Nationalist State Transformation and Conflict (NASTAC)
Funded by the European Research Council, ERC Advanced Grant 2017
Members
Prof. Lars-Erik Cederman, Principal Investigator
Luc Girardin, IT expert
Carl Müller-Crepon, Postdoc
Yannick Pengl, Postdoc
Guy Schvitz, Postdoc
Dennis Atzenhofer, PhD student
Paola Galano Toro, PhD student
Roberto Valli, PhD student
Project summary
The NASTAC project analyzes how nationalism has transformed the state with respect to its outer shape, internal institutions and conflict behavior. The project has four main objectives, each one corresponding to a work package. While the first objective concerns state formation in Europe before the age of nationalism (Work Package 1), the second one addresses how nationalism reshaped the state both internally and externally, also in Europe (Work Package 2). The third objective broadens this analysis to the rest of the world after World War II, while keeping studying post-nationalist processes including power sharing (Work Package 3). During the reporting period, the project has focused especially on the fourth work package, which is related to the collection and processing of spatiotemporal data (Work Package 4).
Progress report (summer 2021)
So far, under the heading of the Work Package 4, the project team has collected new data and refined existing datasets on state and ethnic boundaries, conflict patterns and railroads, among other things. Considerable progress has been made along all these dimensions. The new datasets have enabled us to start addressing the analytical tasks. As regards Work Package 1, a new paper confirms Charles Tilly’s dictum that “war made the state, and the state made war” in early modern Europe. In connection with Work Package 2, two new papers study the size and shape respectively of states after the French Revolution. The papers offer evidence in line with the idea that nationalism has influenced the external dimensions of states. Further contributing to Work Package 2 but also to Work Package 3, our main research efforts concern the link between ethno-nationalist configurations and the outbreak of conflict. While the existing literature on nationalism has relatively little to say about the precise conditions under which nationalist politics trigger internal and interstate conflict, we have already been able to generate promising results showing that specific ethno-nationalist configurations, as well as adverse changes in the past can be linked to a higher risk of political violence. So far, we have found evidence pointing to interaction between internal and interstate conflicts. We have also been able to establish that those ethnic groups that were subjected to a loss of political power and/or unity are over-represented in our conflict statistics. Without questioning the fundamental modernity of contemporary nations, these findings rely on data that go far back in history, in fact as far back as 1100 AD. This analysis focuses primarily on Europe, but as suggested by the third objective, we are also considering the entire world based on more recent samples. We have also started studying the opposite direction of influence, that is how states are able to reshape ethnicity, not the least through violent repression and ethnic cleansing.
Book
Scientific publications
CShapes 2.0, see https://icr.ethz.ch/data/cshapes/.
EPR Dataset Family 2021, see https://icr.ethz.ch/data/epr/.