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The Scope of Theories of Nationalism: Comments on

the Scottish and Japanese ExperiencesA. Ichijo

Online Publication Date: 23 January 2002

To cite this Article: Ichijo, A. (2002) 'The Scope of Theories of Nationalism:

Comments on the Scottish and Japanese Experiences', Geopolitics, 7:2, 53 - 74

To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/714000939

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/714000939

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The Scope of Theories of Nationalism:Comments on the Scottish and

Japanese Experiences1

ATSUKO ICHIJO

Inspired by Walker Connors suggestion to turn our attention to the question

When is a nation? in order to understand nationalism, the paper examines

the theoretical implications of asking When is a nation? through an

examination of the Scottish and Japanese cases. The paper first

demonstrates that the question When is a nation? is dependent upon thequestion What is a nation?, and explores the ways in which the question

When can make theoretical contributions in the absence of any agreement

as to what the nation is. It concludes that the question When is a helpful

first step to conduct a case study in order to comprehend why and for what

purpose a certain idea of nation or nationalism is mobilised in a society at a

particular time.

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to examine the theoretical implications of the

question When is a nation?. In 1990 Walker Connor concluded his article

entitled From tribe to nation? with an observation that more attention

should be paid to the question When is a nation? than the question What

is a nation?.2 This essay takes up Connors conclusion as a starting point to

consider what the discussions of the question When have so far achieved

in deepening our understanding of nations and nationalism by examining

two cases: Scotland and Japan. These two cases are chosen firstly because

both nations are widely seen as old, whose foundations can allegedly be

traced back to the Middle Ages or even to ancient times. One could

speculate that in the cases of these old nations, whose legitimacy is

generally acknowledged, the question When may no longer be relevant.

Nonetheless, as this essay demonstrates, it is a highly contested question in

Atsuko Ichijo, European Institute, London School of Economics, University of London. Email:.

Geopolitics, Vol.7, No.2 (Autumn 2002) pp.5374PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

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both cases. Analysing why it is still a significant question for old and

established nations will, therefore, clarify what needs to be investigated in

the study of nationalism. Secondly, in the contemporary context, there is a

tendency to classify the Scottish nation as civic while there seems to be a

consensus that the Japanese nation is ethnic. By comparing how the

question When is problematised in the two cases, I aim to examine the

significance of the question When along the civic and ethnic axis. From a

comparative analysis of the cases, the essay argues first that the discussion

of the question When is a nation? is still very much dependent on the

question What is a nation?. It then explores what role the question When

plays in contemporary theories of nationalism.

When is the Nation?: The Scottish and Japanese Contexts

One of the claims set forth by the Scottish National Party (SNP) in their

literature is that the Scottish nation is one of the oldest in Europe, that theScots were one of the earliest to acquire a clearly defined national identity

guarded by stable borders.3 What the pamphlet implicitly refers to is, no

doubt, the experience of the Wars of Independence (12961328), and

especially to the Declaration of Arbroath (1320) which, according to many

Scots, unequivocally demonstrates that a Scottish national identity existed

by the late thirteenth century. The SNP is, therefore, advocating that the

Scottish nation came into being in the Middle Ages, which, from their

viewpoint, provides greater legitimacy for the cause of independence.

Despite the considerable degree of democratisation to eradicate militaristic

nationalism from the new Japanese society after the Second World War,

there still exists an almost blind belief in the oldness of the Japanesenation in contemporary Japan. Not only die-hard nationalists but also many

historians, political scientists and sociologists have long accepted the view

that the Japanese nation has existed since ancient times as has the Japanese

state, thus avoiding a challenge to the validity of the case of Japan being an

old nation.4 In both contexts there is a strong inclination to assert the

oldness of the nation.

According to Walker Connor, however, one should be suspicious of the

claim which asserts that a nation existed prior to the nineteenth century

because, for him, nationalism is a mass phenomenon.5 He argues that until

the majority of people become aware of their membership of a nation,

which did not happen even in old nations such as France until the latenineteenth century by way of the introduction of conscription and universal

education, a nation cannot exist. From this perspective, the Scottish and

Japanese examples represent the efforts on the part of nationalists to

persuade fellow members, and other nations, of the authenticity of their

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project. He contends that therefore it makes no sense to investigate

nationalism before the nineteenth century. This is a view which is close to

the one put forward by a group of theorists called modernists who hold that

nations are essentially a modern form of social organisation. However, there

are other strands of theories of nationalism which argue for the case of pre-

modern nations such as the primordialists and perennialists; the former

argue that nations are natural expressions of human nature while the latter

think of nations as a form of social grouping whose origins go back to time

immemorial. To put it bluntly, while modernists maintain that nations are a

modern construct, the primordialists and perennialists hold that nations are

old.6

In what follows, I will examine different views on the question of When

is the nation? using the Scottish and Japanese cases to evaluate what

analytical insights each position can offer in relation to theories of nations

and nationalism.

The Scottish Case

The Modernists View

Some theorists, often referred to as modernists, maintain that the nation is

a distinctively modern institution. Although modernists such as Ernest

Gellner, Eric Hobsbawm and Benedict Anderson are by no means in

complete agreement as to what caused the rise of nationalism, they share at

least two basic assumptions: that nationalism is a modern phenomenon and

that, in Ernest Gellners celebrated sentence, It is nationalism which

engenders nations, and not the other way round.7 The modernists thesis is

that if nationalism creates nations and if nationalism is a modernphenomenon, then it follows that there can be, by definition, no pre-modern

nations.8

What are the modernists views on the Scottish case? Because Scotland

is, presumably, often considered to be a relatively minor case i.e., it is a

small nation without its own state there is not much about Scotland in

these scholars works. It is, nonetheless, still possible to put together

observations and comments on Scotland they have made in passing. Ernest

Gellner regards a nation as a homogeneous, internally mobile

culture/polity which emerged as a response to the processes of

industrialisation that had profoundly transformed the structure of society. In

this sense, according to Gellner, the nation is a distinctively moderninstitution. He acknowledges that some nations have navels, that is a tie

with a pre-modern cultural and ethnic entity, but asserts that these navels

are not essential in understanding the nation phenomenon.9 How does the

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Scottish case fare in his analysis? He concedes that, in the Scottish case,

language did not play the major part as allocated in his model and that a

shared historical memory a navel was important. In spite of this, he did

not feel the Scottish case contradicted his model.10 It is fair to assume that

Gellner would argue that the Scottish nation is best understood as an

institution formed, like any other nation, in response to the need of

industrial society for a culturally homogeneous labour force. Hence, from

Gellners point of view, it is nonsensical to argue that there was a Scottish

nation in existence around the time of the Wars of Independence.

Another modernist, Eric Hobsbawm, also declares that the nation is a

product of modernity.11 It is, therefore, pointless to ponder over whether a

Scottish nation existed in the Middle Ages. At the same time, he proposes a

concept of proto-national bonds to explain why nationalist mobilisation

has been so successful across the globe.12 Proto-national bonds are the sense

of collective belonging that already existed before the age of nationalism,

which can be later mobilised on a national scale. He agrees that proto-nationalism could have an important role in forming modern nationalism in

terms of supplying symbols which, in some cases, evoke powerful

emotions, but asserts that proto-nationalism is not nationalism because it

has no necessary relation (original emphasis) to a territorial political

organisation which he holds to be a key component of modern

nationalism.13 He also denies that there is any continuity between proto-

nationalism and modern nationalism, citing the example of Jewish proto-

nationalism and modern Zionism. Reviewing his argument in relation to the

Scottish experience, it is reasonable to assume that Hobsbawm would agree

that there was a proto-nation in medieval Scotland, which, however, should

not be equated with the modern Scottish nation. One could, therefore,contend that Hobsbawm agrees with Gellner on the point that there was no

Scottish nation in late thirteenth-century Scotland.

The above does not mean that modernists in general deny that there is a

Scottish nation because it lacks statehood; most of them are far more

sensible than that. Gellner, for instance, casually admits that Scottish

nationalism exists.14 However, the Scottish case poses an awkward problem

for many modernist schemes such as Gellners with regard to the absence of

full-blown nationalism in Scotland in the late eighteenth and early

nineteenth centuries. Tom Nairn, who also considers nationalism to be an

essentially modern phenomenon, explains this anomaly by pointing out the

massive immigration of the Scottish intelligentsia to the South whichaccelerated after the death of Sir Walter Scott.15 Because Scotland lost the

middle-class intelligentsia whose mission is, according to his scheme, to

invite the masses into history, he concludes there was a curious absence of

Scottish nationalism in the age of nationalism. Benedict Anderson,

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nation, a self-aware community with a distinctive identity and desire for

political autonomy, did come into existence in the Middle Ages.

Another interesting point made by the historians in regard to the Scottish

case is that those who lived in medieval Scotland did not constitute an

ethnicity, a culturally homogeneous community, due to their multi-racial

and multi-lingual nature.22 It is a well-known fact that what is now called

Scotland was at that time populated by the Picts in the northeast, the Scots

from Ireland in the northwest, the Angles in Lothian, the Britons in

Strathclyde, the Normans and the Norse. Many languages were spoken

including Gaelic, English, Norman French and Latin. The army which

David I, King of Scots, led at the Battle of the Standard in 1138 against

Henry I of England was recorded by a contemporary English historian to

have been composed of Normans, Germans, English, of Northumbrians

and Cumbrians, of men of Teviotdale and Lothian, of Picts (who are

commonly called Galwegians) and of Scots.23 These diverse people,

however, so the historians argue, shared a national consciousness. Theywere held together as a nation by geography and kingship. The people of

medieval Scotland, according to these historians view, formed, first and

foremost, a political community, united in desire to defend the autonomy of

the kingdom.

These observations about medieval Scotland presented by the historians

seem to share certain characteristics that some of the modernists hold as

essential to a modern nation. On the criterion that a nation is a political

community, it could be argued that the people of medieval Scotland

constituted such a one. A Hobsbawmian explanation could perhaps be

entertained in this case since the people of medieval Scotland arguably

existed as a function of a territorial state called the Kingdom of Scotland.However, Andersons criteria of a nation seem to be more easily met by the

Scottish experience. For example, the Declaration of Abroath, which

arguably demonstrates an early understanding of the idea of popular

sovereignty, could satisfy one of them, i.e., an understanding of and a belief

in the sovereignty of the people. Is it, then, legitimate to deny even the

possibility of the existence of a nation in the pre-modern era, as the

modernists do? In order to answer this question, I would now like to explore

further some of the characteristics of a nation in the case of medieval

Scotland. These characteristics include self-awareness as being one people,

a certain level of mass participation, the idea of comradeship, and a belief

in the sovereignty of the people.

Medieval Scotland

It is, of course, extremely difficult to reveal what people really felt in the

past. Thanks to recent research, however, one can obtain at least a rough

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picture of the life of people in medieval Scotland. In this regard, the most

important episode in Scottish history is the Wars of Independence

(12961328).24 This is a series of wars between the kingdoms of Scotland

and England over the kingship of Scotland. When Alexander III (124186)

died, leaving as his only heir granddaughter, Margaret, the Maid of Norway

(?128390), England had finished its campaigns against Wales and Ireland

and was ready to expand its activity to the north. When the Queen Margaret

died on her way to Scotland in 1290, the question of succession to the

Scottish Crown became paramount. Edward I of England (12721307)

intervened at the invitation of some Scottish nobles during the period of

interregnum (129092) and chose John Balliol (c. 12501313) as the King

of the Scots. King John was enthroned and crowned at Scone on the Stone

of Destiny on St Andrews day in 1292. Johns allegiance to England did not

last long, probably because of Edward Is intention to requisition all the

Scottish wool, the most important export product and a crucial part of

livelihood in medieval Scotland, in order to finance his war against France,and to mobilise Scotsmen to fight for England in France.25 King Edward of

England regarded King John as his vassal and made many demands which

ignored the authority of the community of the realm of Scotland, an

authority considered by the Scots to be above the authority of a king.

Scotland, having formed an alliance with France in 1295, then started a war

with England in 1296.

At the battle of Dunbar of 1296, Edward I defeated the Scots and the

years of warfare between Scotland and England ensued.26 The Wars of

Independence, which these became known, provide interesting episodes in

discussing the issue of mass participation in national affairs. Alexander

Grant presents two sets of evidence which suggest a considerable degree ofparticipation by ordinary people in the Wars of Independence.27 First,

Ragman Roll, which is the list of more than a thousand names of Scots

who paid homage to Edward I after the Battle of Dunbar of 1296, contains

a considerable number of lesser clergy and townsmen. Grant, comparing

these figures to the estimated number of the English gentry in the late

thirteenth century (around 3000), concludes that the list contains many more

people of a lower status than the English gentry. This, according to him,

indicates the wide involvement of ordinary people not only in warfare

with England but also in political processes. Secondly, the famous revolt of

1297 which elevated William Wallace (c. 12701305), a son of a minor

landowner, to Guardian of the Realm, was depicted by a contemporaryYorkshire chronicler, Walter of Guisborough, as a nationalist revolt. His

interpretation of the event that the common folk, led by Wallace, made their

stand against the English because they were Scots is still repeated by some

historians.28 Modern historians express reservations in interpreting the revolt


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of 1297 as a purely nationalist one, since there were other more compelling

reasons to rebel against Edward I, such as a fear of being conscripted for his

war in France.

There are, however, further episodes from this period which, to some

historians minds, point more to the nationalist interpretation of the event.29

When Thomas of Edinburgh, an obscure priest, heard that victorious King

Edwards army was approaching the town in 1296, he solemnly

excommunicated King Edward in an act of defiance. Another Scotsman

called William of Bolhope, who had been resident in England, hurried home

to enlist with the Scottish army when war broke out in 1296. Undeterred by

Edwards armys victory over his countrymen, he armed himself with two

swords and set off for England, where he met his death following his refusal

to acknowledge allegiance to King Edward. In another instance, the

surviving records of a small estate called Coldingham in southeast

Berwickshire, consisting of only two parishes, show that it provided at least

40 men, possibly as many as 80, from its tenants to join the Scottish armyof 129798. Needless to say, it is impossible to establish an accurate level

of the non-elites involvement in these affairs and admittedly these

examples only provide a collection of fragmented episodes which do not

necessarily convey a fair picture of what actually happened. Nonetheless,

the fact that these episodes were not only recorded in those days but have

survived until today deserves serious consideration.

There are ample data for the discussion of Scottish self-awareness in the

Middle Ages. There is, to begin with, some evidence which suggests the

existence of a Scottish self-awareness of their being a united people in

medieval Scotland. As already mentioned above, medieval Scotland was

composed of many different peoples, a fact which was reflected in the waythe Scottish kings referred to their subjects. For example, David I called his

subjects Francis et Anglis in 1124; some 40 years later, William the Lion,

King of Scots, described his people as tocius terre sue Francis et Anglis

Scottis et Galwahensibus. By the beginning of the thirteenth century,

however, this racial address had died out and it became customary for the

king to refer to his people as subjects of the realm of Scotland. The

consequence of this was that they all became, at least in the official

addresses, Scots.30 Although this evidence does not reveal anything about

the ordinary folk, it suggests that at least among the ruling class there was a

desire to present the inhabitants of Scotland as one united people.

Another interesting discovery is the place-name Ingliston and itsvariants. It literally means a settlement of the English and would appear to

refer to places where English-speaking Scots lived. However, when all the

places called Ingliston are mapped, most of them actually turn out to be

Norman settlements from England rather than the settlements of English-

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speaking Scots.31 This demonstrates that the label the English did not

simply signify the people who spoke some form of English, as did many of

the Scots in the Middle Ages, but rather that it referred to the people from

south of the border, from England. This differentiation implies that in

medieval Scotland there was a kind of self-awareness among the Scots

which was based on geography rather than a language. In other words, the

Scots were the people who were not from the South and the language was a

less important issue in defining them.

Another indication of the existence of Scottish self-awareness is the rise

in the writing of medieval history. From the late fourteenth to the mid-

fifteenth centuries, Scottish historians produced successive chronicles of

Scotland. The major works included: John Forduns Chronica Gentis

Scotorum (Chronicle of the Scottish Race) (c. 136585), written in Latin,

which put forward the Gaelic, therefore, ancient origin of the Scottish

race. Also Andrew Wyntouns Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland (c.

141020) written in Scots shows a strong sense of Scottishness, vindicatedby the Wars of Independence and which advocates, following Fordun, the

ancient origin of the Scottish kingdom. Another, Walter Bowers

Scotichronicon (Scots Chronicle) (c. 1440), written in Latin, traces Scottish

history up to the end of the reign of James I in 1436.32 These were, of course,

written by an elite for the elite. But they were, as many historians of

medieval Scotland argue, an attempt to consolidate an already existing

Scottish self-consciousness with the Scottish claim for independence after

the Wars of Independence.33 It was not only historical narratives that began

to be compiled as an expression of a separate Scottish identity. Around the

same time as Forduns chronicle, a heroic romance of King Robert, The

Brus, was written by John Barbour, containing a medieval ballad aboutAlexander III.34 It was later incorporated in Wyntouns work. In the late

fifteenth century, an epic poem, The Wallace, was compiled by Blind Harry,

which was effectively a populist version of this official history.35 It is

certain that these two poems were read by people outside the ruling circle,

and following the introduction of the printing press in 1507, these two

works were repeatedly re-printed.

On the point of horizontal comradeship, there is also some evidence

which implies that there was some form of understanding on common rights

and duties for the Scots in medieval Scotland. The very idea of the

community of the realm is one such example. The Barons letter to the Pope

in 1320 (better known as the Declaration of Arbroath) was written on behalfof the whole community of the realm of Scotland which included not only

barons, the ruling circle, but all the freeholders.36 Also, all the adult males

in Scotland were required to possess arms appropriate to their wealth so that

they could be called upon for policing or military purposes. When they were


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summoned, they went to defend the realm, not the landlord. It was called

common army service or Scottish service.37 This is similar to the modern

idea of conscription in that it was regarded as a shared duty undertaken by

all the adult males in Scotland. In return, the dutiful Scots could expect a

fair legal hearing by the King or his representative.

As for the belief in the sovereignty of the people, the medieval Scots

produced a remarkable document, the Declaration of Arbroath, which was

written to plead with the Pope for his acknowledgement and confirmation

of Scottish independence from England. Most of the letter is, therefore,

dedicated to the description of the history of the Scottish kingdom which,

the letter claims, goes back to ancient Egypt, and forcefully argues for the

legitimacy of the rule of Robert I. At the end of this account of Scottish

history, there is a phrase stating Robert Bruce became the king of Scots by

rightful succession and the consent of every one of us.38 What is

suggested here is a recognition that popular consent is essential for

legitimate rule. There then follows a passage declaring that if Robert Brucewere to surrender Scotland to the English, he would be deposed and another

man who could defend the Kingdom would be made King. Two important

issues arise from this. The first is a recognition that sovereignty does not lie

with the monarch but with the community of the realm. The second is an

understanding that the relationship between the king and his people is

contractual, and that the king does not have a divine right to rule. The

Declaration of Arbroath has, as a consequence, gained a reputation as being

the first ever document to clearly demonstrate an understanding of popular

sovereignty, which is, incidentally, an important component of the modern

ideology of nationalism.

When is the Nation? in the Scottish Case

The above evidence appears to support the historians claim that there was

a Scottish nation in the Middle Ages. This would not, however, convince the

modernists, for they consider a nation to be a mass phenomenon, i.e.,

something in which the majority of the population participates with regards

to its formation and maintenance. The evidence cited earlier does not

satisfactorily demonstrate the level of mass participation that modernists

hold so dear in the case of medieval Scotland. On the other hand, the

historians would find no difficulty in claiming that their case is vindicated

since popular participation is not the essential issue for them. The

modernists and historians arguments fail to engage with each other, and asa result, it cannot be claimed that the question When was/is the Scottish

nation? has been thoroughly examined. The main reason why the two

positions cannot engage with one another in a constructive manner lies in

the familiar old problem: the problem of definition, or in other words, the

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question What is a nation?. Connor suggests that the scholars of

nationalism should move on to discuss the question When is a nation?

because he believes this has not received sufficient attention. The problem,

as has been shown by the above examination of the Scottish case, is that

contemporary scholars of nationalism are not quite ready to tackle the

question When in a meaningful manner since there is no unequivocal

answer to the question What. However, it should be noted that the

exploration of the question When in each case will highlight what issues

theories of nations and nationalism should strive to explain, and in this

indirect way, the question could help the investigation of the phenomena of

nations and nationalism.

What then has the question When is the nation? illuminated in the

Scottish case? In the above examination, the level of mass participation has

been clearly marked out as a critical aspect in understanding what a nation

is and has brought our attention back to the question of definition. Indeed,

this is a theoretical debate which has been going on for a while, andpromises to continue for the foreseeable future. Another point the above

examination raises is the question of what it is that theories of nations and

nationalism can actually achieve in light of the fact that many people

believe, in one way or another, that a particular nation is in effect old with

its origin based in or before the Middle Ages. From the phenomenological

point of view, this belief would then constitute a reality for these people,

providing a frame of reference for their thinking and behaviour. The task for

analysts then is not just to debunk the myth but to ask why people chose to

believe, or wish to believe, in that particular view and what role it plays in

a certain setting.

The fact that the SNP subscribes to the medieval origin of Scottishnationhood is not surprising since it strengthens their claim of the

authenticity of Scottish nationhood. The more authentic a nation is, the

more legitimate the cause of independence becomes. However, the SNP

also promotes the idea of a modern, civic, inclusive and heterogeneous

Scotland, which could clash with their belief in old Scottish nationhood. If

a nation is old and authentic, it is very likely that the nation is also pure and

homogeneous. Advocating the purity of nationhood in contemporary

liberal democracy, however, could be a suicidal act for any political party

which aims to become a mainstream force. In the case of Scotland, this

potential problem has been solved by portraying Scottish history as one of

the continuous intermingling of different peoples as pointed out earlier.39

Therefore, the SNP can advocate the old and authentic nationhood while

championing the idea of a civic and multicultural Scotland. Asking the

question When is the nation? in the contemporary Scottish context does

not reveal when the Scottish nation was irrefutably formed or whether the


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Scottish nation exists; it demonstrates, instead, some of the ways in which

the idea of nationhood are moblised in contemporary society. This would

lead us to look closely at what role nations and nationalism play in the

modern world. In the absence of any agreement as to what essentially

nations and nationalism are, what one can expect from theories of nations

and nationalism is probably some guidance on how to understand the

question Why is the nation? better. Investigating why nations and

nationalism are moblised under some circumstances but not under others

seems not only to offer more insight into what nations and nationalism

mean in a particular setting but also offers another way of approaching

what they are.

Having identified what the question When is a nation? can and cannot

clarify, let me now turn to the Japanese case. In this section, I shall examine

the modernist, perennialist, and some alternative views put forward by

historians on the question When is the Japanese nation? to see what light

these claims can shed on the nature of the Japanese nation and Japanesenationalism in the contemporary setting.

The Japanese Case

The Modernists View

The predominant view among the scholars of nationalism seems to be that

the Japanese experience offers yet another case of official or reform

nationalism, where the government imposes a version of nationalism in

order to legitimate the new political order, to catch up with the West, and to

forge the sense of nationhood.40 According to this view, Japanese

nationalism came hand in hand with industrialisation and, more generally,westernisation, which is more conducive to the modernist account of the

rise of the nation. From the modernists point of view, the Japanese

experience serves as a classical case of nationalism inventing the nation,

and not the other way round.

Kwoncha Yun, for instance, while acknowledging the existence of an

entity similar to a nation in medieval Japan, argues that the proper

Japanese national consciousness was not formed until the introduction of

the capitalist mode of production, which he considers to mark the beginning

of modernity in Japan, in the middle of the nineteenth century.41 This was,

according to him, because there was no concept of nation in pre-Meiji

Japan, a concept which he regards as an essentially western idea. Heproposes the idea of nation was imported from abroad through a series of

encounters with the west starting with the visit of Commodore Perry in 1853

who demanded the country be opening up to western trade. It was only after

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this that the people of the Japanese archipelago could have formed a nation

because they could not have been aware that they constituted a nation as the

very concept was absent. Yun confirms that it was only after the idea was

taken up by the Meiji government, keen on building a westernised state

strong enough to withstand the colonising pressure from the west, that

words like minzoku and kokumin, both being translations of the word

nation with different nuances, began to be used officially. The Meiji

government gradually adopted the view that people of this newly formed

state constituted a kokumin, the population under the rule of a government.

They then set about introducing universal education, conscription and so on

to instil a Japanese consciousness into the population which was, according

to Yun, ignorant of the fact that they constituted a Japanese nation. Yun

argues that the idea of a Japanese nation, primarily characterised by ethnic

and racial features, was developed later between the Sino-Japanese war of

1894 and the Russo-Japanese war of 1904, suggesting that the ethnic

conception of the Japanese nation was a new invention, which had beenarrived at as a consequence of the efforts by the Meiji and successive

governments. The thrust of his argument is that the Japanese nation itself is

a recent creation by the successive governments since the Meiji Restoration,

and that the creation of the Japanese nation was a way for the governments

to manipulate the masses, and therefore the Japanese nation is not an

embodiment of some Japanese spirit which is supposed to have been

always there from time immemorial. It is a clear refutation of the

perennialist view.

Just as occurred in the Scottish case, one can see that his argument will

not engage with that of the perennialist. The two positions attempt to

explain two different subjects which are unfortunately called by the samename. As I argued earlier, it is perhaps more fruitful to concentrate on

examining who takes up the modernist view and why in order to understand

the role played by this view in contemporary Japan.

The modernist view has a powerful resonance among left-leaning or

progressive intellectuals in contemporary Japanese society, which need to

be understood in a historical context. In analysing contemporary Japan, one

cannot ignore the impacts of World War II and its aftermath on Japan. After

the humiliating, but for some liberating, defeat of 1945, Japanese

intellectuals went through a thorough self-re-examination to find out why

Japan started the war which had caused so much destruction.42 They focused

on an old observation that the Japanese state as well as society had not beenfully modernised, and concluded that this backwardness, i.e., the feudal

characteristic of Japanese society, was the cause of the disaster. They also

concluded that it was urgent for the Japanese to transform their outdated

feudal society to a truly modern, democratic one as a means to avoid any


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The Perennialists View

The idea that the Japanese nation has been there since time immemorial was

central to pre-war Japanese nationalism which took on an aggressive

militarist outlook. After the Japanese unconditional surrender, the AlliedForces, during their occupation of Japan, started to dismantle what was

deemed too nationalistic within Japanese society, i.e., undemocratic and

feudal institutions, practices and ways of thinking. The ideas that the

Emperor was the descendant of God, and that the Japanese nation was a

huge extended family organised around the Emperor were also officially

denied, and any reference to these notions was eradicated from official

documents and textbooks. Despite these concerted efforts by the

occupational force and the post-war Japanese government, many people in

Japan at the beginning of the twenty-first century, some scholars among

them, seem to share the underlying idea that there has always been a

Japanese nation and country. This idea has been expressed in a form of a

particularly strong assumption about the Japanese; the Japanese are and,

more importantly, have been throughout history, homogeneous. As I argued

elsewhere, this assumption has become more prevalent in the post-war

period than in the pre-war one.45 In the pre-war period, especially at the

height of expansionism, the task for the intellectuals was to come to terms

with the increasingly multinational and multi-ethnic nature of the Japanese

Empire. They then established a view that the Japanese nation was

heterogeneous, which lent itself well to the expansionist ideology. In the

post-war period, however, a huge number of publications on the question of

what the Japanese are (nihonjinron) have appeared. They have contributed

toward strengthening the idea that the Japanese are homogenous, and that

this has been the case from time immemorial.46 Their homogeneity is alsothought to be a unique characteristic of the Japanese nation, which can be

utilised to explain Japans economic success since the late 1960s.

A close examination of the nihonjinron carried out by scholars such as

Kosaku Yoshino points out that perennialists in Japan argue for the case of

an old and continuous Japanese nationhood in order to emphasise the

perceived homogeneity of the Japanese people. This, in turn, is held to be

the most powerful explanatory factor for anything from the Japanese

economic success to the relatively low crime rate. The reasons why Japan

managed to catch up with the west so quickly in the early twentieth century,

why post-war Japan managed to produce such a spectacular economic

performance, why Japanese children are achieving higher academicstandards, why Japan is relatively safe in terms of both serious and minor

crime rates are, according to the perennialists, because Japanese society is

highly homogeneous. Homogeneity is supposed to be conducive to


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efficiency and other qualities required to achieve prosperity. Many of the

perennialist arguments in contemporary Japan are, therefore, presented not

to support legitimacy of the Japanese state as such, since this already exists,

but to provide a certain framework within which the Japanese people can

make sense of the world. Yoshino concludes this is a form of cultural

nationalism, and the fact that this particular cultural nationalism is

embraced by a great number of people in Japan shows the ideological power

of nationalism in the contemporary world. Despite the alleged expansion of

globalisation, people are still making sense of the world in terms of nations

and nationalism. This example shows that the question is not whether or not

the Japanese nation is old, not even whether there is the Japanese nation, but

why people subscribe to the view that there is and what it means to them.

Some Historians Views

Against this backdrop, some historians have started to question the

perennialists view that forms the overall implicit framework of the study ofJapanese history. Many of them have been looking through Japans history

for evidence to indicate plurality or heterogeneity within Japanese society.

Teiji Monwaki, for instance, argues that there were plural regional

kingdoms in Japanese islands between the late fourth century to the sixth

century. He bases his reasoning on archaeological findings and some

conflicting accounts given in ancient texts such as Kojiki (compiled in 712),

Nihonshoki (compiled in 720), and Fudoki, a collection of stories from

many parts of Japan, of the eighth century.47 He contends that each of these

regional kingdoms had its own kingship and name, its own exclusive

territory, political and diplomatic systems and its own culture and ideals.

Note that these correspond to Anthony Smiths definition of nation quitewell; i.e., a nation is a named group of human beings sharing territory, myth

and symbols, a public culture, a common economy and common legal rights

and duties for all members. What is missing, however, is any mention of the

participation of the masses and some degree of economic integration.

Judging from the distribution of certain artefacts found in Japan, it would

not be too difficult to make a case for a certain degree of economic

integration within each kingdom. It should be noted though that since

Monwaki is dealing with a very early period, it is perhaps not surprising that

he does not touch upon the issue of the popular consciousness. Monwaki

stresses that the Yamato kingdom, which eventually unified most of present-

day Japan by the seventh century and adopted Nihon as the name of thecountry in the eighth century, was just one of the regional kingdoms which

existed in the ancient times, and therefore questions the assumption of

undisrupted homogeneity of the Japanese people. On the other hand,

Monwaki recognises that some kind of awareness of being Japanese started

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to develop around the seventh century in the form of aristocratic culture

with the invention of two sets of phonetic scripts (kana). Despite the

political and, to some extent, cultural unification brought about by the

Yamato kingship, some parts of present-day Japan, such as Tohoku (the

northeastern part of Japan), were clearly seen as foreign by the central

government. Some surviving documents suggest that people in these areas

saw themselves as being different from the people of the western part of

Japan where the power centre was situated well into the medieval period.

Moriwakis view therefore presents a rather untidy picture of ancient Japan

revealing the Yamato kingdom was not the only entity in Japanese

archipelago, and in fact that many different peoples lived on these islands.

In light of these findings, the perennialist view that the Japanese nation and

state has been in existence from time immemorial in its present form is

called into question and at the same time, the modernist view is also

challenged.

Another historian, Yoshihiko Amino, a specialist in Japanese medievalhistory, agrees in part with others that the consciousness of being Japanese

began to develop within the ruling class in around the late seventh and early

eighth centuries as a consequence of a series of encounters with The

other.48 The Yamato kingship, which had, by then, consolidated its power

over most of the western part of present-day Japan, lost direct control over

the Korean Peninsula by losing the battle of Hakusukinoe to a Korean

kingdom. It also confronted the Emishi in the north and the Hayato in the

south during its drive to pacify its territory. Amino also points out that the

Yamato kingship introduced a taxation system based on rice fields, a new

system of trunk roads, a bureaucracy which was built on the spread of the

use of Chinese characters, a nationwide registration system, all of whichcontributed to the cultivation of many features that are now associated with

being Japanese.

Although the ruling class may have started developing a kind of

national awareness, it did not lead to the establishment of a unified

identity amongst the Japanese. He argues that as late as the fourteenth

century when the Kamakura Shogunate, the first warrior government, was

operational, there were at least two significantly different groups in Japan

which might have formed a type of awareness akin to national

consciousness. The first was found in the eastern part of Japan and the

other in the western part. Amino suggests that these two groups could

have constituted two different ethnic groups, and lists some evidence tosupport his argument. First, the two groups had different names: Togoku

or Kanto (meaning Eastern country and East of the border,

respectively) in the East and Saigoku or Kansai (Western country and

West of the border, respectively) in the West. The Shogun, the military


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as well as the de facto ruler of Japan, was based in the east while the

Emperor and his court stayed in the west maintaining the ceremonial

power so crucial to legitimate the Shoguns government. The east and

west, first and foremost, represented different types of power, but which

nonetheless complemented each other. Secondly, Amino notes that social

stratification within the two groups were different. In the west there were

some people including entertainers, warriors, some servants who entered

into a contract with a deity in order to serve the shrines, temples and court.

Their status in society was accordingly carefully distinguished from other

ordinary people such as farmers. This practice was rarely found in the east

where the relationship between the ruler and ruled was secular, a

relationship which seemed to extend to the entertainers and servants.

Indeed, while there is ample evidence to indicate that the social

stratification in the west was multi-layered defining many different

statuses for every level, a generally more simply structured stratification

occurred in the east, based on the mastersubject relationship between thewarriors.

When then did the awareness of being the same people the Japanese

emerge within the divided Japanese archipelago? According to Amino, the

process of national awakening, as it were, was triggered by the political

instability caused by the split of the Muromachi Shogunate in the fifteenth

century and the subsequent civil war in the sixteenth century, which ended

in the early seventeenth century when peace was again achieved. Amino

believes the wandering monks, merchants, sailors and entertainers played a

significant role in spreading the idea of Japan and the awareness of being

Japanese. Surviving documents suggest that around the fourteenth century,

the ordinary people of Japan were becoming aware of the borders of Japanby ways of folk songs, stories recounting the origin of the sacred places and

so on. According to a story complied in the fourteenth century, Japan

included the islands of Kyushu and Shikoku, and much of Honshu

(excluding the northeastern part), a situation which remained virtually

unchanged throughout the medieval period.49

The process was of course facilitated by the language, which had a

standard writing system. Because of the introduction of a bureaucratic

system in the eighth century, the Japanese writing system was fairly

standardised from the early times. The two sets of phonetic scripts,

hiragana and katakana, also helped to standardise the written language

whilst at the same time preserving differences in dialects in everyday life. Itis therefore suggested that despite the deep divide between the east and west

and the possibility of having two different major ethnic groups on the

mainland, people of Japan gradually began to share an awareness of

belonging to the same group during the medieval period.

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It is fair to conclude from the above discussion that these historians are

proposing an alternative answer to the question When was the Japanese

nation? to both modernist and perennialist approaches. The historians are

keen to point out that the awareness of being Japanese first emerged in the

eighth century, albeit among the tiny number of the ruling class, and spread

to the ordinary people during the Middle Ages. This consciousness was tied

to the notion of having the same government. Therefore, they refute the

modernists claim that the idea of Japan and being Japanese is just a modern

phenomenon. At the same time, they question the perennialists view that

the Japanese people as an entity has existed from time immemorial by

pointing out the plural nature of ancient and medieval Japan. What the

historians suggest is that being Japanese is not as natural and inevitable

as the perennialists would argue; awareness of being Japanese has emerged

a result of a long process of interaction amongst different peoples who lived

in Japan.

Conclusion

I have so far reviewed different views on the question When is the nation?

in the context of Scotland and Japan. My examination has demonstrated that

even in these old nations, the question When? is still contested precisely

because the answer is tied up with different visions of each nation. It is fair

to argue that the question weighs heavier in the Japanese case than in the

Scottish one because of the historical baggage the Japanese are carrying.

This essay has also shown that there have been some developments in

answering the question within the different paradigms, especially in the

form of works undertaken by some historians in both cases. However, thesedevelopments have not, I would argue, contributed to the deepening of our

holistic understanding of nations and nationalism because claims put

forward by scholars operating in different paradigms fail to engage with

each other. Whatever new insights are brought to light in one paradigm are

not addressed by scholars of different viewpoints. In the Scottish case, one

view holds that the Scottish nation was formed in the Middle Ages and

another that it was not formed until the arrival of industrialization in the

eighteenth century. In the Japanese case, there is a view that the Japanese

nation emerged long before the Middle Ages while others assert that it was

in the last half of the nineteenth century that the Japanese nation came into

existence. The reason why scholars are speaking past each other lies withthe old, familiar problem: the question What is a nation?. Since there is no

agreement on what a nation is, there is little common ground between

scholars of different viewpoints to engage with one another. Connor was

probably right in 1990 when he said that less attention had been paid to the


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question When than the question What, and was also right to call for

more research into the question When. Efforts that have been made since

then have revealed that the question When is dependent on the question

What, and therefore without further efforts to answer the latter, the quest

for the answer to the former will be a frustrating exercise.

It has also transpired that discussions of the question When in each

case cannot be divorced from political agendas of the participants. The

Scottish context is interesting in this respect since the perennialist

position that of the SNP for instance has accommodated the civic

vision of the Scottish nation. This has become necessary both because of

the prevailing idea that civic nationalism is good while ethnic nationalism

is bad, and because of the acceptance of the civic idea of nationhood by

main actors in Scotland. As a result, a claim for the oldness of the

Scottish nation is now sitting with a claim of inclusiveness and plurality,

not with a claim of purity of the nation. In the Japanese case, the

entanglement of the question with political agendas is even clearer; if oneaspires for a truly modern and democratic Japan, it is almost necessary to

adopt the modernist position. On the other hand, if one harbours doubts

on the post-war settlements, the perennialist position becomes irresistible.

Some of the historians, whose works have been discussed here, are also

engaged in the effort to present a different vision of Japan, civic and

inclusive, by concentrating their efforts on debunking the myth of

homogeneity of the Japanese people since a tolerant and pluralistic Japan

is a political aspiration for them.

So what can one expect from the question When is a nation?? As I

have pointed out earlier, unless the question What is a nation? is settled,

the question When cannot be fully answered. However, asking thequestion When can be the first step in formulating our theoretical

understanding of nationalism in two ways. Firstly, examining the

discussions of the question When will highlight the differences in

understanding formed concerning the question What. In this way it will

serve as a step forward in the pursuit of the answer to the question What.

Secondly, as demonstrated in this essay, exploring the question When in

each case can provide interesting insights into what role ideas of nationhood

and nationalism play in each setting. It is evident, too, that discussions of

nations and nationalism are taking place within certain parameters which

are set by what each society is dealing with at that particular moment of

history. Even academic debate cannot entirely escape these constraints, soby asking the question When, in this sense, can be the first step in

addressing perhaps the most important issue in the study of nations and

nationalism: Why is the nation?.

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NOTES

1. Part of this paper first appeared as When was the Nation?: the Scottish Case, ASENBulletin 17 (1999) pp.311.

2. Walker Connor, When is a Nation?,Ethnic Racial Studies 13/1 (Jan. 1990) pp.92103; a

similar point was again made in From Tribe to Nation?,History of European Ideas 13/12(1991) pp.518, reproduced in Walker Connor, Ethnonationalism: The Quest forUnderstanding (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press 1994), pp.21026

3. Scottish National Party, Scotland: A European Nation (Edinburgh: SNP 1992).4. For this rarely discussed but prevailing paradigm in history, political science and sociology

in Japan, see Takashi Yoshida, Nihon no tanjo (The Birth of Japan), (Tokyo: IwanamiShoten 1997); Yoshihiko Amino, Togoku to Saigoku, Kahoku to Kanan (The East Countryand the West Country, The North country and the South Country) in Yasunori Arano et al.(eds), Ajia no nakano nihonnshi IV: Chiiki to minzoku (Japanese History in Asia VI:

Regions and Ethnos) (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press 1992), pp. 23350; Teiji Monwaki,Nihonjin no keisei (The formation of the Japanese) in Arano et al. (eds), pp.128.

5. Connor, When is a Nation? (note 2).6. For theoretical discussion of these positions, see John Hutchinson, Modern Nationalism

(London: Fontana 1994) and Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism (London:Routledge 1998).

7. Ernest Gellner,Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1983), p.55.

8. It also follows that there is no post-modern nation since the nation is intrinsic to modernity.9. Ernest Gellner, Reply: Do nations have navels?, Nations and Nationalism 2/3 (1996)

pp.36670.10. Gellner,Nations and Nationalism (note 7) p.44.11. Eric Hobsbawm,Nations and Nationalism Since 1770: Programme, Myth, Reality (revised

edition) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1992) p.14.12. Ibid. pp.4679.

13. Ibid. p.47.14. Gellner,Nations and Nationalism (note 7) p.44.15. Tom Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism (second, expanded

edition) (London: New Left Books 1981), pp.1234.16. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of

Nationalism (revised edition) (London: Verso 1991) pp.8090.

17. William Ferguson, The Identity of the Scottish Nation: an Historic Quest (Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press 1998) p.19.18. Hugh Seton-Watson,Nations and States: An Enquiry into the Origins of Nations and the

Politics of Nationalism (London: Routledge 1979), pp.57.19. Ibid., pp.2142.20. Adrian Hasting, The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997) pp.701.21. Ibid., p.3, Seton-Watson (note 18) p.5.

22. Hasting (note 20) pp.701, Seton-Watson (note 18) p.26, Ferguson (note 17) p.13.23. Ferguson (note 17) p.25, Michael Lynch, Scotland: A New History (London: Pimlico 1992)

p.53.24. For an excellent account of the wars of independence, see Geoffrey Barrow,Robert Bruce

and the Community of Realm of Scotland(third edition) (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UniversityPress 1988).

25. Alexander Grant, Aspects of National Consciousness in Medieval Scotland in C Bjorn et

al. (eds), Nations, Nationalism and Patriotism in the European Past (Copenhagen:Academic Press 1994) pp.8695.

26. The Stone of Scone or Stone of Destiny on which successive Scottish kings werecrowned was taken to England by Edward I in the course of this raid. The Stone was, after700 years, returned to Scotland in November 1996.

27. Grant, Aspects of National Consciousness (note 25) pp.835.


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ichijo scottish nation

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