A common law of nations’

Giuseppe Mazzini's democratic nationality

Bibliographic Data

ID12548748
AuthorsNadia Urbinati (0000-0002-1207-3181, Princeton University, corresponding author)
Year1996
Volume1
Issue2
Pages197-222
Publication date1996-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Modern Italian Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1354-571X • E-ISSN: 1469-9583
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13545719608454915
OpenAlexW2083003759
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited15

The aim of this article is to analyse the theoretical origins and character of Giuseppe Mazzini's idea of the nation and the wider tensions within nationalist thinking. In particular I will ground Mazzini's idea of national self‐determination on his distinction between rights and duties and finally his republican (and in this sense political, not ethnic) view of the nation‐people. It will emerge that, even if Mazzini shared a voluntaristic idea of the nation, he none the less had a clear perception that the argument of popular consensus needed to be limited (and legitimated) by normative principles, which for him were true democratic principles. Mazzini's originality and modernity lay in his capacity to avoid being a universalist in the old cosmopolitan sense without becoming a relativist. He faced the tension between universality and national identity by making the former concrete and inclusive: universality meant humanity which revealed itself through and within each nation, and was synonymous with democracy. Democracy at home is the premise for democracy abroad: this is Mazzini's legacy

Democracy · Epistemology · Immigration · Modernity · National identity · Nationalism · Nationality · Political science · Politics · Premise · Sociology · European Political History Analysis · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory

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