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This book explores the origins of nationalism and the ideal of nation/state congruency since early-modern European thought, their transformation over time and endurance in contemporary political thought and IR theory. The author deploys a Lacanian-psychoanalytical reading of nationalism and the nation/state that goes beyond methodological nationalism and state-centrism critiques. He offers a genealogical inquiry into the emergence of the nation/state congruency ideal, thus exposing and problematising the practices that render nationalism and the ideal of the nation/state necessary. Offering a new way to read the ontology and epistemology of the nation/state, this work will be of interest to students and scholars of nations and nationalism, political thought, critical international relations and critical security studies.
List of contents
1. Introduction: Problematising the Present.- 2. The Nation/State Fantasy: From Gellner to Lacan.- 3. The State as One: The 'Union of Men', the 'People' and the 'State' in Early Modernity.- 4. The Fragmentation of the State as Modality of Unity and the Rise of the Fantasy of Nation/State Congruency.- 5. Fantasies of Nationalism: Between Nation/State Dialectic and Liberal Thought.- 6. The Nation/State Fantasy and the Production of the 'International' in IR Theory.- 7. Back to the Present: The Contemporaneous Re-Homogenisation of the 'International'.- 8. Conclusions: Engaging with the Ethico-Political.
About the author
Moran M. Mandelbaum is Lecturer in International Relations in SPIRE (School of Politics, Philosophy, International Relations and Environment), Keele University, UK.
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