Nation Building/Nationalism - 
            The River People in Flood Time: The Civil Wars in Tabasco, Spoiler of Empires. By Terry Rugeley . Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014. Pp. viii, 355. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $45.00 cloth.

Summary Most countries in Africa are both “multination” and “polyethnic” states. This is due partly to the forced amalgamation, by the European colonialists, of the continent’s “ethnocultural nations” into single economic and political units that were called “colonies.” These colonies eventually evolved into what are today’s independent African countries. Today, many of these ethnocultural groups want to secede and form their own independent polities in order to have more autonomy over policies that affect their well-being, including especially their cultural and traditional values. The struggle by these groups for either outright secession or so-called enhanced rights has created many challenges for governance, national integration and nation-building in many countries in Africa today. Throughout the continent, inter-ethnic conflict, for example, over the allocation of scarce resources, has produced sectarian violence that has led to civil wars (as occurred in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and Nigeria) and significantly endangered prospects for peaceful coexistence. It has been suggested that the solution to this political quagmire is the creation of differentiated citizenship rights for each of these groups. The paper suggests that of the three types of differentiated citizenship that have been suggested as a way to accommodate diversity—self-government rights, polyethnic rights, and special representation rights—self-government rights pose the greatest threat to social, political, and economic stability in the African countries. The solution to this governance challenge may lie in inclusive and robust dialogue, which can help these groups find a way to remain citizens of their present polities, while at the same time, retaining their cultural identities.

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Nation-building under the Austro-Hungarian sceptre Croat-Serb antagonism and cooperation

Balcanica ◽

10.2298/balc0637195t ◽

2006 ◽

pp. 195-220

Author(s):

Ana Trbovich

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Civil Wars ◽

Nation Building ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Contributory Factor ◽

National Consciousness ◽

Cultural Characteristics ◽

East Europe ◽

Language And Literature ◽

The Future

In the nineteenth century many European nations, including Serbs and Croats became politically conscious of their "nationhood", which became a contributory factor in the crumbling of the two great empires in Central-East Europe - the Habsburg and the Ottoman - at the beginning of the following century. The Serbs had, since medieval times, an awareness of their long history and tradition, great medieval civilization and cultural unity regardless of the fact that they lived under several different adminis?trations. As in the case of Habsburg Serbs, language and literature became building blocks of Croat national consciousness in the nineteenth century. Unlike Serb nationalism centred on people, Croat nationalism was mainly territory-related. Since both Serbs and Croats inhabited the Austro-Hungarian provinces claimed by the Croats as their "historical Right" (absorption in 1097 of the small medieval Croat state by the Hungarians is interpreted, by many Croat historians, as a voluntary act of union), the different conceptions of nationalism resulted in competing claims. Croatian politics became one of opposing any recognition of Serbian institutions and cultural characteristics without Serbs previously accepting the concept that the only "political nation" in the Austro-Hungarian Province of Croatia was Croatian. Nonetheless, Croats compromised when in need of Serb assistance in opposing Hungarian domination. In turn, Serb politics was divided between those supporting cooperation with the Croats in order to achieve greater autonomy from the Hungarians in the Dual Monarchy, and those who supported some cooperation but insisted on forming an entity separate from the Croats in the future and joining with the Kingdom of Serbia, which regained its independence in 1878. The ensuing world and civil wars brought the Croato-Serb conflict to the fore, with the first and the second Yugoslavia failing to accommodate the two nations' opposing aspirations.

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Arthur N. Young. China's Nation-Building Effort, 1927–1937: The Financial and Economic Record. (Hoover Institution Publications 104.) [Stanford:] Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University. 1971. Pp. xx, 553. $19.50

The American Historical Review ◽

10.1086/ahr/77.5.1494 ◽

1972 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Keyword(s):

Nation Building ◽

Stanford University ◽

Hoover Institution

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