🔍
Can an "Egalitarian" Nationalism Protect Democracy? — Maya Tudor at The Interval - YouTube
Channel: Long Now Foundation
[0]
QUESTION: So what I really want to take from your
research is an idea that this
[5]
pro-democracy nationalism inoculates
against the anti-democracy
[11]
nationalism. But when I think of the
riots in Gujarat, which happened 20 years
[17]
after independence, and five years before the time period you're talking
[22]
about, and the rise of the BJP today, I
can't take away that message. So
[29]
what is the message that I can
take away about the difference and the
[34]
interplay of these two types of
nationalisms? MAYA TUDOR: Yeah, it's a great question.
[37]
MARGARET LEVI: Much better said than what I was
trying to get at. TUDOR: Right, so I guess what I
[45]
would say is that the word "inoculates" is
far too strong. All the explanations that
[52]
political scientists have for when
democracy does or doesn't come about,
[55]
they're all probabilistic explanations.
They're not—nothing, not a super
[62]
diverse ethnic group, a super high level
of economic development,
[68]
Nothing is absolutely sufficient to become a
democracy. So the claim that I'm making
[74]
is that, all else being equal, and of
course, nothing else is ever equal, right?
[78]
Because countries are very particular
space-and-time
[83]
-specific creations, but that all else
being equal, a relatively flat and open
[90]
porous conception of what it means to be
a member of that nation is a resource
[96]
for democracy because of subsequent
moments of political crisis, when you
[102]
have political entrepreneurs pushing to
get to power. If there is by
[109]
contrast a narrative of nation that
specifically sets aside a
[115]
group as not being core to defining the
nation, that in moments of crisis, that
[120]
particular group can be more easily
targeted by politicians in power. And
[125]
that's what you see happening with
Muslims, the Rohingya in Myanmar,
[131]
it's what you see today happening
in India, and what you saw when Modi was
[139]
the Chief Minister of Gujarat, which is
when the riots that you mentioned
[142]
happened. He's very much been pushing a
Hindu nationalist vision. And it's not a
[147]
coincidence that's exactly where you saw
the riots happening in India, because
[152]
it's where the chief politician in power
was pushing a majoritarian view of what
[158]
it meant to be a citizen of that nation.
So to go back to your question, what do I
[162]
take away from this talk? It's not that
anything inoculates democracy.
[166]
Democracy is only as strong as our
belief in it and our willingness to
[170]
essentially make sacrifices on behalf of
a particular way of organizing and
[174]
sharing power. But what I can say is that
in addition to all those structural
[181]
factors which do make democracy a little
bit more likely. So if you're a little
[185]
bit wealthier, a little bit more likely.
If you don't have oil and gas as a
[189]
major part of your export, democracy is a
little more likely. And what I want to
[193]
add to the conversation is when you have
a nationalism that's relatively
[197]
egalitarian, it makes democracy a little
more likely for the reasons I mentioned.
[202]
LEVI: Except that in all these cases you have both kinds of nationalism pervading.
[205]
TUDOR: Right. So I think that's another...so just briefly, I think that
[211]
that was a question I was sure
I was gonna get. "You know, when
[215]
you're talking about one nationalism, but
there are lots of kinds of nationalisms."
[217]
And I think that's absolutely true.
Founding moments provide particularly
[223]
powerful narratives of what the nation
is, but of course those narratives are
[228]
contested and changing over time. But they're often surprisingly
[233]
durable. And what you see happening
in India right now is a sustained
[238]
attempt to change what the national
identity is, and to the extent that it
[242]
endures, it's in power, it begins to change
national curriculums, which, you know,
[247]
is exactly what we're seeing, that will
become a resource for essentially
[254]
promoting one form of democratic
breakdown just when those civil and
[257]
political liberties are systematically
denied to the out groups.
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage