1st Edition

Culture and the Politics of Third World Nationalism

By Dawa Norbu Copyright 1992

    Nationalism in specific political systems combined with a theoretical framework that draws out its universal significance. Ten case studies from South Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Europe focus on local cultural factors.

    Preface: field experience and social theory 1 Introduction: western concepts and non-western realities 2 Towards a new definition of Third World nationalism 3 The stages of proto-nationalism: tribalism, ethnicity and patriotism 4 Social structure of the nation: the ordering principle of national attributes 5 The evolution of religious sects and the emergence of national identities 6 Modern nationalism and egalitarian ideology 7 The politics of nationalism: mass mobilization, linguistic transformation and nationalist movements 8 The mechanism of mass mobilization: symbol manipulation and identity assertion 9 Nationalism as social power: restructuring egalitarian systems 10 The monoethnic state and polyethnic social system: the rise of ethnic nationalism 11 Conclusion: cultural differentiation and political rationalization 12 Epilogue: the rise of Slavic nationalisms and the collapse of transnational ideocracy

    Biography

    Dawa Norbu is Associate Professor in the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was educated in Tibet, India and the United States and received his doctorate in political sociology from the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of Red Star over Tibet (1987) and has contributed to a number of scholarly journals.

    `Norbu's argument about why and how nationalism in the third world differs from the European experience is ingenious... (this book) deserves to be taken seriously on pure intellectual grounds, unsullied by ideology.' - Ernst Haas, University of California, Berkeley

    `The objectives are clearly spelt out; the key concepts are rigorously defined... helpful signposts guide the reader through the theoretical chapters and case studies, leading to a cumulative and enduring knowledge of the specific and more general attributes of third world nationalism.' - Subrart K. Mitra, South Asian Institute , Heidelberg University

    `The author undoubtedly covers a relatively untravelled terrain of vast dimensions, with commendable scholarship and some unusual insights.@ - International Studies

    `Wide-ranging and challenging.' - The Journal of Asian Studies