Private Property and the Origins of Nationalism in the United States and Norway

Fuglestad, Eirik Magnus

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-89950-3

Cited by 3 publications

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“…34 I myself have asked to what extent the nation may be defined, on a general level, as a community of proprietors, to what degree the nation is an imagined and real 'propertied community'. 35 This is based on the idea of property as sovereignty, and that nationalism seeks to create national sovereignty through communities of property holders. This becomes particularly clear if we look at the historical period when the first nation states emerged, in the wake of the American and the French revolutions.…”

Section: Scattered Conceptual Linksmentioning

confidence: 99%

State of Nationalism (SoN): Nationalism and Private Property

Fuglestad¹

2022

Studies on National Movements

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This article reviews research on the relationship between property rights and nationalism. A property rights perspective to the study of nationalism is relevant to understanding the origins and development of nationalism and nation states. Yet, key theorists of nationalism have mostly ignored the relationship between property rights and nationalism, or looked at it only indirectly. There are a variety of ways in which ownership or possession more generally can be related to nationalism, for instance through colonialism, racism, and dispossession (Bannerji et al. 2001; Bhandar 2016; Bhandar & Toscano 2015). This review, however, in order to build a consistent perspective on the historical emergence of nation states and nationalism, will have its main focus on property rights, property regimes and state-building. The literature on state-building and democratization bears important insights about this relationship which can be applied to the study of nationalism. This review will therefore draw on such literature, in addition to works on nationalism where the topic of property has been mentioned, to show how an integrated property rights perspective to the study of nationalism may yield important insights to our understanding of nations and nationalism. The article is structured as follows. First, it offers a brief discussion of what property rights are and why they are key to understanding the long-term historical development of nations and nationalism. After this, it outlines the links between property regimes and the formation of nation states, followed by a discussion of the conceptual links between nationalism and private property. The final section offers some brief reflections on Marxism, property and nationalism.

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Section: Scattered Conceptual Linksmentioning

confidence: 99%

State of Nationalism (SoN): Nationalism and Private Property

Fuglestad¹

2022

Studies on National Movements

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“…Other more critical histories have placed farms at the centre of larger transitions in modern political and socio-legal history -particularly around the emergence of private property (e.g. Linklater 2013;Fuglestad 2018). The most compelling example of this kind of approach is Scott's (1998) Seeing Like a State, which used agriculture as an exemplar of a particular set of rationalities and controls enacted by the modernist state in order to render nature (and farming) legible and thus amenable to state control.…”

Section: Farming Inside Invisible Worldsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Farming Inside Invisible Worlds in solidifying colonial trade circuits, or the role of privately owned family farms in generating a sense of a new political allegiances to an emerging state and, later, a sense of nationalism are important and addressed by other scholars (e.g. see McMichael 1984, Belich 2009, and Fuglestad 2018. The closest cognate is Andro Linklater's sweeping history of property, which includes the power of property boundaries in the creation of capitalism and modernity (Linklater 2013).…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Farming Inside Invisible Worlds

Campbell¹

2020

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This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by the University of Otago, New Zealand. Farming Inside Invisible Worlds argues that the farm is a key player in the creation and stabilisation of political, economic and ecological power – particularly in colonised landscapes like New Zealand, America and Australia. The book reviews and rejects the way that farms are characterised in orthodox economics and agricultural science and then shows how re-centring the farm using the theoretical idea of political ontology can transform the way we understand the power of farming. Starting with the colonial history of farms in New Zealand, Hugh Campbell goes on to describe the rise of modernist farming and its often hidden political, racial and ecological effects. He concludes with an examination of alternative ways to farm in New Zealand, showing how the prior histories of colonisation and modernisation reveal important ways to farm differently in post-colonial worlds. Hugh Campbell’s book has-ranging implications for understanding the role farms play in both our food systems and landscapes, and is an exciting new addition to food studies.

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“…In the agrarian phase of nationalist development, property rights and sovereignty were, as we have seen, bound together through national democracies where ownership of land was fundamental, and the concept of property became key for how the nation was defined and how national and individual freedom was understood. In the industrial phase, property rights continued to be central for democratic expansion and integration of the working class into the nation, but in this phase, the property rights element became widened to include individual's ownerships of their labour power (Fuglestad, 2018a). Thus, labour becomes central to issues of power and sovereignty.…”

Section: The Property Rights Issue Restatedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nationalism was a key part of this because it altered the rules of political legitimacy from kings and gods to the people, and a fundamental aspect here was transformations in property rights. It has been the central point in my earlier works to demonstrate how the pristine forms of nationalism that emerged in Europe and America in the late 18th and the early 19th century were essentially about the securing of property rights, and, through this, creating independent individuals from which popular sovereignty emanated (Fuglestad, 2018a, Fuglestad, 2018b, Fuglestad, 2018c). It was in this way, by basing sovereignty on individual and (in theory) universal ownership of property, that nationalism (that is, its agents) debunked the sovereignty of absolutist monarchs and placed it in the people, at the same time laying the foundation for modern society.…”

Section: The Early Proto‐sociologists' Analysis Of Property and Sovereigntymentioning

confidence: 99%

A new sociology of nationalism: The sociology of property and nation

Fuglestad

2020

Nations and Nationalism

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In this essay, I will reflect upon what has been sociology's contribution to understanding the emergence and development of nationalism and how sociology can contribute to understanding nationalism's present and future through a property rights perspective. The essay will discuss, in particular, how historical sociological analysis of property rights and property rights regimes may be central to understanding nationalism past and future. After a general and brief discussion on the current, so‐called return of nationalism, the essay starts with discussion of some late enlightenment proto‐sociologists, suggesting that these writers actually analysed some crucial early dynamics of property and sovereignty which is central to understanding nationalism. The essay then moves on to suggests why a property rights focus might be a useful perspective to understanding nationalism in the 21st century.

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Private Property and the Origins of Nationalism in the United States and Norway

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

State of Nationalism (SoN): Nationalism and Private Property

State of Nationalism (SoN): Nationalism and Private Property

Farming Inside Invisible Worlds

A new sociology of nationalism: The sociology of property and nation

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