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Matin - (AAM) Deciphering_Modern_Janus - SECOND REVISED-FINAL.pdf (256.69 kB)

Deciphering the modern Janus: societal multiplicity and nation-formation

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 19:28 authored by Kamran MatinKamran Matin
How to theorize the nation’s Janus-like form, its simultaneous modernity and antiquity? This paper provides an original answer to this longstanding question. It argues that nations arise from the interaction of ‘societal multiplicity’ and the expansionist tendency of historical capitalism. The emergence of capitalism super-adds a modern inflection to the inherently relational process of collective identity formation by generating modern sovereignty as an abstract form of rule. Crucially however, just like its emergence, capitalism’s expansion also refracts through societal multiplicity. Non-capitalist societies are therefore pressured into ‘nationalist’ projects of emulative self-preservation in which the nation’s political form (i.e. the sovereign state) is forged before its sociological content (i.e. primitive accumulation). Thus, the original site of this process, France, produced the modular nation-form that unlike Britain’s imperial nationhood could be globalised. The paper therefore shows that IR’s premise of multiplicity may be the key to one of social sciences’ most enduring puzzles.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

Globalizations

ISSN

1474-7731

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Issue

3

Volume

17

Page range

436-451

Department affiliated with

  • International Relations Publications

Research groups affiliated with

  • Centre for Advanced International Theory Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2019-10-29

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2021-04-17

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2019-10-28

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