Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- General introduction
- Part I Demography, and the health of the nation
- Part II Economic Transition
- Part III Social transition: state, society, individual and nation
- 9 Authority and representation: the citizen and the state
- 10 Education and welfare: empowerment and protection
- 11 Loyal subjects: state formation and nation formation
- 12 Social groups
- General conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
11 - Loyal subjects: state formation and nation formation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- General introduction
- Part I Demography, and the health of the nation
- Part II Economic Transition
- Part III Social transition: state, society, individual and nation
- 9 Authority and representation: the citizen and the state
- 10 Education and welfare: empowerment and protection
- 11 Loyal subjects: state formation and nation formation
- 12 Social groups
- General conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Internal colonization: the osmosis of state and nation
Nationalism and national identity are once more at the top of our agenda, while state formation has been there for some time. State building is to do with structures in international and national law, constitutions, and infrastructure; the second, nation building, is more to do with culture and consciousness, with sentiment and perception. Nation and state are not the same, but in the course of the nineteenth century the two grew towards each other, and as the state expanded the citizen began to identify more with the state through the nation; ‘nationalism’ can therefore be seen as the desire to achieve confluence between state and nation. Once the structure of the state is externally determined, attempts are made to realise the new structure internally as well as externally. Especially in a country with such strong traditions of local particularism as the Netherlands, there were considerable reactions against the imposition of a centralized state unity, and successive governments found it necessary to penetrate society by reforms in government, law, finance, infrastructure and defence. In order to make these reforms which intruded upon local positions acceptable and permanent, in the words of Coen Tamse and Els Witte, governments pursued ‘a nation-building policy through education, use of a national language, an Erastian church policy, control of the press, army recruitment, and patronage’. The Patriot Movement of the late eighteenth century, and especially the Batavian Republic of 1795–1806, made vigorous attempts in this direction.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- An Economic and Social History of the Netherlands, 1800–1920Demographic, Economic and Social Transition, pp. 281 - 298Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000