Nation and Nationalism in Anthony Smith’s Criticism :A case study of Iran

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Tehran

2 Ph.d. student in Political Science, University of Tehran

Abstract

Nationalism and modernism, and the relationship between them have instigated much controversy among different schools of thoughts, and scholars. Indeed nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been dubbed as the era of nationalism, and the development of different forms of extremist nationalism during this era has triggered many debates and controversies around the concepts such as nation, nationalism, and their relationship with modernism. Iran is no exception regarding this controversy, and numerous questions have been raised about the concepts of nation and nationalism and, particularly, the exact time of the formation of these concepts in Iran. This paper attempts to examine the ideas and standings of perennialists, modernists, and Anthony Smith and also nationalists and modernists, and we examine which of these perspectives could provide a framework for investigating nation and nationalism in Iran. The idea of this Article is: “while modernists consider nation and nationalism to be an outcome of the dramatic changes in the modern era, and perennialists consider them to be a product of history, Anthony Smith sees nation as a function of history and nationalism a product of modernism.” Furthermore, his ideas in historical sociology can be summed as an appropriate approach to studying these notions in the context of Iran.”

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