The Nation/State Fantasy: A Psychoanalytical Genealogy Of Nationalism

Description

This book explores the origins of nationalism and the ideal of nation/state congruency since early-modern European thought, their transformation over time and endurance in contemporary political thought and IR theory. The author deploys a Lacanian-psychoanalytical reading of nationalism and the nation/state that goes beyond methodological nationalism and state-centrism critiques. He offers a genealogical inquiry into the emergence of the nation/state congruency ideal, thus exposing and problematising the practices that render nationalism and the ideal of the nation/state necessary. Offering a new way to read the ontology and epistemology of the nation/state, this work will be of interest to students and scholars of nations and nationalism, political thought, critical international relations and critical security studies. Front Matter ....Pages i-x Introduction: Problematising the Present (Moran M. Mandelbaum)....Pages 1-39 The Nation/State Fantasy: From Gellner to Lacan (Moran M. Mandelbaum)....Pages 41-65 The State as One: The ‘Union of Men’, the ‘People’ and the ‘State’ in Early Modernity (Moran M. Mandelbaum)....Pages 67-94 The Fragmentation of the State as Modality of Unity and the Rise of the Fantasy of Nation/State Congruency (Moran M. Mandelbaum)....Pages 95-126 Fantasies of Nationalism: Between Nation/State Dialectic and Liberal Thought (Moran M. Mandelbaum)....Pages 127-162 The Nation/State Fantasy and the Production of the ‘International’ in IR Theory (Moran M. Mandelbaum)....Pages 163-186 Back to the Present: The Contemporaneous Re-homogenisation of the ‘International’ (Moran M. Mandelbaum)....Pages 187-216 Conclusions: Engaging with the Ethico-Political (Moran M. Mandelbaum)....Pages 217-232 Back Matter ....Pages 233-236