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Nations and Norms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Christopher J. Berry
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Extract

Nationalism like all political doctrines is at root normative, that is, it makes a claim that matters ought to be arranged in a certain way. The root claim of nationalism is that a nation should be self-governing. This article is concerned with the normative basis of that claim: upon what understanding of value, principle, norm, etc., does it rest? The exercise is thus abstract; it is not a concrete investigation into the causes of nationalism, and it is also less about the substantive doctrine or theory of nationalism than about what might be called its metatheory; finally, the paper does not presume to pronounce on the validity of nationalism as normative doctrine.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , January 1981 , pp. 75 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1981

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