Constitutional Bootstrapping: the Irish Nation
by Desmond Clarke
This is a version of the well known principle of nationalism identified by Ernest Gellner, to the effect that nations can be identified and demarcated with sufficient clarity to exercise the moral authority they claim to govern themselves and that, in a world divided into states, each nation has a right to its own state. 9. One might expect therefore, that the rights of the nation would be invoked in the establishment of a new state or political unit, and that nationalism would be most likely to be invoked to help demarcate the boundaries of an emergent state. If successful, such an appeal would resolve a fundamental problem in political and constitutional theory for democratic states, which cannot be otherwise resolved viz how to demarcate the community within which subsequent democratic decisions can be made.
Characteristically, the Irish Constitution does precisely this both in the Preamble and in Article 1. Bunreacht na hEireann does not defer to another (higher) law to support it, or to agreed principles of international law: instead, it invokes the decision of an already-constituted people who claim a moral right to establish the basic law and fundamental political structures by which they wish to be governed. 'We the people of Eire...... Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution'. 'The Irish nation hereby affirms its......right to choose its own form of Government.........'
Evidently, the efficacy of this claim is as debatable as the identity of the pre-existing nation is contestable. Since this is a fundamental moral or political claim, there is no hope of resolving genuine disagreement about the identity of the people in question by simple appeals to geography, history or shared culture. In fact, an appeal to 'the nation' works best when it merely provides the transitional discourse for establishing a political system which is otherwise accepted by all the relevant parties, especially by all those who are directly affected by the establishment of a state or its equivalent If there are disputes about a particular nation - for example, about its cultural identity, its scope or extension, its history its traditional geographical territory, its language, etc, - such discussion inevitably continues within the disciplines that are appropriate to their attempted resolution.
Thus, the concept of a 'nation' or 'people' is a term of art in the social sciences and political philosophy; it is essentially linked into the various theories in which it is defined and within which it can do some theoretical work. Recent work on multi-culturalism and on alternative definitions of nationality, illustrate the wide range of views available and the almost indefinite scope for further discussion. 10. If used elsewhere, especially in legal contexts, the conception of a 'nation' is likely to carry with it the theoretical and semantic density and multi-dimensionality of its native soil.
Nationalisms and the state
Once a state is established, with all the legal powers of modern states,
one might expect that nationalism would have achieved its primary objective
and that the language of nationalism might become, to that extent, redundant.
But nationalist discourse may assume new roles once a nation achieves statehood,
and may be used to support a number of very different and even incompatible
objectives. Rogers Brubaker identifies two such. 11. A nationalising nationalism
assumes the existence of a 'core nation' one which paradigmatically exhibits
the defining features of a specific nation - and it justifies the adoption
of various strategies often called remedial, to protect and develop the
interests of this core nation which is described as the victim of prior
oppression. This is a form of cultural evangelisation, of identifying what
needs state support among the features of the 'core nation' and then implementing
policies designed to expand the 'core' to the metaphorical 'peripheries'
within the newly established state. It is an attempt to impose a uniform
or homogeneous cultural identity on all the citizens of a given state and
to define this culture by reference to the privileged cultural identity
of one group within the state. Typically, it includes efforts to recover
an earlier culture and/or language which had been compromised by alien influences.
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