Gegenbilder. Nationale Identitäten durch Konstruktion des Anderen
Opladen: Leske + Budrich 1997
274 pp., DM 39,-; ISBN 3-81001895-3
National identities through constructions of the other
The nation state is fragile and stable/solid at the same time. Räthzel shows in several constructions of the German nation (in the beginning of the 1980s, 1990s and around 1995) how the generation of a threatening Other creates a contradictory structure of subordination and competence in those who are considered as a legitimate part of the nation. This structure creates social cohesion by excluding those others. This facilitates a new perspective on the founders of the German national idea and on nationalism and racism in the time of German fascism. The first chapters introduce the major theoretical frame - "cultural studies" (S. Hall) and W.F. Haug"s project of a theory of ideology. Räthzel then analyzes definitions and meanings of the nation in encyclopedias and in major thinkers, e.g. the question of "universalistic" and "particularist" nations. Further chapters use "discourses" in newspaper articles and laws as sources for analysis.
Keywords: nationalism and Germany, otherness and nationalism, alterity, social cohesion, exclusivism and nationalism
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