Critical Reveiw Essay Andrew Heywood 2002

In this essay I will be critically reviewing Heywood, Andrew. 2002. What is a nation? In Politics. London: Macmillan: 106-11. I am arguing that Heywoods views the nation as a psycho political construct. He argues that the nation is made up of subjective and objective factors. While he acknowledges the objective factors which are cultural characteristics he states that “ultimately, nations can only be defined subjectively by its members.” Heywood (2002, 106)
Heywood identifies that the term “Nation” is made up of a mixture of objective and subjective features. These are cultural and political characteristics. He likens them to Nations of political communities and cultural communities.
Cultural community as a nation emphasises the importance of ethnic ties and loyalties. The nations are determined by its natural environment, climate, physical geography, which shaped the lifestyles, working habits, attitudes and creative propensities of a people. These nations are made up of ethnic groups that share a common cultural heritage and language. The members of this community view themselves as an extended kinship groups distinguished by common descent membership is inherited through ethnic identity.

Political community as a nation; highlights the significance of civil bonds and allegiances. People bound together by shared citizenship. It is an imagined community based on the idea of common values and a constitution which the members of this community share and develop. The national identity that they create is conscious and fostered through cultivation of respect for the common values and institutions that uphold them.

The first time I read the reading I was persuaded towards the notion of nations existing as an ‘imagined community’. I think this is intended by Heywood because of how the text is laid out. At first glance the reading looks aimed at students. The concept explanation side bars indicates that there is not much assumed knowledge of the readers behalf. The progression through the reading informs but I believe intentionally builds up the argument for the existence of cultural nations so that it can be dismantled later. He emphasises that the cultural nation concept is based primarily on language then later calling it ‘absurd’.
He aims to acknowledge that cultural nations exist but “nationalism itself creates nations. Not the other way around.” Heywood (2002, 109) While explaining Nations as political communities he points out that the “the idea of ‘mother tongue’ passed down from generation to generation and embodying the national culture is highly questionable.” Heywood (2002,109) He emphasised the importance of language while describing cultural nations. He goes on to describe “the notion of a national language as an absurdity.” Heywood (2002, 109) and later explains that until the 19th century most people didn’t know how to read their own language and spoke their own dialects which were different from their ruling elites.
I think the idea that we are supposed to develop about nations and nationalism from the reading is that even though ethnic groups and more largely cultural communities make up nations and some nations have a more cultural than political character, Is that it is ultimately an imagined community because the individuals within the community only meet a fraction of the people face to face. As Heywood puts it “If nations exist, they exist as imagined artifices, constructed for us through education, the mass media and a process of political socialisation.” Heywood (2002, 109)

In conclusion Heywood acknowledges cultural nations but rejects that culture is the origin of the nation. He clearly favours the idea of the nation as ‘imagined communities’ and describes them as a psycho-political construct and I found it to be a convincing argument.

REFERENCE:
Heywood, Andrew. 2002. What is a nation? In Politics. London: Macmillan: 106-11