Strategies of Symbolic Nation-Building in South Eastern Europe

The postcommunist transitions and wars of the 1990s pose daunting challenges to the former Yugoslav Republics and Albania—namely, how to foster a sense of common identity and unity, and how to link this to the state. Strategies of Symbolic Nation-Building in South Eastern Europe aims to map and analyse the various nation-building strategies employed by political leaders to achieve this aim. It does not focus on the structural economic and political preconditions for nation-building, such as unemployment rates and institutions, but on its symbolic aspects. Pål Kolst⊘ argues that in the nation-building projects of the newly independent countries of the Western Balkans, the symbolic aspects of nation-building play a much more central role than socioeconomic and political processes and structures. To assess these highlighted aspects coherently, four parameters of the identity controversy in Southeastern Europe are advanced: religious culture, ethnic culture, historical imagination, and geographical imagination. These parameters find expression in ‘containers of symbolism’ such as commemorations, public holidays, and the renaming of streets.

This study goes beyond a thorough qualitative analysis of each state’s nationbuilding efforts. In September 2011, IPSOS Strategic Marketing conducted a survey based on a representative sample of 1,500 respondents per country. The survey consisted of 13 general questions and several country-specific ones. The results of the survey were made available to all contributors in advance. The aim of the survey was to assess popular attitudes towards the state and its symbols and, ultimately, to establish the success of symbolic nationbuilding strategies. A point-based loyalty index was devised on the basis of the answers, to determine the results of political leaders’ nation-building efforts. Although Albania and Kosovo rank bottom when it comes to socioeconomic circumstances, they both come top of the charts on loyalty. The discrepancies between structural preconditions and the loyalty index lead to the assertion that structural preconditions are ultimately less important than active symbolic strategies. Backed by the survey results, the authors argue that the state is indeed capable of moulding peoples into nations, and that ‘nation-building may decisively influence the design of a country and the destiny of peoples’ (241).

Problematically, Kolst⊘’s novel approach does, however, presuppose that each political leader has a clear vision of nation-building that is then subsequently transmitted unambiguously to the entire population. The impact of the variable, and often contradictory, developments of nation-building strategies in the Balkans since the 1990s is diffuse and difficult to gauge. The problems of measuring the results of these changeable strategies are not identified properly by the authors. A flaw of relying on a one-time survey is the difficulty of ascertaining whether support has increased or decreased over time because of a particular nation-building strategy, whereas the contributions indicate that support has frequently fluctuated. Furthermore, ignoring political colour in the survey questions means that the frequent split in popular views on national symbols and narratives along ideological lines is not incorporated. This means that finding out ‘on which specific issues the population shares the nation visions pursued by the state authorities’ (18) is not as straightforward as it may seem.

The book consists of one chapter per case study (all the post-Yugoslav states except for Slovenia, plus Albania) written by researchers from various disciplines. Each chapter assesses the nation-building strategies that have been pursued and tries to break down the support for specific symbols and controversial issues. Historian Vjeran Pavlaković focuses on how Croatian society has reacted to the top-down construction of historical and war narratives alongside symbolical repertoires and commemoration practices. He manages to integrate thorough analysis of national symbols and national narratives with results from the survey to assess whether Croatians agree or disagree with their leaders’ views. Analysis of public discourse, as well as political and commemorative speeches, shows both the efforts to rehabilitate the fascist past of Croatia and its failures. Unlike unifying narratives of the Independence War or the medieval Croatian kingdom, nation-building based on the Second World War remains divided along ideological fault lines. The right-wing Croatian Democratic Union (Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica, HDZ) and its supporters tend to favour revisionism, whereas the left-wing Social Democratic Party of Croatia (Socijaldemokratska PartijaHrvatske, SDP) and its voters are uncritical of partisan-based narratives. However, in contrast to politically loaded symbols related to the fascist Croatian past, symbols, commemorative practices and narratives based on the Middle Ages or the wars of the 1990s are overwhelmingly supported by the Croatian population.

Sociologist Ana Dević analyses Bosnia-Herzegovina, which has by far the lowest loyalty score. As expected, the surveys show that ethnicity determines loyalty to the state and that religion, history, ethnic symbols, and language play divisive roles. However, Dević argues for taking the multiple loyalties of Bosnians—to their village, ethnicity, and Bosnia, as well as at the micro-level—seriously. Along with incorporating the existence of popular overarching symbols, it allows a much more fine-tuned and de-ethicized framework of analysis. Applying Rogers Brubaker’s concept of ‘ethnic engineers’, she shows how political and religious elites’ ethnic framing of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s territory and politics prevents both individual freedom and coming to terms with the past as well as the present.

Cecilie Endresen states that nation-building in Albania has proven, after a century, to be very successful. The population largely holds the same views on the nation’s history, heroes, symbols, and identity. Although religious differences could in theory undermine the nation-building process, political cleavages are determined by ideology and geographical differences. Rather strangely, Endresen does not address the high degree of ethnic homogeneity as a causal factor for Albania’s strong national identity, instead pointing to the fruits of decades of continuous nation-building.

In their conclusion, Kolst⊘ and Vatroslav Jelovica state that ethnicity plays a pivotal role in successful nation-building and is always crucial in the acceptance of top-down constructions of the nation. The authors argue that the pursuit of a symbolic nation-building strategy is, however, fundamental for the success of the respective nation-building project, despite conceding that symbolic policies often reflect, rather than shape, popular sentiment. Although ethnicity is indeed linked to most controversial issues regarding the nation, this is in turn reinforced by the survey questions. They all pertain to symbols, histories, commemorations, and narratives that are strongly tied to ethnicity. Also, this decisive issue is approached disparately. Endresen fails to acknowledge the importance of ethnicity, whereas the chapter on Macedonia does not manage to go beyond the ethnic dichotomy between Albanians and Macedonians, depicting two mutually exclusive nation-building processes without attention to common ground or civic nation-building. Following Dević’s example of focusing on overarching and more ‘civic’ aspects of nation-building as well as the de-ethicized micro-level could provide more interesting results that do not naturally reflect popular ethnic sentiments.

Yet Strategies of Symbolic Nation-Building in South Eastern Europe remains an innovative study. It pioneers a method to gauge the resonance of state-instilled identity construction, although its usage and analysis of the survey data need further improvement. The comparative method allows for thoughtful analysis of factors contributing to the success of nation-building. However, its disparate approach to ethnicity, which is identified as crucial to success, undermines its comparative method. Nevertheless, the contributions are of good quality and provide a fascinating read for both students and scholars of Southeastern Europe and nation-building in general, and will inspire further research looking beyond top-down perspectives on nation-building.