Hala – APSA 2005
The fall of communism in Europe is widely recognized as a turning point in
world politics. Many claim it marks a “cultural turn,” where relatively deep-rooted
values and beliefs shared among distinct communities begin to play a dominant role,
when identity matters more than it did before. Samuel Huntington, the political
analyst most closely associated with this perspective, illustrates the shift this way:
whereas the political and ideological conflicts of the past turned on the question
"Which side are you on?," in today’s culture wars "What are you?” is the critical
question (1993: 23-24).
The outbreak of nationalist conflict in postcommunist Eastern Europe fueled
the spread of the culture clash thesis. While academic analysts largely resisted calling
national divisions “ancient,” the dominant “icebox theory” characterized them as
historically durable enough to have reemerged easily with the thaw of postcommunist
liberalization (Liebich 1998). From the icebox perspective, East Europeans’ answer
to the question “what are you?” was obvious.
But a closer look at politics in the democratizing East European states reveals
significant variation in national identities, over time and even at the same point in
time, with different political actors competing to define the nation. Even
Czechoslovakia, one of the casualties of postcommunist nationalism, had its loyalists,
and after it was divided into its putatively natural constituent nations, the Czech and
the Slovak, their definitions were contested as well. These case studies suggest the
nation is determined less by timeless inner qualities than by historically changeable
outer boundaries. Which side you are on determines who you are. The nation
signifies a relation between a political community and others beyond its boundaries,
its boundaries determined by ongoing political interaction, among states, political
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Convention