be enhanced by accelerated innovations in communication technologies and transportation, growing groups of highly skilled global migrants, and the unpredictable flows of refugees from political persecution, famines, and genocidal massacres, will all combine to increase the multiracial complexion of states and federations throughout the world.
No one would expect these trends to be entirely in one direction, or to be without the potential for strong backlashes or reactive political movements against the type of social changes that such developments represent.
Ethnicity and nationalism, meanwhile, will probably be rather more persistent markers of group boundaries. There are several reasons for this conclusion.
While the United Nations, as a global organization for political governance, has a role to play in trying to respond to crises and catastrophes that cut across state boundaries or involve multiple state conflicts, its structure is fundamentally state-bound. If one overarching political structure is unlikely to reduce ethnic and nationalist sentiments, what about the impact of intermediate-scale organizations that bunch together clusters of states in regional groupings?
Will they, on balance, help to diminish the types of ethnic and national mobilization as increased cooperation and mutual dependency in economic, social, and political ties start to extend the traditional boundaries of group interaction? If we add the factors of international terrorism, environmental pressure resulting from global climate change, the worldwide implications of drug policies, and the competitive rivalries of major religious faiths, a volatile mix of influences will undoubtedly be unleashed.
Some sociologists such as Richard Alba point to demographic factors that could exert pressure on societies such as the United States to move toward greater economic and social justice for ethnic minorities. Given the differential fertility rates of dominant whites and those of minorities, particularly minorities of color, Alba suggests these trends will have a tendency toward minority inclusion in the upper levels of the U.
While in the past immigration from Europe was one mechanism that provided an alternative reservoir of talent to fill a range of positions in the economic hierarchy, since the s the shortfall in the supply of scientific, technical, and managerial talent has often been filled by foreigners, either those directly recruited by U.
Alba argues that this pool of talented individuals will be subject to increasing competition from many other growing economies and that, combined with the domestic demographic shortfall, the result will be the incorporation of more American minorities into professional, managerial, and technical positions.
What is true of the United States is likely to be repeated in Europe with its even lower demographic rates of reproduction and similar patterns of migration both within the enlarged economic community and from the peripheral regions surrounding it. None of these macro sociopolitical trends necessarily diminish the tensions that arise from increasing globalization that can be channeled along ethnic and nationalist grooves. In fact, the very success of the integrative economic forces may exacerbate ethnonational mobilization as a way to maintain meaningful identity in a world subject to mounting anomic strains associated with rapid and discontinuous social change.
These modern methods can combine the destructiveness of scientific means with the tenacity of group identity to attain highly particularistic ends. Regrettably, there is nothing intrinsically benign in the forces underpinning the societal changes that have taken place during the first two decades of the 21st century. The precise balance between racism, ethnicity, and nationalism remains unclear but their possible eradication from future social, economic, and political conflicts seems highly unlikely.
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Search within Show Summary Details. Race, Ethnicity, and Nation. Keywords race ethnicity nation nationalism transnational migration colonial expansion globalization populist nationalism. Updated in this version Updated references, enhanced discussions of globalization and populist nationalism. Introduction: Three Variations on a Theme The three terms—race, ethnicity, and nation—represent forms of group identification that may be the result of internal choice, external categorization, or some combination of the two perspectives.
Race: Biology as Destiny In spite of the intellectual demolition of the genetic basis of racial theorizing since the second half of the 20th century , the legacy of racism lives on. Ethnicity: Group Divisions Rooted in Culture The power of race as a boundary marker has been continuously demonstrated for the past two centuries in many societies throughout the globe. The Continuing Significance of the Nation Thus, ethnicity and nationalism form different stages along a continuum.
Globalization and Populist Nationalism Is it possible that racism, ethnicity, and nationalism will become much less salient in the coming decades? Further Reading Acosta, D.
The national versus the foreigner in South America: Two hundred years of migration and citizenship law. Cambridge University Press. Boucher, A. Crossroads: Comparative immigration regimes in a world of demographic change. Cramer, K. The politics of resentment. University of Chicago Press. Elias, S. Racial theories in social science: A systemic racism critique. Esch, El. The color line and the assembly line: Managing race in the Ford empire.
University of California Press. Favell, A. Immigration, integration and mobility: New agendas in migration. ECPR Press. Hanchard, M. The spectre of race: How discrimination haunts Western democracy. Princeton University Press. Noble, S. New York University Press. Stone, J. The Wiley-Blackwell companion to race, ethnicity and nationalism. Suarez-Orozco, M. Humanitarianism and mass migration : Confronting the world crisis. Tesler, M.
Post-racial or most racial? Race and politics in the Obama era. References Alba, R. Blurring the color line: Possibilities for ethno-racial change in early 21st century America. Harvard: The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures. Alba, R. Germans or foreigners? Attitudes toward ethnic minorities in post-reunification Germany. Palgrave Macmillan. Alexander, M. The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness.
The New Press. Bailey, S. Latin America. Stone , D. Rutledge , P. Hou Eds. Berger, P. Many globalizations: Cultural diversity in the contemporary world. Oxford University Press. Bonilla-Silva, E. Racism without racists : Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States.
Brubaker, R. Ethnicity without groups. Harvard University Press. Why populism? Theory and Society , 46 , — Casiro, J. Connor, W.
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