Ethnic boxes

The unintended consequences of Habsburg bureaucratic classification

Bibliographic Data

ID11047332
AuthorsRok Stergar (0000-0003-3453-576X, University of Ljubljana, corresponding author), Tamara Scheer (0000-0003-0954-6109, University of Vienna)
Year2018
Volume46
Issue4
Pages575-591
Publication date2018-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNationalities Papers (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-5992 • E-ISSN: 1465-3923
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1080/00905992.2018.1448374
PMID29932174
OpenAlexW2807265271
LanguageEN
Citations received37
References cited45

The classificatory efforts that accompanied the modernization of the Habsburg state inadvertently helped establish, promote, and perpetuate national categories of identification, often contrary to the intentions of the Habsburg bureaucracy. The state did not create nations, but its classification of languages made available some ethnolinguistic identity categories that nationalists used to make political claims. The institutionalization of these categories also made them more relevant, especially as nationalist movements simultaneously worked toward the same goal. Yet identification with a nation did not follow an algorithmic logic, in the beginning of the twentieth century, sometimes earlier, various nationalisms could undoubtedly mobilize large numbers of people in Austria-Hungary, but people still had agency and nationness remained contingent and situational

Bureaucracy · Ethnic group · Political science · Unintended consequences · Balkans: History, Politics, Society · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · Law

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