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How Non-Western Are the New Nations?
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RupertEmerson, From Empire to Nation: The Rise to Self-Assertion of Asian and African Peoples, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1960, 466 pp. $7.75.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2011
Extract
Although the Asian and African peoples have often alleged that the Western nation-state produced untold injustices in the lessadvanced portions of the world, these same peoples are now eagerly using the same organization to order their political and social affairs. Indeed, it is not difficult to find national rivalries in Africa and Asia that exceed the historic rivalries of Europe. The new nations have taken on Western political patterns with a fervor, and sometimes a ruthless purposefulness, that have seldom been equaled. Very few advancing peoples are content with anything less than a nation, and very few new nations have been more successful than their Western counterparts in erecting supranational agencies for political or economic purposes. Professor Emerson has provided us with a remarkable account of the paradoxical simplicity and the unlimited complexity to be found in the spread of the nation-state among the Asian and African peoples.
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References
1 Seymour Lipset, Martin and Bendix, Reinhard, Social Mobility in Industrial Society, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1959.Google Scholar
2 This example calls for some explanation, because the progressives took a more friendly position toward the Communists before they were forced out of the government. They were willing to use communism to give their country international influence, but it is doubtful if they would have made concessions involving Morocco's internal affairs.
3 It should be stressed that research has hardly progressed far enough to put forward more than the most tentative suggestions for the classification needed to deal with this problem. The three aspects given are meant to be illustrative only, although they correspond to a frequently used method of classifying values.
4 The most important research of this kind has centered on apathy, political efficacy, and empathy. The voting studies have done a great deal to clarify these ideas in reference to national politics. See particularly the recent electoral study by Campbell, Angus and others, The American Voter (New York, 1960)Google Scholar, and Lerner's, DanielThe Passing of Traditional Society (Glencoe, Ill., 1958).Google Scholar Probably more work has been done on this aspect of national identification than any other, and the methodological tangles that have been unraveled by research in this country make the concepts especially attractive for comparative inquiry in new nations.
5 “The Non-Western Political Process,” Journal of Politics, XX (August 1958), pp. 468–86.
6 It would be well worthwhile establishing with more accuracy the per capita wealth, educational capability, etc., of the European nations when they began to reform their representative institutions. Few nations of Europe did much to redistribute wealth until the turn of the century. However, the fact that the new nations are being established after the early industrializers have redistributed great wealth and have developed effective parliamentary institutions creates the impression that everything can be done at once.
7 Two excellent examples are the issue of the Journal of Social Issues edited by Hudson, Bradford B., “Cross-Cultural Studies in the Arab Middle East and United States: Studies of Young Adults,” XV, No. 3 (1959)Google Scholar; and Jahoda, Gustav, “Nationality Preferences and National Stereotypes in Ghana Before Independence,” Journal of Social Psychology, L (November 1959), pp. 165–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8 Kendall, Patricia L., “The Ambivalent Character of Nationalism Among Egyptian Professionals,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XX (Spring 1956), pp. 277–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9 Farris, Charles D., “Selected Attitudes on Foreign Affairs as Correlates of Authoritarian and Political Anomie,” Journal of Politics, XX (February 1960), pp. 50–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Another interesting example of how extreme nationalist feelings can lead to contradictory be havior is Stagner's, Ross “Correlational Analysis of Nationalistic Opinions,” Journal of Social Psychology, XII (August 1940), pp. 197–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10 Eisenstadt's studies of Israeli social structure are all extremely valuable to the student of new nations. The discussion of general norms takes place in “Studies in Reference Group Behaviour: I. Reference Norms and the Social Structure,” Human Relations, VII, No. 2 (1954), pp. 191–216. It is elaborated in “Reference Group Behavior and Social Integration: An Explorative Study,” American Sociological Review, XIX (April 1954), pp. 175–84.
11 “Changes in Patterns of Stratification Attendant on Attainment of Political Independence,” Transactions of the Third World Congress of Sociology, 1956, p. 40. Approaching the problems of social and economic change from another angle, Edward Shils arrives at a similar conclusion in “The Concentration and Dispersion of Charisma: Their Bearing on Economic Policy in Underdeveloped Countries,” World Politics, IX (October 1958), p. 18.
12 The student interested in suggestions for psychological studies of political behavior in new nations will find Morris Rosenberg's study of political apathy in the United States extremely helpful. See “Some Determinants of Political Apathy,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XVIII (Winter 1954), pp. 349–66.
13 Pauker, Guy J., “Southeast Asia as a Problem Area in the Next Decade,” World Politics, XI (April 1959), p. 331.Google Scholar