MINELRES: Fwd: CfP: Statehood and Ethnicity Conference, Stockholm,13-15.6.2003

MINELRES moderator [email protected]
Tue Dec 3 08:42:21 2002 

Original sender: Florian Bieber <[email protected]>


Call for Papers Statehood and Ethnicity Conference
Call for Papers

Statehood Beyond Ethnicity: From the Early Modern to the Present State
A Comparative Study of Smaller States in Northern and Eastern Europe

International conference for junior scholars in the humanities
Baltic and East European Graduate School (BEEGS), University College of
Southern Stockholm, in collaboration with Northern European Historical
Research Network (NEHRN), 13-15 June, 2003

Proposals due: 15 February 2003
Final Submissions due: 1 May 2003
Address for Submissions: Statehood Beyond Ethnicity, BEEGS,
University College of Southern Stockholm, Box 4101, S-14104 Huddinge,
Sweden; or by email: [email protected]

Keynote Speakers:
Dr Eric Kaufmann (University of Southampton), 'National Ethnicity' and
the Modern State
Dr Torbj�rn Eng (Uppsala University), On Concepts of Early Modern
Statehood in Sweden

Aims and Objectives
The conference will tackle the issue of statehood and nationhood in the
case of the smaller European countries. According to the prevailing
political theory, a modern state came into being through the merging of
two principles � the idea of state and the concept of nation � which
took place in the nineteenth century. Political theorists call this
fusion nationalism. Accordingly, the modern nation is viewed as a
political body with ethnic characteristics.

Hence it is a dominant nationality, not a nation as a whole, which is
assigned to the state. This view stands and falls on the very notion of
liberal nationalism which still prevails today. Ethnic interpretation of
statehood has further repercussions in the sphere of international
politics, where new emerging nation states are recognized on the basis
of dominant ethnie.

The international debate about nationalism usually boils down to the
calls for ensuring the rights of ethnic minorities, viewed as
subdivisions within the national organism of the state. In order to
challenge this view this conference will attempt to analyse non-ethnic
statehood in two renditions in two different periods of history: as a
historical phenomenon at the time of the emergence of the early modern
state and as a historical tradition upon which the nation-builders from
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries called. The conference thus
suggests to take into consideration both the historical facts and
historiographical constructs about statehood.

While examining the arguments put forward for the existence of a state
in the early modern age, the conference will seek to describe those
essential elements which found their later appropriation in explicitly
ethnic cultural and historical thinking about the older new nations.
Yet, in parallel, it will also look at the arguments of the modern
nationalists which echoed the non-ethnic past.

Thus, the main task will be to detect that middle-ground where a
historical existence of the early modern state met the demands and
requirements of the modern, latter-day nationalists. The hypothesis is
that non-ethnic traditions of statehood had been subverted yet never
lost.

Preliminary Themes
Introduction to the subject: an early modern state compared to a modern
nation state
Exploring the states with continuing traditions of statehood (e.g.
Sweden, Holland)
Exploring the states with disrupted traditions of statehood (e.g.
Norway, Bohemia, Lithuania)
Exploring the states with transformed traditions of statehood (e.g.
Scotland, Brandenburg)
Reflections on political theory and current debates in relation to
nationalism

Main Issues
A paper on an early modern or modern nation state should address one of
the following questions:
- How is statehood defined in contrast to national identity, nationhood,
if at all?
- Which civic virtues are viewed as having a binding power for political
community?
- How are the rights for national sovereignty argued within the realm of
natural law?
- Which social and ethnic groups if any have a vested interest in
national statehood?
- What is the relation between a myth of the origins of a people and
state ideology?
- Which historical events and themes are identified with state and/or
nationality?
- How is a legitimacy of political power established in national
historiography?
- What are the main political reasons behind the demands for national
statehood?
- How is a smaller state shaped by its links to a dominant neighbour or
an existing union?
- How is the future of the nation state ideologically projected and
explained to a people?

Practical Information
This invitation is extended to advanced doctoral students, postdocs and
other junior scholars.
The proposals should consist of an abstract (ca. 300 words) and CV with
contact information. 
The best papers will be published in a collection of articles by an
international academic publisher.

BEEGS will meet travel costs and provide accommodation for conference
speakers from abroad.
Conference Coordinator:
Conference Convener:
Dr Linas Eriksonas
Dr Leos M�ller
BEEGS Visiting Research Fellow
BEEGS Research Fellow
[email protected]
[email protected]
International Academic Advisory Panel:
Professor Miroslav Hroch, Charles University Prague
Professor Allan Macinnes, University of Aberdeen/NEHRN
Professor Rolf Torstendahl, Uppsala University/University College of
Southern Stockholm
Professor Michael North, University of Greifswald

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