Nationalism and the romantic justification of political boundaries based on cultural identity

پژوهش ‎های جغرافیای سیاسی

Article 2, Volume 4, Issue 4 - Serial Number 16, February 2021, Pages 39-57   

Document Type: مقالات علمی -پژوهشی

DOI: 10.22067/pg.v4i4.81997

Authors

Seyed Mohammad Ali Taghavi^{* 1}; Nasibe Noori²

¹Associate Professor of Political Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

²PhD Student in Political Science, Political Thought, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

Abstract

 
State borders are the signifiers of territory as one of the four factors constituting the concept of state. The claim of territorial separation and boundaries is based on the principle of self-determination, the outcome of which is to determine the boundaries of a state, and to distinguish a people from others. Nationalists, with the acceptance of the territorial government, emphasize the role of ethnicity and culture in the delimitation of national units, while universalists rely on the common humanity, according to which the entire human society is considered as a unified entity. The emphasis on universal humanism is a major challenge facing nationalists, who emphasis on national borderlines and states separations. This research focuses on the normative justification of territorial boundaries in terms of nationalism as it is theorized by Herder. The question of the present research is that, on what normative grounds, nationalism attempts to justify territorial delineations, distinguishing peoples in the form of nations? The hypothesis is that Herder’s nationalism justifies national borders on the basis provided by Romantics. Findings of the research show that from the perspective of this school of thought, uniqueness of cultural identities justifies the existence of nation-states as the basic political units in human society.
 
 

Keywords

Territorial boundary; Normative justification; Nationalism; cultural identity; Romanticism

References