Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T09:11:23.135Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Wars that Make States and Wars that Make Nations: Organised Violence, Nationalism and State Formation in the Balkans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2012

Siniša Malešević
Siniša Malešević*
Affiliation:
School of Sociology University College, Dublin [sinisa.malesevic@ucd.ie].
Get access

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 19th century the Balkans has been a synonym for aggressive nationalism and unbridled violence; the two phenomena traditionally understood to be the key obstacles for its social development. This paper contests such views by arguing that it was the absence of protracted warfare and coherent nationalist doctrines that distinguishes the history of South Eastern Europe from the rest of the continent. Drawing critically on bellicose historical sociology and modernist theories of nationalism - with a spotlight on the work of Charles Tilly and Ernest Gellner. Drawing critically on bellicose historical sociology and modernists theories of nationalism the paper makes a case that it was not the abundance of nationalism and organised violence but rather their historical scarcity that proved decisive for the slow pace of social development in the Balkans.

Résumé

Depuis le début du XIXe siècle, dire “Balkans” renvoie à nationalisme agressif et violence debridée, deux phénomènes traditionnellement tenus pour obstacles majeurs au développement social. Tout à l’opposé, l’argument présenté ici veut que l’absence de conflit armé prolongé et de doctrines nationalistes charpentées marquent la particularité de l’histoire de l’Europe du Sud. L’article offre un examen critique de la sociologie historique des guerres et des théories modernes du nationalisme telles que développées notamment par Charles Tilly et Ernst Gellner. Critique envers la sociologie historique de la guerre et les théories modernes du nationalisme, la leçon s’impose : ce n’est pas l’exacerbation du nationalisme et de la violence organisée mais bien plutôt leur déficience historique qui se révèle décisive pour rendre compte de la lenteur du développement des sociétés balkaniques.

Zusammenfassung

Seit Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts steht der Balkan Pate für einen agressiven Nationalismus und zügellose Gewalt, zwei Phänomene, die traditionnell zu den Haupthinderungsgründen für eine soziale Entwicklung gezählt werden. Der vorliegende Beitrag widerspricht dieser Auffassung, mit Hinweis auf die Abwesenheit eines langen bewaffneten Konflikts und koherenter nationaler Doktrinen, ein Spezifikum der Geschichte Süd-Ost-Europas. Die kritische Hinterfragung der historischen Kriegssoziologie und der modernen Nationalismustheorien erfolgt unter Einbeziehung der Arbeiten von Charles Tilly und Ernst Gellner. Der Artikel nimmt kritisch Bezug auf Ansätze der historischen Kriegssoziologie sowie auf modernistische Nationalismustheorien um zu zeigen, dass nicht ein Übermaß an Nationalismus und organisierter Gewalt sondern deren historischer Mangel entscheidend war für das verzögerte Tempo der gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung in den Balkanstaaten.

Keywords

NationNationalismStatesWarBalkansNationNationalismeÉtatsGuerreBalkansNationNationalismusStaatenKriegBalkan
Type
Research Articles
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , April 2012 , pp. 31 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © A.E.S. 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, Benedict, 1983. Imagined Communities (London, Verso).Google Scholar
Ayoob, Mohammed, 1995. The Third World Security Predicament: State Making, Regional Politics and the International System (Boulder, Lynne Rienner).Google Scholar
Barnett, Michael N., 1992. Confronting the Costs of War: Military Power, State and Society in Egypt and Israel (Princeton, Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Bechev, Dimitar, 2010. “The State and Local Authorities in the Balkans, 1804-1939”, in Van Meurs, Wim and Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina, eds., Ottomans into Europeans (London, Hurst).Google Scholar
Beissinger, Mark, 1998. “Nationalisms that Bark and Nationalisms that Bite: Ernest Gellner and the Substantiation of Nations”, in Hall, John A., ed., The State of the Nation: Ernest Gellner and the Theory of Nationalism (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Berend, Ivan T., 2003. History Derailed: Central and Eastern Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century (Berkley, University of California Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biondich, Mark, 2011. The Balkans: Revolution, War and Political Violence since 1878 (Oxford, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Breuilly, John, 1993. Nationalism and the State (Manchester, Manchester University Press).Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers, 2010. “Charles Tilly as a Theorist of Nationalism”, The American Sociologist, 41, pp. 375-381.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Canefe, Nergis, 2002. “Turkish Nationalism and Ethno-Symbolic Analysis: The Rules of Exception” Nations and Nationalism, 8 (2), pp. 133-155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carneiro, Robert, 1977. A Theory of the Origin of the State. Studies in Social Theory, 3 (1), pp. 3-21.Google Scholar
Case, Holly, 2010. “The Media and State Power in South-East Europe to 1945”, in Van Meurs, Wim and Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina, eds., Ottomans into Europeans (London, Hurst).Google Scholar
Centeno, Miguel A., 2002. Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State in Latin America (University Park, Penn State University Press).Google Scholar
Clodfelter, Michael, 1992. Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Reference, Vol. I (Jefferson, McFarland and Company).Google Scholar
Cvijić, Jovan, 1922. Balkansko poluostrvo i Juznoslovenske Zemlje: Osnove antropogeografije (Belgrade, Zavod za izdavanje udžbenika).Google Scholar
Djordjević, Dmitrije and Fisher-Galati, Stephen, 1981. The Balkan Revolutionary Tradition (New York, Columbia University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downing, Brian M., 1992. The Military Revolution and Political Change (Princeton, Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Drakulić, Slobodan, 2008. “Whence nationalism?”, Nations and Nationalism, 14 (2), pp. 221-239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dvorniković, Vladimir, 1939. Karakterologija Jugoslovena (Belgrade, Kosmos).Google Scholar
Eckhardt, William, 1992. Civilizations, Empires and Wars: A Quantitative History of War (Jefferson, McFarland).Google Scholar
Eckhardt, William, 1988. “Wars and Related Deaths, 1700-1987”, in Sivarded Leger, Ruth, World Military and Social Expenditures. 1987-88 (Washington, World Priorities).Google Scholar
Ekmečić, Milorad, 1991. “The Emergence of St. Vitus Day as the Principal National Holiday of the Serbs”, in Vucinich, Wayne S. and Emmert, Thomas A., eds., Kosovo: Legacy of Medieval Battle (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press).Google Scholar
EP - Evening Post, LXVI (16), 18 July 1903.Google Scholar
Eriksen, Thomas H., 2007. “Ernest Gellner and the Multicultural Mess”, in Malešević, Siniša and Haugaard, Mark, eds., Ernest Gellner and Contemporary Social Thought (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Ertman, Thomas, 1997. Birth of the Leviathan (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, John V.A., 1994. The Late Medieval Balkans (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press).Google Scholar
Folić, Zvezdan, 2001. Vjerske zajednice u Crnoj Gori 1918-1953: Prilozi za istoriju (Podgorica, Istorijski institut Crne Gore).Google Scholar
Gat, Azar, 2006. War in Human Civilization (Oxford, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest, 1964. Thought and Change (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson).Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest, 1983. Nations and Nationalism (Oxford, Blackwell).Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest, 1988. Plough, Sword and Book: The Structure of Human History (London, Collins Harvill).Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest, 1997. Nationalism (London, Phoenix).Google Scholar
Gerolymatos, Andre, 2002. The Balkan Wars (Staplehurst, Spellmount).Google Scholar
Glenny, Misha, 1999. The Balkans 1804-1999: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers (London, Granta).Google Scholar
Gopcevic, Spiridon, 1889. Makedonija: Etnografski odnosi Makedonije i Stare Srbije (Belgrade, Parna štamparija Dim).Google Scholar
Gorski, Philip S., 2000. “The Mosaic Moment: An Early Modernist Critique of Modernist Theories of Nationalism”, American Journal of Sociology, 105 (5), pp. 1428-1468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gumplowicz, Ludwig, 1899. The Outlines of Sociology (Philadelphia, American Academy of Political and Social Science).Google Scholar
Hall, John A., 2010. Ernest Gellner: An Intellectual Biography (London, Verso).Google Scholar
Hall, Richard C., 2000. The Balkan Wars 1912-1913: Prelude to the First World War (London, Routledge).Google Scholar
Hann, Chris, 2001. “Gellner’s Structural-Functional-Culturalism”, Czech Sociological Review, 9 (2), pp. 173-182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hann, Chris, 1998. “Nationalism and Civil Society in Central Europe: From Ruritania to the Carpathian Euroregion”, in Hall, John A., ed., The State of the Nation: Ernest Gellner and the Theory of Nationalism (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Herbst, Jeffrey, 2000. States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control (Princeton, Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Hintze, Otto, 1975 [1908]. The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze (New York, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Hobsbawmn, Eric J., 1990. Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Hupchick, Denis P., 2002. The Balkans: From Constantinople to Communism (New York, Palgrave).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchinson, John 2007. “Warfare, remembrance and national identity”, in Leoussi, Athena S. and Grosby, Steven, eds., Nationalism and Ethnosymbolism: History, Culture and Ethnicity in the Formation of Nations. (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press).Google Scholar
Kakridis, John Th., 1963. “The Ancient Greeks of the War of Independence”, Journal of Balkan Studies, 4 (2), pp. 251-264.Google Scholar
Kaldor, Mary, 2001. New and Old Wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era (Cambridge, Polity Press).Google Scholar
Kaplan, Robert D. 1994. The Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History (New York, Viking).Google Scholar
Kedourie, Elie, 1985. Nationalism (London, Hutchinson).Google Scholar
Keen, Maurice, 1999. Medieval Warfare: a History (Oxford, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Kennan, George F., 1993. The Other Balkan Wars. A 1913 Endowment Inquiry in Retrospect with a New Introduction and Reflections on the Present Conflict (Washington, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace).Google Scholar
Kitromilides, Paschalis, 2010. “The Orthodox Church in Modern State Formation in South-East Europe” in Van Meurs, W. and Mungiu-Pippidi, A., eds., Ottomans into Europeans: State and Institution Building in South Eastern Europe (London, Hurst).Google Scholar
Kitromilides, Paschalis, 1994. Enlightenment, Nationalism, Orthodoxy: Studies in the Culture and Political Thought of South-Eastern Europe (Brookfield, Variorum).Google Scholar
Lampe, John R. and Jackson, Marvin R., 1982. Balkan Economic History, 1550-1950 (Bloomington, University of Indiana Press).Google Scholar
Leander, Anna, 2004. “War and the Un-making of States: Taking Tilly Seriously in the Contemporary World”, in Guzzini, Stefano and Jung, Dietrich, eds., Contemporary Security Analysis and Copenhagen Peace Research (London, Routledge).Google Scholar
Lederer, Ivo J., 1969. “Nationalism and the Yugoslavs” in Sugar, Peter and Lederer, Ivo J., eds., Nationalism in Eastern Europe (Seattle, University of Washington Press).Google Scholar
Lustick, Ian S., 1997. “The Absence of Middle Eastern Great Powers: ‘Backwardness’ in Historical Perspective”, International Organization, 51, pp. 653-683.Google Scholar
Malešević, Siniša, 2006. Identity as Ideology: Understanding Ethnicity and Nationalism (New York, Palgrave).Google Scholar
Malešević, Siniša, 2007. “Between the Book and the New Sword: Gellner, Violence and Ideology”, in Malešević, Siniša and Haugaard, Mark, eds., Ernest Gellner and Contemporary Social Thought (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malešević, Siniša, 2010. The Sociology of War and Violence (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
, 2011. “Nationalism, War and Social Cohesion”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34 (1), pp. 142-161.Google Scholar
Mann, Michael, 1993. The Sources of Social Power II (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Mann, Michael, 2004. Fascists (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Mazower, Mark, 2000. The Balkans: From the End of Byzantium to the Present Day (London, Phoenix).Google Scholar
Meriage, Lawrence P., 1977. “The First Serbian Uprising 1804-1813; National Revival or a Search for Regional Security”, Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism, 4 (2), pp. 187-205.Google Scholar
Milojević, Milos S., 1871. Putopis dela (prave) Stare Srbije (Belgrade, Državna štamparija).Google Scholar
Milosavljević, Olivera, 2003. “Elitizam u narodnom ruhu”, in Perović, Latinka, ed., Srbija u modernizacijskim procesima 19. i 20. Veka: Uloga elita (Belgrade, Cigoj štampa).Google Scholar
Minogue, Kenneth, 1996. “Ernest Gellner and the dangers of theorising nationalism”, in Hall, John A. and Jarvie, lan, The Social Philosophy of Ernest Gellner (Amsterdam, Rodopi).Google Scholar
Mosse, George L., 1991. The Nationalization of the Masses: Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich (Ithaca, Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Mouzelis, Nicos, 1978. Modern Greece: Facets of Underdevelopment (London, Mcmillan).Google Scholar
Mouzelis, Nicos, 1998. “Ernest Gellner’s Theory of Nationalism: Some Definitional and Methodological Issues”, in Hall, J.A., ed., The State of the Nation: Ernest Gellner and the Theory of Nationalism (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Mouzelis, Nicos, 2007. “Nationalism: Reconstructing Gellner’s Theory”, in Malešević, Siniša and Haugaard, Mark, eds., Ernest Gellner and Contemporary Social Thought (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina, 2010. “Failed Institutional Transfer? Constraints on the Political Modernization of the Balkans”, in Van Meurs, Wim and Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina, eds., Ottomans into Europeans (London, Hurst).Google Scholar
Nicholson, Helen, 2004. Medieval warfare: theory and practice of war in Europe, 300-1500 (New York, Plagrave).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Leary, Brendan, 1998. “Ernest Gellner’s Diagnoses of Nationalism”, in Hall, John A., ed., The State of the Nation: Ernest Gellner and the Theory of Nationalism (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Oppenheimer, Franz, 2007 [1926]. The State (Montreal, Black Rose Books).Google Scholar
Orridge, Andrew, 1981. “Uneven Development and Nationalism II”, Political Studies 29 (2), pp. 181-90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pavlowitch, Stevan K., 1981. “Society in Serbia 1791-1830”, in Clogg, Richard, ed., Balkan Society in the Age of Greek Independence (London, Macmillan).Google Scholar
Pavlowitch, Stevan K., 1999. A History of the Balkans 1804-1945 (London, Longman).Google Scholar
Paxton, Roger V., 1972. “Nationalism and Revolution: A Re-examination of the Origins of the First Serbian Insurrection, 1804-1807”, East European Quarterly, 6 (3), pp. 337-362.Google Scholar
Pearton, Maurice 1971 Oil and the Romanian state (Oxford, Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Pelt, Mogens, 2010. “Organised Violence in the Service of Nation Building”, in Van Meurs, Wim and Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina, eds., Ottomans into Europeans (London, Hurst).Google Scholar
Petković, Živko D., 1926. Prve pojave srpskog imena (Belgrade, Izdanje Vladimira Markovića).Google Scholar
Pippidi, Alina, 2010. “The Development of an Administrative Class in South-East Europe”, in Van Meurs, Wim and Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina, eds., Ottomans into Europeans (London, Hurst).Google Scholar
Radić, Radmila, 2003. “Verska elita i modernizacija: Teskoce pronalazenja odgovora” in Perović, Latinka, ed., Srbija u modernizacijskim procesima 19. i 20. Veka: Uloga elita (Belgrade, Cigoj štampa).Google Scholar
Ratzenhofer, Gustav, 1881. Die Staatswehr (Stuttgart, Cottasche Buchhandlung).Google Scholar
Reno, William, 2003. “The Changing Nature of Warfare and Absence of State Building in West Africa”, in Davis, Diane E. and Pereira, Anthony W., eds., Irregular Armed Forces and Their Role in Politics and State Formation (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Roshwald, Aviel, 2006. The Endurance of Nationalism (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Roudometof, Victor, 2001. Nationalism, Globalization and Orthodoxy: The Social Origins of Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans (Westport, Greenwood Press).Google Scholar
Rüstow, Alexander, 1980 [1950]. Freedom and Domination (Princeton, Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Singer, Joel D., 1972. The Wages of War. 1816-1965 (Stockholm, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute).Google Scholar
Schurman, Jacob G., 1914. The Balkan Wars 1912-1913 (Princeton, Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony D., 2009. Ethno-Symbolism and Nationalism: A Cultural Approach (London, Routledge).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoianovich, Traian, 1994. Balkan Worlds: The First and Last Europe (New York, M.E. Sharpe).Google Scholar
Stojanović, D. 2003. Percepcija ideala slobode, jednakosti I bratstva kod srpske elite pocetkom 20. veka”, in Perović, Latinka, ed., Srbija u modernizacijskim procesima 19. i 20. Veka: Uloga elita (Belgrade, Cigoj štampa).Google Scholar
Stokes, Gale, 1976. “The Absence of Nationalism in Serbian Politics before 1840”, Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism, 4 (1), pp. 77-90.Google Scholar
Tallett, Frank, 1992. War and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1495-1715 (New York, Routledge).Google Scholar
Taylor, Brian D. and Botea, Roxana, 2008. “Tilly Tally: War-Making and State-Making in the Contemporary Third World”, International Studies Review, 10, pp. 27-56.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles, 1998. “Nationalism and Modernity”, in Hall, John A., ed., The State of the Nation: Ernest Gellner and the Theory of Nationalism (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Thies, Cameron G., 2007. “The Political Economy of State Building in Sub-Saharan Africa”, Journal of Politics, 69, pp. 716-731.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilly, Charles, ed., 1975. The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton, Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles, 1985. “War Making and State making as Organized Crime” in Evans, Peter B., Rueschemeyer, Dietrich and Skocpol, Theda, eds., Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles, 1992. Coercion, Capital and European States (Oxford, Blackwell).Google Scholar
Tin-Bor Hui, Victoria, 2005. War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Todorova, Maria N., 1997. Imagining the Balkans (Oxford, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Trotsky, Leon, 1980 [1913] The war correspondence of Leon Trotsky, the Balkan wars 1912-13 (New York, Pathfinder Press).Google Scholar
Vucinich, Wayne S., 1968. Serbia between East and West: The Events of 1903-1908 (New York, AMS Press).Google Scholar
Ward, Lester F., 1913. Dynamic Sociology (New York, Appleton).Google Scholar
Wilson, Duncan, 1970. The Life and Times of Vuk Stefanović Karadzić, 1787-1864; Literacy, Literature and National Independence in Serbia (Oxford, Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Woodhouse, Christopher M. 1969. The Philhellens (London, Hodder and Stoughton).Google Scholar
Zarinebaf, Fariba, Bennet, John and Davies, Jack L., 2005. A Historical and Economic Geography of Ottoman Greece (Princeton, American School of Classical Studies).Google Scholar