The evolution of a theory: a review of the

work (and critiques) of Anthony D. Smith

Introduction

The work of Anthony D. Smith is considered as a milestone in the

field of ethnicity and nationalism studies. His ‘ethnosymbolic’

approach, developed from many years of intellectual evolution, could

be widely used to explain the rise of nationalism. With Gellner,

Smith is the most recognized and influential author on the topic.

This essay will address briefly the intellectual evolution of

Smith’s work, his main theoretical postulates and the most important

critiques made to his approach.

Anthony D. Smith: his work through time

Anthony D. Smith was born in 1989. He is a British Sociologist

with a first degree in Classics and Philosophy in Oxford and a

master and doctoral degree in Sociology at the London School of

Economics and Political Science (LSE). Nowadays, he is Emeritus

Professor of Nationalism and Ethnicity at the LSE, co-founder and

President of The Association for the Study of Ethnicity and

Nationalism, and Joint Editor in Chief of the journal ‘Nations and

Nationalism’. Considered with Ernest Gellner as a pioneer in the

study of nation and nationalism, Smith analyses the study of nations

from an “ethno-symbolic” approach. His intellectual production is

overwhelming, with over one hundred articles and chapters on

nations, nationalism and ethnicity, and seventeen books, including

Theories of Nationalism (1971), The Ethnic Revival (1981), The Ethnic Origins of

Nations (1986), National Identity (1991), Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era

(1996), Nationalism and Modernism (1998), Myths and memories of the Nation

(1999), The Nation in History (2000), Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History

(2001), Chosen Peoples: sacred sources of national identity (2003), Cultural

Foundations of Nations: Hierarchy, Covenant and Republic (2008), Ethno-symbolism &

Nationalism: a cultural approach (2009) and his latest book, The Nation Made

Real: Art and National Identity in Western Europe.

Despite of having been a former student of Ernest Gellner, his

point of view is quite different from the Gellner’s modernist

approach. Moreover, Smith does not attempt to present alternative

political projects or judge the positive or negative nature of it as

Hobsbawm or Greenfeld do, but merely to describe and explain

nationalism as an object of study.

More than complement Gellner’s theory, Smithsonian ethno-

symbolism seeks to transcend modernist explanations: While Gellner

looks the nationalism as a complete new phenomenon intellectually

originated from the French revolution, Smith considers that the

advent of the nations where pre-conditioned for cultural and

historical backgrounds already present when the enlightenment and

the French revolution burst. Inspired by the work of the classic

ethnicist Fredrik Barth, Smith specially stresses the role of

ethnicity, as Barth did in his 1969 book ‘Ethnic groups and

boundaries’. Although Smith considers, as well as Gellner, the

nationalism as a modern phenomenon, he believes that the nation has

pre-modern origin (i.e. the Hegelian 'historical nation'). This idea

constitutes a strong justification that influence on modern

nationalism, as the case of Russia, Serbia, England, France, Peru or

Mexico.

Smith's theoretical development is carried out in an

intellectual context located in the post-Second World War period, in

which we could observe a process of decolonization strongly related

with the development of nationalism. Nationalism, seen as

responsible for the preservation of the differentiating

characteristics and culture of the ethnic groups, can be seen as a

guarantor of the survival of cultural diversity. The intellectual

work of Smith experienced a noticeable evolution throughout its

development; however, it contains no turning points of a disruptive

nature, but we contemplate rather to a sustained and continuous

theoretical development, with greater explanatory complexity over

time.

In his debut book, ‘Theories of Nationalism’ (1971), he makes

an attempt to concentrate the existing research on the subject. He

also defines separately nation and nationalism, explains the

formation of nations and finally presents a first model of the

emergence of nationalist movements. He tries to explain the

evolution from ethnocentric nationalism to polycentric, starting

from the existence of traditional societies governed by an empire,

those which will be affected by the substitution of the empire by a

"scientific State", with an interventionist character towards the

homogenization of the population through centralized administration.

Added to this, the scientific and technological revolutions defied

the prevailing religious canons, resulting in a crisis of authority

in which institutions will be both divinely and scientifically

legitimated. The intellectuals react to this crisis in three

different ways:

- Traditionalist, defending the basis of religious legitimation;

- Assimilationist, supporting the scientific legitimacy;

- Reformist, outfitting both views.

Of all these options, it is going to be the reformism in its

revivalist mode, which uses the history of the community to justify

their political project, the preferred departure considering the

contradictions posed by the process of modernization, thus making

the ‘ethnie’ an historical subject .

In ‘Nationalist movements’ (1976), he explains with more detail

how and when does nationalism develop, understood as an ideology and

political mobilization strategy. Locating in the late eighteenth

century the development of political, social and cultural conditions

that enable the existence of nationalist ideas and philosophies, his

main hypothesis is that nationalism was born in Europe during the

rise of the Enlightenment and Romanticism as a way of reacting to

the consolidation of absolutism, chasing after the transfer of

sovereignty from the monarch to 'people', interpreted this from a

point of view either civic, for the illustration, or ethnic, as in

romanticism. While both intellectual currents have marked

differences, they share the quest for sovereignty and national

solidarity as well as the interest in culture and education. As a

more complex analysis, ‘Nationalism Movements’ seeks to explain the

variables that led to the rise of nationalism. Even when he discards

the general explanation model of his first work, it still retains

the dominant role of the state, the status of the intellectuals, the

role of history as political discourse and the importance of

cultural secularization. Now, Smith considers 3 types of conditions

for the emergence of nationalism:

-Geopolitical frameworks – i.e. territory and the state.

-Ethnic bases, such as the common history, language and culture.

-Social - bearers, placing between them the exclusion and the growth

of the urban intelligentsia, its alliance with other social

interests and market penetration.

For 1979, 'Towards a theory of ethnic separatism' highlighted

the importance of historicism, the emergence of centralized

bureaucracies with increasing participation of intellectuals,

economic and social conditions, government policies and cultural and

educational system rationalization as decisive factors for own

awareness and political mobilization of ethnic communities .(too

long)

In 'the ethnic revival' (1981), he returns to defend this

explanatory model, now focusing on the role of war and conflict as a

factor in the formation of ethnic and national identity. Although

Smith establishes the emergence of nationalism in the eighteenth

century, also identifies that the identities linked to such

movements are continuous and based on ethnic and historical

arguments.

This interest in investigating the ethnic nationalism is what

makes him develop their ethno- symbolic perspective, which is fully

reflected in ‘The Ethnic Origins of Nations’ (1986) setting as a

main hypothesis that the ethnic origin of nations is based on

memory, values, myths and symbols; being so to explain the origin of

nations is to explain first the origin of ethnic groups. However,

Smith states that the circumstances that conditioned the emergence

of nations were created after the establishment of the capitalist

model, the bureaucratic state and the secularization of culture.

This set of changes created the conditions for the emergence of

centralized and culturally homogeneous states, in which nationalisms

arose.

In ‘National identity’ (1991), he considers that ethnies become

nations through bureaucratic training and instrumentation of the

core of the state, thereby consolidating political and territorial

nations (lateral ethnie) or through political mobilization promoted

by intellectuals (vertical ethnie).

Ethno-symbolism approach

The core of the Smith’s explanation is based on the ‘ethno-

symbolism’ approach. He defines it as a framework where can be

recognized different cultural identities based on their mythical,

symbolic, traditional, collective memory and value components.

According to Smith, modern nations are just new and modified

versions of pre-existing and established ethnic groups (defined as

‘ethnies’ by the same Smith). This supposes that the nations cannot just

be justified ex nihilo without having historical bases. Smith believes

that the existence of an ethnic identity is indispensable for

national construction, inasmuch as this is based on solidarity built

from the same identity, justified by history and shared memory. The

problem with this assumption is that it can easily fall in the

identification of popular culture with the speeches of the most

influential elites in every society.  Modesto Gayo agrees with this

when he mentions that ‘. . . ultimately, if nations do not have an

ethnic past, it seems that would be found, at least to justify such

an extraordinary intellectual enterprise’ (Gayo, 2001: 270).

Although Smith recognizes the primordial role of modernization

to support and create the basic conditions for the emergence of

nationalism, and therefore, modern nations, he deems that the

existence and identity of this modern nations were conditioned and

dependent on former collective identities –the so called ethnies–.

These ones play a paramount role as “ethnic cores”, which through

their continuity and stability ensure the formation and the

perpetuation of the national identity and viability, as well as a

political unity under the control of the state. The originated

nationalism- understood as social mobilization- could be classified

as ‘civic’ when is grounded in the individual and its right as a

citizen of the state or ‘ethnic’ when is based on the individual’s

identity as part of the community and related to a delimited

territory. This classification has been broadly accepted for the

most of nationalism theorists, as the case of Liah Greenfeld, who

analyses it deeper and adds the property of collectivistic-

authoritarian or individualistic-libertarian.1

Smith defines the ethnie as ‘a named unit of population with common

ancestry myths and shared historical memories, elements of shared

culture, a link with historic territory, and some measure of

solidarity, at least among elites’ (Smith, 1995: 57). Nationalism,

meanwhile, is seen as ‘. . . an ideological movement for the

attainment and maintenance of autonomy, unity and identity of a

human population, some of whose members conceive it to constitute an

actual or potential 'nation'’ (Smith, 1991: 4) and the nation as

‘. . . a named human population sharing an historic territory,

common myths and memories, a mass, public culture, a single economy

and common rights and duties for all members.’ (Smith, 1991: 4)

The ethno-symbolic approach consider that the modern

nationalism is definitely linked to ethnic discourses which justify

its existence. These discourses are viewed as a requirement for

nationalist movements to emerge, whose basis are the memories,

values, symbols, history and myth that the group share. In other

words, modern nationalism cannot be understood without earlier

1 According to Greenfeld ‘. . . egalitarianism . . . and popular sovereignty . . . may be interpreted in radically different ways. The interpretation depends on whether the nation is seen as a composite entity or in unitary terms, and on whether the criteria of national membership . . . are civic or ethnic . . . these variables . . . yield three types of nationalisms . . . the individualistic-civic type, the collectivistic-civic type, and the collectivistic-ehtnic type.’ (Greenfeld, 2001: 2)

ethnic ties, since these play a role in creating shared memories,

values and symbols, having a widespread popular appeal and

acceptation.

The general characteristics of the ethnies are their ‘. . . shared

ancestry myths, histories and cultures, having an association with a

speci c territory, and a sense of solidarity’ (Smith 1986: 32). The fi

study and rationalization of ethnie as a concept is fundamental in the

ethno-symbolic approach of Smith, since it is the analytical unit

from which he bases his analysis of the development of nationalism

as a social phenomenon.

Smith classifies ethnies as laterals and verticals. This depends on

the social structure and class-division: while the lateral is more

diffuse and less self-identified in term of a shared popular culture

between social classes, the vertical is more popular, characterized

for its lack of cultural rigid divisions between social classes. An

important theoretical element that Smith rescues from Armstrog’s

explanation on nationalism is the term mythomoteur. As it has been

said before, a nation, viewed as a community, necessarily shares

common ancestry myths and historical memories. The role of the myths

on the identity is decisive, since they give a justification and a

reason to be for the community, explaining in most of the cases

their origin and their role in the world as a legitimated mission.

These constitutive myths are the referred mythomoteurs, which define

the groups in relation to their selves and to the others (Armstrong,

1982: 25). The mythomoteurs could be dynastic (as religion or

monarchy) in lateral ethnies, or communal in vertical ethnies.

The ethnie and the justification of the nation from this

explanation has, according to Smith, two main groups of functions.

The first one has an external character, including political,

territorial and economic issues. Those functions serve to recognize

the physical existence of the community and make it metaphorical and

idealized as sacred (in the case of territory), logic (for the

economy) and inclusive and solidary (in politic terms). The internal

functions are more intimate to the individual experience: The

socialization of members to be citizens of the state and nation

through education and the social cohesion by exploiting shared

traditions, rituals, symbols and signs. (Smith, 1991: 16-17).

Regarding the role of the state in the socialization of

members, Smith coincides with Hobsbawm in relation to the role of

the ordinary persons this dynamic when Hobsbawm describes them as

“object of propaganda” (Hobsbawm, 1990: 11). Even though Smith does

not mention openly the same, he agrees with the point that he

considers the intimate functions of the ethnie as very related with

the responsibilities of the governments and the individuals just as

receptors of their policies.

National identity is very appealing among the population since

it provides a powerful means to save people from personal oblivion.

This fact makes nationalism to become almost a religious

identification which gives sense and personality to the individuals

through self-identification with the nation (Smith, 1991: 161). This

asseveration about national identity as a way to transcend existence

remembers Greenfeld’s point of view about dignity and nationalism

when she says that

‘It is not status attainment, but rather status maintenance -

which applies to low status as much as to high status- which is

essential . . . Yet, dignity is addictive: having known it, one

can no longer be happy without it.’ (Greenfeld, 1993: 50)

For Smith, nationalism works as a mechanism of identity for

the people, giving them an idea of belonging and

‘. . . a powerful means of defining and locating individual selves in the world,

through the prism of collective personality and its distinctive culture. It is through a

shared, unique culture that we are enabled to know ‘who we are’ in the

contemporary world’ (Smith, 1991:17)

Critiques and debate

The main critique of Erikssen regarding the concept of ethnie is

that it is so vague due to its incapacity to explicate why there are

another collectivities with the same characteristics of the ehtnies

but without that specific political and cultural self-identity that

does not let them to be involved in any nationalistic vindication.

Moreover, there are a lot of groups with the same characteristics

established for ehtnies that are not considered as ethnic ones (as

African clans, religious minorities, Muslims, etc.).

By the side of the myths and ancestral justifications, they are

usually contested and ambiguous, sometimes contradictory to the

myths of other groups, and in some cases their shared memories are

in open contraposition to them. It is also difficult to explain the

cases where two or more different groups share certain features, as

the cultural background or the territorial claims. These critiques

are supported by the fact that ethnies are neither the only nor the

most important form of belonging, and indeed it is even difficult to

say how, what nor how much of the claimed common cultural heritage

is shared by the whole ethnie. This is more evident in cases as China,

México o Nigeria, where every each region has different traditions,

histories and sometimes even regional mythomoteurs, exemplifying the

existence of heterogenous nations regarding its cultural features.

The same differences regarding the length of the nominal ethnie

may be reflected for “solidarity markers”, insomuch as there is a

direct relation between the length of the referred community and the

solidarity expressed within. Following this explanation, it could be

said that the more conflicting the socioeconomic or political

situation is, the less expressed the solidarity is (i.e. the

secessionist movements attending economic reasons and based legally

in “national federal contracts”). In those cases, the solidarity

ties (as well as all the other markers of ethnie) are not enough

strong in order to avoid the emergence of separatist parties.

The existence of multinational states implies the possibility

of the existence of various ethnies in one national state. In this

case, the definition problem lies on the delimitation of the concept

of ethnie and its political utility. As in the case of multicultural

states, it is difficult to define the existence of just one “ethnie”,

despite of the existence of several ethnic groups with different

cultural markers.

Although Eriksen recognizes the importance of shared cultural

features within the national communities when he stresses the role

of cultural homogeneity in the development of equality of the

citizens in modern nations, he focuses his critiques on the cultural

aspect, affirming its difficulty to be defined when he says that

‘. . . it is a purely empirical question what is considered and

accepted as ‘shared culture’ in the context of group identity.

It t can be language, it can be religion, or a particular

historical experience . . . which is externalised as the

cultural emblem of a group, or it could be a unique combination

of cultural elements. . .’ (Eriksen, 2004: 52)

According to Eriksen, it would be proper to add to the ethnie

characteristics ‘interpersonal networks’ and ‘contrasting’ as

markers of those communities (Eriksen, 2004: 56), since they could

promote the required emotional ties to make the individuals feel

self-identified with the abstract community called nation. This is

notorious at a personal experience level when is reflected through

the terminology used to refer to some cultural features of the

community or to the community itself through words as ‘fatherland’,

‘mother tongue’, ‘beloved flag’ or ‘brother and sisters’ to denote

other citizens, emphasizing the emotive link and empathy that

promotes the existence of certain kinship among the individuals.

Even though Eriksen agrees with Smith’s about the importance of

shared narratives and territorial belonging as prerequisites for

national solidarity, he debates whether they necessarily must have

an ethnic foundation to be considered as nations (Eriksen, 2004:

58). To his mind, the role of place and kinship as metaphorical

concepts is more important than the ethnicity, inasmuch as

‘Virtually all political identities known to political anthropology

are based, in different ways and to varying degrees of course, on

place and kinship’ (Eriksen, 2004: 58). The territory and the role

that it plays in the mythomoteurs is at certain times superimposed to

territorial claims, especially when two or more ethnies include the

same territory as part of their descent myth, what makes that zone

likely to be object of political and military negotiations and

conflict (as Israel and Palestine or Kashmir).

If we contemplate nationalism, as Worsley suggests, as the sum

of political interests and ethnicity features in a determined group

or society, then, the concept and idea of ethnie becomes a political

tool for the self-defined and politically active ethnic groups in

the competition for political scarce goods in order to legitimize

power claims (Worsley, 1984: 249). Hence, the ehtnie, looked as a

determined group with specific claims and features, is prone to

cultural and political manipulation by nation’s construction

narrative. Following this reasoning, the nation seems to be

reflected by the active organization of the ethnie to reach some

political goals, what makes under these considerations the division

between the nation and the state very flimsy, even confusing them

each other in their roles and tasks regarding social identity.

Eriksen considers that Smith’s explanation on the nature of the

national groups is deeper than those ones of Anderson and Hobsbawm,

who consider the nations just as ‘invented’ or ‘imaginary’. However,

he finds as well that the concept of ethnie, very linked with la longue

durée and preconceptions of bloodlines, is very rigid, with

connections to land and kinship, both seen as metaphorical and

fictive connections. (Eriksen, 2004: 52).

Among other critiques made to Smith’s point of view are the

consideration of his theory as very top-down, static and

functionalist and the assumption that he makes about the presupposed

concerning of people about national identity. It is also claimed the

competition of national identities and the need to treat national

identity as the claims made in the context of particular political

purposes, since some of the dimensions of “ehtnie” are shared with

other communities, as religion. Likewise, ethnosymbolism is very

focused on cultural aspects, to the detriment of a deeper analysis

of political aspects and interests of those groups that intervene to

boost and foster the national identity

Regarding national identity, Montserrat Guibernau criticizes on

Smith that it could not be just treated as synonymous of

citizenship, since there are other superposed or even different

national identities within one single state, as the case of

Catalonia or Basque Country in Spain, Corsica in France, Quebec in

Canada or Scotland in United Kingdom. Even if those communities

present a hard identification as a nation, they also share their

respective citizenship with the majority of the population, and

sometimes, the national identity of the state itself. Thus, contrary

to Smith, she considers that it is possible to bear more than two

national identities (Guibernau, 2004: 134).

Although Kaufmann and Zimmer support the ethnic identity

argument of “ehtnie”, what makes it be seen as a unitarian

community, it is difficult to brush aside the difficulty to confine

the dimensions of “ethnie” in a very delimited community

sociologically speaking, which is even more complicated if we

consider the regional identities and the multiple ways that the

communities defines themselves as part of the nation. The elements

and attitudes that these different communities rescue are

occasionally contestatary and reactionary each other.

Following Banton, the conceptualization of ethnicity is very

problematic in empirical terms, since the knowledge and the

definition of “ethnicity” imply a different categorization of

markers as ‘race’ in specific situations. The ‘race’ as a component

of the ethnic identity (as established by Smith) is very difficult

include in a functionalist explanation, since there are a lot of

phenomenological elements depending on the ‘situation and

encounters, and . . . people's ways of coping with the demands and

challenges of life’ (Eriksen, 2010), , as McCrone explains when

says that

‘while race . . . has no influence on people’s behaviour, it

does serves as a role sign . . . what people see is not race

but the phenotypical variations to which they attribute social

meaning . . . ‘Racial’ and ethnic differences are then mapped

on to socio-economic differences in different societies in

different ways’(McCrone: 26).

Conclusion

The current international system is experiencing dramatic

changes toward contradictory directions: In one sense, the

supranationality, and in the other sense, the ‘renaissance’ of

nationalisms all around the world as a reaction. These

interconnected phenomena are prone to intellectual analysis from an

ethno-symbolic approach. A new investigation agenda on this topic

could include the intercultural communication between the nations,

the globalization of the regions and their search of autonomy, the

political agenda of separatist movements and how they justify their

demands on historical discourses. Doubtless, Smith’s approach will

be influential for much longer.

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