Nationalism is primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent' (Gellner 2006: 128, 1). This thesis argues that this ideal of congruency - a unification of individuals and a congruency of a 'people' with space and authority - has become a leitmotif in our contemporary modes of thought, often rendered concomitant to liberal democracy, security, peace and modernity. Congruent societies, whether defined as 'nation-states' or otherwise, are assumed to be the optimal unit in the 'modern international'. In this thesis, I suggest reading the congruent society as a 'fantasy', a multifaceted discourse that makes our world intelligible by carving it into imagined congruent socio-political units. The congruent society is a fantasy, indeed a fantasmatic project, in that it offers a certain 'fullness to come', the promise of jouissance, that can never be attained and is thus constantly reenvisioned and re-invoked. It is an impossible yet always-desired attempt to mask the void of society, to stabilise the contingency of social life. Furthermore, this thesis offers a genealogical inquiry into the conditions of emergence of the congruent society fantasy from early-modernity to our contemporary regime of congruency. Reading genealogy as a 'history of the present', this thesis problematises and denaturalises our contemporary regime of congruency by interrogating the myriad discursive practices that constitute and legitimate the fantasy of congruency.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:616642 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Mandelbaum, Moran M. |
| Publisher | University of Bristol |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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