Ethnicity And Ethnonationalism

The ethnic root of nationalism felt into the schema of ethnic and nationalism study, particularly since the 1970s. The resurgence of ethnic nationalism has been an intrinsic socio-political reality in many parts of the world since 70s till date. Scholars from ethnic and nationalism studies widely acknowledged that ethnicity occupy a crucial role in nationalism. However, there are few detailed studies that focus on the relationship between ethnicity, nation and nationalism. Walker Connor and Daniel Conversie’s work on ethnic nationalism are amongst the most important addition to the study of relationship between ethnicity and nationalism which led to the study of ‘ethnonationalism’ in contemporary socio-political discourse. However the relationship between ethnicity and nationalism has broadly been discussed by two foremost advocates of ethnicity and nationalism, i.e. Anthony D. Smith and Ernest Gellner. The debate between these two scholars and other important theoretical formulations has led us to perceive the …show more content…
Ernest Gellner, Karl Deutch, Benedict Anderson et al. believe that modern nations and nationalism are products of development of capitalism, modernity, urbanization, industrialization, and as such they have little to do with ethnic roots. On the other hand scholars like Anthony D. Smith, Ernest Renan and Pierre van den Berghe et al who believe that nations are extensions of ‘ethnies’ and they are as old as the civilization. They believe that nationalism has old historical roots, and that is why in many cases they spring from a pre-existing ethnic group. This distinction has led us to view the relationship between ethnicity, nation and nationalism from two different perspectives. One is ethnicity and nations are culturally and historically rooted entity and another is ethnicity and nations are politicized, invented, and