New Europe College Regional Program Yearbook 2001-2002

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Paul Corescu, C. Capverde, G. Sfichi, Polirom 2000, chapter “Language of
the Right, Language of the Left”.
108 For example, Joshua A. Fishman maintains that community of language is
perceived as the main marker of primordial ties, or like “bone of their bone,
flesh of their flesh and blood of their blood”, Joshua A. Fishman, “Social
Theory and Ethnography: Language and Ethnicity in Eastern Europe”, in
Nationalism, Critical Concepts in Political Science, ed. by J. Hutchinson and
A. Smith, Routledge, 2000, vol. I., pp. 200-215. p. 208.
109 Vitalie Ciobanu, op. cit.
110 According to Brendan O’Leary, the apolitical character of Gellner’s theory
can be substantiated in several ways: i. His typology is geared towards
explaining the development in the thwarting of nationalist secessionism, but
does not provide a politically sensitive account of what may dampen
nationalist secessionism. ii. The theory appears to rely on culturally or
materially reductionist accounts of political motivation. iii. Gellner neglects
the role of power politics in explaining which cultures become nations and
the possibility that nation-builders explicitly see the functional relationship
between nationalism and modernity which he posits. iv. Although Gellner
sees the connections between nationalism and egalitarianism in modern
societies, curiously he does not see the mutually reinforcing relationship
between nationalism, egalitarianism and democratization; v. he displays
contempt for nationalist doctrines; Brendan O’Leary, op. cit., p. 63.
111 Op. cit., p. 65.
112 Op. cit., p. 65.
113 In Nationalism (1997), Gellner takes account of politics and makes political
prescriptions. Brendan O’Leary considers that Gellner “describes this
prescription as banal, perhaps because he may have been conscious of
how far they support the conventional wisdom of Euro-liberals”, op. cit., p.
75.
114 Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, Cambridge. Mass.;
Harvard University Press, p. 565.
115 Maurizio Viroli, op. cit, pp. 140-161.
116 Op. cit., p. 176.
117 Communitarians like Michael Sandel, Michael Walzer, Charles Taylor,
Aldsair MacIntire.
118 Walker Connor considers the main result of the improper analogizing from
experience of the United States to be the presupposition that the history of
acculturation and assimilation within an immigrant society would be suitable
for repetition in multinational states, op. cit., p. 69.
119 “Many post-war liberals thought that religious tolerance, based on the
separation of church and state, provides a model for dealing with ethnocultural
difference as well. In this view, ethnic identity, like religion, is
something which people should be free to express in their private lives, and
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