Before laying out the complete definition of nation-building, it is better to define the literal meaning of each word that the term nation building comprises. Nation is basically understood as a group of people who have shared feeling that they belong to a special group that have different identity over another group. In its simplest form, we can understand the definition of nation through Benedict Anderson’s famous term “imagined community”. Anderson explained that the reason why it is imagined is because the person that claim to be a part of a nation may not know the other members of the community, never met or even made communication, but in their minds, lives the image of the community (Anderson 1983, 49). Therefore, a nation building can …show more content…
The management of the state which gain legitimacy from the people and the maintenance of order can also be done under non democratic government. To assume that a successful nation-building is when democratic government is established is too western-centric and is not relatable to various non-western world where patriarchal culture and kingdom system with its centralized and hierarchic government is still prevalent case. The same idea is mentioned by Mark T. Berger in his work The Battle for Asia: from decolonization to globalization who argued that order and stability is more important than democracy (Berger 2004, 92) . Second thing which need to be addressed is that one need to distinct the idea of nation-building and state-building. State-building is the effort of building a functioning state, but nation –building is an effort to support the building of functioning state. When nation-building succeed, it is easier for the project of state-building to run because people are already in the same idea and already in the same loyalty to a nation with relatively same vision rather than when people are in their own informal groups or ethnic attachment with various vision and …show more content…
Malaysia and Indonesia have the same problem of ethnic division. Major ethnics that heavily divided in Malaysia are Malay (bumiputera), Chinese, and Indian. While major ethnic in Indonesia that heavily divided are Chinese, Javanese, and in minor case, Papua. Foreign occupation and attachment are also prevalent in both countries particularly during colonial era where Indonesia was colonialized by Netherland and Japan and received great influence from United States of America (US) and USSR during Cold War. While Malaysia occupied by British colonial during colonial period, it also receives great influence from United States during Cold War era. The deep division among ethnic in Indonesia during Suharto era can be linked to the Cold War context of that era. After the 30th September tragedy, Indonesian society at that time were in trauma to communist idea due to Indonesia Communist Party (PKI) was suspected to be the one behind G30S. Soeharto who later become president employ a strategy of anti-communism. Indonesia then supported by US who oppose communism, US gave abundant aids and loans to Indonesia. Chinese-descendants who were seen as having close relation with communist regime of People’s Republic of China was forced to ‘Indonesianize’ their name and forced to have one nationality. Their religion,
Throughout the years, humans have constructed many unique civilizations; all which follow a distinct social, economic, and political structure. Even so, there is one characteristic that prevails among these societies, the concept of nationalism. In short, nationalism refers to the feelings people have when identifying with their nation. This simple notion possesses the ability to divide or unite collective groups, and has played an important role in many historical events.
The idea of a national community is an idea that is changing as we as members of this national community change as well. Technology continues to become more advanced and is affecting the way people choose to live their lives. The definition of a community is “a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.” National can be defined as “of, pertaining to, or belonging to a nation. Peculiar or common to the people of a nation.” When understanding these two words and combining them, the definition of a national community can be defined as a large community of people who live within the same region, and share a common culture with everyone surrounding
Two Nations is a book about the U.S. and about the racial tensions between Caucasians and African Americans. The book’s author, Andrew Hacker, goes into detail on how the two races conflict has been growing since blacks were first brought to America and enslaved. He goes through history, education, racism, crime, among other things to help break down the racial tension between blacks and whites.
War and Nation-Building The term ‘nation-building’ is often defined as evolution rather than revolution, though it can mean different things to different people. As that reason, nation-building refers to give assistance in the development of governmental basic structure, civil society and economics in a dysfunctional or unstable country in order to increase stability. Therefore, War, which may lead to civil or global confusion, does not promote nation-building.
War Promotes Nation Building War can promote nation building in various aspects. Politically, war can modernize the political system of a country; economically, war can encourage a huge number of industrial developments of a country; morally, war can destroy the evil ideas of the world. For the propose of this assignment, the following definition of nation building is provided: Nation building is the development or modernization of a country in political, economical, and/or social aspect(s). First of all, war can modernize the political system of a country. When a country was defeated in a territory, the regime would be replaced by another regime with a different form of government, and a different kind of political system.
Nationalism is more than just a sense of pride in one’s country. Nationalism is what makes you feel like part of something bigger. In order to be a nation, its people should willingly make sacrifices to benefit the country, not just the individual. Many factors like common culture, language, geographic location, and shared history are all important contributors to nationalism. Nationalism can possess great power, that is capable of either uniting or dividing nations. As nationalism flourished in Europe during the 1800’s, it unified separate Italian and German city-states, and divided previously great powers like the Ottoman Empire and Austrian Empire.
As I began my research for this essay, it became clearly obvious that there is no consensus on the roots of nations. From Gellner to Smith, a million little points in time and space can be credited for the creation of a nation, which in itself carries various meanings and connotations. Believing that both modernists, who interpret nationalism as being associated with industrial economy and centralized authority, and primordialists, who argue nations are ancient and natural phenomena, make valid points, I have opted to adhere to Michael Mann’s explanation that the structure of nations ‘had multiple causes and stages cascading on top of each other in unexpected and unfortunate ways. They were contingent because different causal chains, each of which we can trace and explain quite well, came together in a way that we cannot explain in terms of either of them, yet which proved timely for the outcome’ (Mann 2012: 3). Nevertheless, despite the range of explanations for nationalism, one concept is reoccurring. Humans, either in their local, state or international societies, are driven by power, and those who have the ability to force their decisions upon others yield power. Regardless of the fact that colonialism and imperialism are no longer recognized as current practices, international society still exists under the umbrella of neo-colonial influences, of which globalization is a product of.
The founding of a new government, by definition, does not merely mean the establishment of a governing structure; it denotes the building of nationhood. This sense of nationhood, with time, will invariably deepen into the passion citizens have for their nations. While extreme nationalism is destructive to both self and others, a moderate amount of nationalism is the foundation of our modern democracy. It unites citizen into political units, promotes participation in democratic processes, and stabilizes democracy by building trust. Governments are, thus, important because, to some extent, they help to promote democracy.
Modern non-democratic regimes include authoritarian, totalitarian, post-totalitarian, and sultanistic regimes (O&R, pg. 268). Different states follow different regimes and many do not fall under the category of democracy. Democracy, as defined by Lipset, is “a political system which supplies regular constitutional opportunities for changing the governing officials, and a social mechanism which permits the largest possible part of the population to influence major decisions by choosing among contenders for political office” (Lipset, Political Man, pg. 27).
The belief of a nation running their own state is a right for most of us. However, this is only a new conviction. The right for one to sovereign their own nation has come due with hard work. Illicit imperialism has stricken humanity for numerous years. Due to the aspiration of power certain nations today do not self-govern their own state. But why would there be a desire for this power? Some of the main items include natural resources, increased assets, and military expansion. Ideally this is great if this is voluntary external rule, but when it’s no longer voluntary this is when the boundary has been crossed. This is why every nation should have control over their own state if they desire.
... Despite the negative effects that had brought bad impact to the country, it was also one of the things that have strengthened the country. It has provided an acceleration of development for the country. Conclusions References Works Cited http://prezi.com/ko92evamttlo/colonial-rule-and-impacts-in-sea/ http://www.marxist.com/malaysia-fifty-years-independence-part-one.htm http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120320222600AAYZmN7 http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090908024038AAH5Qw
In the 1999 elections for the first time in Malaysia’s history opposition parties united under Barisan Alternatif (Alternative Front or BA). Party Keadilan is a small multi-ethnic party formed in 1999 by activists in the reformation movement. Besides, PAS (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party) had provided strong competition for UMNO. Another major ...
Social development and state building are two interrelated concepts which passed through many different stages throughout the history of mankind. When talking about social development, we refer to a process of social change, not merely a set of policies and programs instituted for some specific results. Social change is stimulated by an increasing awareness leading to better organization, which emerges when the society senses new and better opportunities for progress and it develops new forms of organization to exploit these new openings successfully. On the other hand, state-building, as a term used in state theory, describes the construction of a functioning state. The term first entered academic debate in the context of Charles Tilly's
The term – nation building or national development, is usually used to refer to a constructive process of engaging all citizens in building social cohesion, economic prosperity and political stability in a nation in an inclusive and democratic way. Going by the definition, it is seen that all citizens are to be involved in building or developing a nation. Thus, the involvement of youth in national development is a must. In fact, youths play one of the most important roles in nation building.
The world is organized by man-made boundaries that divide land into sovereign states, (excluding Antarctica). Early states formed through empires, conquest, and colonialism, were held together by religious based rule. The Treaty of Westphalia lessened the powers of religious figures the Catholic Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, which ended religious wars in Europe in 1648 . This transformation marks the formation of the modern state system, which organizes the world into nation-states. A nation-state exists where common identity coincides with the boundaries of sovereign authority. The synonymous nature of the words nation and state have a European base were early states were nearly synonymous with their nations. These definitions are frequently used interchangeably when they should not be. I will argue that although the terms nation and state are clearly related, they both have distinct meanings, which explains why there are states without a nation, nations without a state, and some nations that spread out over many states.