Symbologies, technologies, and identities: Critical junctures theory and the multi-layered nation–state

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Review

Symbologies, technologies, and identities: Critical junctures theory and the multi-layered nation–state夽 James H. Liu a,∗ , Nora Fisher Onar b , Mark W. Woodward c a Centre for Applied Cross Cultural Research, School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand b Bahcesehir University, Istanbul, Turkey c Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 21 August 2014 Accepted 25 August 2014 Keyword: Critical junctions theory

a b s t r a c t Critical junctures theory draws from complexity theory/dynamical systems theory to investigate how ethnically, religiously and ideologically defined communities interact and coexist within and between states defined on the basis of Westphalian principles. States are theorized as dynamical political systems identified by three system parameters: (1) a symbology—systems of symbolic meaning attached to and promoted by the state, (2) an identity space—the groups and group identities that vie for legitimacy and control of state apparatuses, and (3) a set of technologies—the institutions and technological means used by the state to maintain and reproduce itself. The system is thought to be located in an international political geography that provides initial starting conditions and system constraints. The system parameters are viewed as a family of variables rather than a single measure, and their operation is contingent upon specific actualizing conditions consistent with the philosophy of critical realism: this allows for both quantitative hypothesis–testing research and qualitative–hermeneutical work under a unified theoretical framework. The theory is illustrated by a Special Issue that spans historical case studies of Singapore and Turkey, history textbook analyses of the European Union, interviewing the institutional role of history teachers in transmitting Estonian national identity, the transformative ideological work of biblical narratives in Israeli state-building, and several papers that illustrate how social psychological phenomena can be located within the historical trajectories of evolving states. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents 1. 2. 3. 4.

Complexity theory: A dynamical systems approach to the study of changing states . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Epistemological basis of critical junctures theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Critical junctures theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Operationalizing system parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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夽 The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Dr. Chan-Hoong Leong, who helped to action-edit two papers in this Special Issue. We acknowledge funding support from the Asian Office of aerospace Research & Development for our project on “Reconfiguring the Nation: Contesting History and Identity in a Globalizing World”. ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.H. Liu). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2014.08.012 0147-1767/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Liu, J. H., et al. Symbologies, technologies, and identities: Critical junctures theory and the multi-layered nation–state. International Journal of Intercultural Relations (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2014.08.012

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4.1. State symbologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2. Identity spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3. Technologies of state . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Grand theory in history and the social sciences as epitomized by the works of Weber, Marx, Hegel, or Parsons has largely been abandoned. At one level, this is a healthy corrective to totalizing, linear, hegemonic meta-narratives from Eurocentrism to patriarchy (Said, 1979). At another level, social scientists have sacrificed generalization in favor of reflection on and analysis of specificity in both qualitative and quantitative ways. Globally, social systems are increasingly complex and interconnected (Ritzer, 2011); yet generally speaking, discipline specific scholarship fails to theorize interaction between the global, the national and the local. This is the result of disciplinary compartmentalization and methodological exclusivism that leads scholars to reject findings based on methods other than their own, without due consideration of their implications for addressing larger issues. The upshot is that academic disciplines speak past one another, at the very time when societies are increasingly interconnected. There is a tangible need for a return to grand theory that transcends disciplinary orthodoxy, and hones in on the nexus between the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels. Without such a framework, we are hard pressed to address what is arguably the outstanding empirical and normative research question facing the social sciences today: How, in a converging but fragmenting world can communities coexist within and between states defined on the basis of Westphalian principles1 . This question is especially relevant for the study of nations, nationalisms and inter-state relations—phenomena at the heart of the ongoing transition from post-imperial, Westphalian models of the state toward a globalizing but also fragmenting world in which non-state actors ranging from NGOs to trans-national religious movements, diasporas and supra-national structures such as the European Union are increasingly significant (Rosenau, 1997). In this context, different layers, and multiple agents are contesting for legitimacy. On one hand, there is an emerging social, economic, and political order—driven by information technology and global capitalism characterized by convergence and the collapse of time and space. This is leading to increased contacts and interdependence as well as catalyzing mutual engagement and perhaps mutual recognition (Fisher Onar & Paker, 2012). It suggests we could be moving toward a global (Hermans & Dimaggio, 2007; Ritzer, 2009) or cosmopolitan order (Beck & Sznaider, 2006; Nussbaum, 1994). At the same time, the very same processes and technologies are creating diversity and fragmentation, and heightening friction between individuals and groups thrown together despite their very basic distrust and dislike of one another’s preferences and values (Arnett, 2002). This is evident in the proliferation of postmodern tribalisms, fundamentalisms, micro-nationalisms, and identity formations that cut across these (Appadurai, 1998). A case in point is the way the emergence of a multi-centered world system and the persistent lure of Europe and North America as destinations for immigrants from the global periphery have together created anxieties fuelling the emergence of far right, even nativist movements such as the British Defense League in England and the Tea Party in the US. The role played by new technologies is highlighted by events such as the Utoya massacre in Norway where the internet provided gunman Andres Breivik, with an “imagined community” that affirmed his world-view of a nation under threat by immigration. The technology of the state conceived by Anderson (1983) must now meet the challenge of containing the technologies undermining the state and/or weakening its sovereign power. The analytic framework presented in this paper emanates from complexity theory, also known as dynamical systems theory, in its dual forms as a scientific paradigm (Vallacher, Coleman, Nowak, & Bui-Wrzosinska, 2010; Geyer & Pickering, 2011) and as a metaphorical system of explanation (Bousquet & Curtis, 2011; Lehmann, 2012). It combines ontology/epistemology and tools/methodology in ways that can help us address some of the critical questions of our times across disciplines and cultural geographies. Specifically, we employ complexity theory to (1) bridge the macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of the world and state, institutions and groups, and individuals, and (2) bridge disciplines that address common issues from the perspectives of alternative paradigms. The key as we see it is to not reduce the complexity of states as dynamical systems to a single, overly simplistic system of measurement or explanation, but to create a framework that sustains the integration of multiple perspectives and multiple modes of inquiry within a coherent analytical and discursive system. Complexity theory is especially relevant for and under-utilized in the study of this emerging post-Westphalian global order. Gellner (as cited in Hall, 1998) spoke of the need for a theoretical apparatus that captured rather than bracketed complexity, but there is a dearth of such studies on nationalisms and inter-state relations. This is surprising given its application in adjacent areas like social theory (e.g. Buckley, 1998) security (e.g. Clemens, 2001), and international relations (e.g. Kavalski, 2007) as well as many others (Capoccia & Kelemen, 2007). The toolkit emanating from complexity theory also has been influential in theorizing path dependence (e.g. Pierson, 2000; Mahoney, 2000) and is congruent with much work in historical institutionalism from epic macro-historical accounts a la Barrington Moore, Charles Tilly, Theda Skocpol, and Stein Rokkan, to case studies that borrow from notions like critical junctures, increasing returns, sequencing, tipping points, and lock-in. However, as Capoccia and Kelemen (2007) note, these instruments are all too often invoked as deus ex machina without systematic reflection about their epistemological foundations.

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Where each state has sovereign power within its territorial boundaries.

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Our work emanates from the view that complexity theory has much to offer students of nations, nationalisms and the ways in which they are related to emerging global social and political orders. The nation as a form of socio-political organization is nearly universal and is, at the same time, historically contingent (Smith, 1995). Nationalisms are the ideology and meaning-making systems that sustain nations and the socio-political entities that transcend and contain them. They are part of adaptive complex systems for managing politics at the nexus of the global, regional, and local in our era and those adjacent to it. Theorizing these complex systems requires transcending traditional disciplines (including political science) that privilege the macro-level of states and interstate relations, sociology and anthropology that privilege the meso-level of institutions and groups, and psychology that privileges the micro-level of individuals. And it requires careful attention to historical processes unfolding in time. The nation–state based global order is the product of cross-cutting historic processes including the transitions from empire to state under conditions of modernity (Anderson, 1983; Smith, 1998). At the same time, each nation–state and nationalism emerged under specific and unique conditions that continue to impact their current trajectories (Liu & Hilton, 2005). Nationalisms emerged, not just from the politics of empire, but also from local, culturally specific visions and the agency of leaders who imagined the post-colonial before it came to be. 1. Complexity theory: A dynamical systems approach to the study of changing states In this paper we develop an application of complexity theory for the study of the politics of states, as identified by three system parameters: symbologies, as institutionalized meaning systems including narratives, symbols and rituals that establish the legitimacy (and primacy) of the state in religious or ideological ways, technologies including state expenditures on the military, police intelligence systems, and public schooling that promote conformity with state symbologies, and the identity space that includes face to face and imagined communities that support, contest for, or elude state symbologies and technologies. We move toward grand theory and explore the historical trajectories tracking the evolution of the state as a complex system over time, hypothesizing the existence of certain critical junctures at which the system has the potential to make a transition from one pattern of relations between the system parameters to another (Vallacher et al., 2010). There are many possible critical junctures, only a few of which actualize as rupture—a sticky (or relatively permanent) system change. One of the most dramatic ruptures in recent times was the transition from a world dominated by empires to one dominated by nation–states (Hobsbawm, 1987, 1994). Such epoch-making, trans-national events such as the World Wars will be reflected in any given state’s system parameters, but cannot be reduced to them; therefore, we conceptualize states as open rather than closed systems located in a greater international political geography emerging from the allied triumph in WWII. More typically, there is system stability, as the international political geography wherein a given state functions can be thought to supply initial starting conditions, and system constraints (e.g., borders, law) supported by the international community at the macro and meso-levels (Cederman, 1997), and by such social psychological phenomena as the anchoring of new information in existing social representations (Moscovici, 1961/2008), in-group favoring biases that reify existing social identities (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), stereotypes and social hierarchies (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) at the meso- and micro-levels. Critical junctures theory attempts to identify stable versus unstable societal systems in terms of both post-hoc explanations, and predictive theory. We employ complexity theory because it provides an alternative to the Newtonian world of fixed variables where change is linear and systems operate in regular and predictable ways. Complexity theory provides an alternative conception where change is non-linear and systems can behave in a chaotic manner (Vallacher & Nowak, 1994). It bridges the micro, meso, and macro with concepts such as fractals and sensitive dependence on initial conditions and thus does not entail a zero-sum trade-off between systems—thinking and attentiveness to particularity. Our application of complexity theory avoids the difficulty of adjudicating agency and structure by conceptualizing the state as a dynamical system consisting of individuals, institutions, and collectivities interacting with one another (see Geyer & Pickering, 2011; Smith & Conrey, 2007), but also viewing individuals as agents of institutions that supply them with top-down structural constraints and affordances. Individuals can be change agents acting in the name of groups intent on overthrowing, capturing or altering state symbologies and technologies (Archer, 1995). They can also use group aspirations to foster their own imaginations of what social and political reality should or must become. Examples of such individual agency range from Gandhi to Stalin. Applications of complexity theory can bridge or at least broker conversations between positivists and interpretivists—what Archer and Tritter (2000) refer to as objectivism and subjectivism. Case studies illuminating different aspects of the system can use quantitative modeling and causal claims, but can also include studies where the system is employed more as a metaphor or set of discourses whose value is in explanatory coherence (Bruner, 1990) rather than causal prediction or modeling (see Klar, this issue; Mols & Jetten, this issue). This is because the theory makes no universal claims about one-to-one causal links between variables, but rather makes theorizing about empirically observed regularities contingent on mediating historical conditions (“actuality”), following a philosophy of critical realism (Bhaskar, 2008). 2. Epistemological basis of critical junctures theory The theoretical system proposed is consistent with the post-positivist philosophy of critical realism, as detailed by Roy Bhaskar (1998, 2008) (see DeSouza, 2014 for a summary). According to critical realism, reality is stratified into three domains: Please cite this article in press as: Liu, J. H., et al. Symbologies, technologies, and identities: Critical junctures theory and the multi-layered nation–state. International Journal of Intercultural Relations (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2014.08.012

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the surface layer of empirical observations (particularly scientific observations under controlled conditions), the second, mediating layer of the actual, which is the open system of what actually happened in time and across space, and the deep domain of the real, that comprises structures, “powers” and generative mechanisms, which exist as natural or social objects in nature—the deep ontological layer (of being). Bhaskar (2008) allows for the reality of social as well as biological or physical objects (e.g., Durkheim’s social facts). The endeavor of science according to critical realism is to delve from the empirical layer through the actual to the domain of the real: to identify the generative powers or structures that are the ontological cause of empirically observed phenomena. But because there are three stratified and overlapping layers of reality in critical realism (rather than one as in conventional empiricism or two as in Kantian or Platonic idealism), this allows for historical or cultural contingency and individual or cultural agency in moving from empirical observations to generating and testing theory about reality. The domain of the actual provides conditions under which particular generative powers may or may not manifest or “actualize” themselves; this gives rise to the idea that the historical trajectories of states in time are contingent, or depend on socially constructing actualities, including psychological concepts and socially constructed institutions (Liu & Hilton, 2005). Given the constraints and contingencies of the domain of the actual that is intermediate between empirical observation and generative (or causal) reality, there is less commitment to critical tests (i.e. falsification) of theory in critical realism. Rather, an evolving process of research is advocated. Margaret Archer (1995, 1996) extended Bhaskar’s philosophy to social theory. According to Archer, critical realism emphasizes that diachronic and synchronic analysis should take place in concert: diachronic analyses examine how certain ideas came to prevail in certain contexts (cultural conditioning), those people or groups that advocated these ideas, what opponents these ideas have encountered in the past and in the present (socio-cultural interaction). Synchronic analysis aims to understand what sustains a state of stability or cultural reproduction. Putting these together enables theories of transformation and change. Realist social theory examines the interplay between ideas (or representations, see Moscovici, 1961/2008) and the people or groups of people who hold these ideas as both individuals and representatives of collectivities or institutions (e.g., cultural agents, exemplified by their social identities, see Tajfel & Turner, 1979). The various facilitating and inhibiting properties of different historical moments, cultural environments, and institutional/cultural/individual actors are explored, tested, refined, and confirmed. 3. Critical junctures theory In critical junctures theory, the state is conceptualized as a dynamical system characterized by three families of variables: (1) state symbologies—the meaning systems used to establish its legitimacy. (2) Identity space—the groups and associated identities within and between states that contest for legitimacy and control of state technology. (3) Technologies of state—the institutions and technological means used by the state to indoctrinate citizens and reproduce itself. The state may attempt to capture all the available technologies of production and control, but even the most totalitarian states have not succeeded in capturing the totality of available technologies. The system parameters in our theory stand in for “generative powers” as posited by Bhaskar (2008) as the primarily ontological commitment of the theory. We recognize that it is impossible to reduce such broad parameters of human social systems to a single number (as can be achieved in the study of physical systems2 ). Therefore, we conceptualize each of our system parameters as a set of variables that can be operationalized differently in different studies, but nevertheless bear a family resemblance to one another. We define an historical trajectory as the movement of the system in time as indicated by the three system parameters (however they are operationalized within a particular case study). The interplay between the system parameters tracks the evolution of the state as a social system in time: a virtue of complexity theory is that complex phenomena can be seen to emerge from analysis of the interplay between simple elements (Vallacher & Nowak, 1994). Because we conceive each of our system parameters as a family of variables, in critical junctures theory there may be multiple instantiations of an historical trajectory for a dynamical system over a single period of time. To compare similarities and differences in these historical trajectories is to search for explanatory coherence; it does not entail ontological commitment to causal factors. This is not to say that a model of the causes of this trajectory could not be constructed (see Cederman, 2007; Geyer & Pickering, 2011; Smith & Conrey, 2007), but we are not ontologically committed to privileging such an account above more interpretivist approaches. We rather favor the use of multiple methods leading to explanatory coherence, as we are a long way from being able to provide a causal account of the historical trajectory of a state by mathematical equations or computer simulations. Our basic premise is that an observed pattern, even if it can be attributed as the outcome of a cause-and-effect sequence, may be historically contingent on actualizing conditions (Archer, 1995; Bhaskar, 2008) that facilitate the operation of that causal factor. An obvious example of such a time-bound pattern is nationalism: around the world today it exerts causal effects on behavior, but three hundred years ago its effects were far less prevalent or pronounced (see Smith, 1998; Anderson, 1983). One way that historical contingency can be handled is through a second major concept, that of attractors. Vallacher et al. (2010) define an attractor as “a subset of potential states or patterns of change to which a system’s behavior converges over

2 In classical dynamical systems theory, each system parameter would be characterized by a single measure, and the system trajectory would be operationalized by longitudinal measures of the three measures accumulated over time. Underlying the apparently chaotic nature of many of these trajectories would be a system of differential equations (e.g., a “causal” theory) involving feedback from the previous system state.

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Fig. 1. Lorenz attractor.

time. Metaphorically, an attractor “attracts” the system’s behavior, so that even very different starting states tend to evolve toward the subset of states defining the attractor” (p. 265). One of the most famous attractors is Lorenz’ (1963) “butterfly effect” from his computer simulation of weather patterns. Meteorologists have long puzzled over how difficult it is to predict weather patterns over extended periods of time. Lorenz put together a system of differential equations incorporating feedback from the system’s previous state, and his computer program produced radically different outcomes in different computing runs simply because of a rounding error. The two wings of the “butterfly” attractors shown in Fig. 1 represent radically different weather patterns. Feedback through a complex system amplifies tiny initial differences a thousand-fold, making weather patterns chaotic and unpredictable even if they are generated by a simple system of deterministic equations. How much more so social and societal phenomena? An attractor, therefore, is a pattern or historical trajectory to which the parameters of a system converge at particular windows in time. For example, the three system parameters may take a variety of historical trajectories that all converge toward a pattern characterizing the nation–state attractor, with group identities and state symbologies combining with uses of technology to produce a sovereign state with relatively interchangeable citizens that consider themselves different than people in other states. Prior to World War I, however, empires were powerful as competing attractors (Hobsbawm, 1987). For much of the 19th and 20th century, empires and states competed and co-existed, with that most chaotic of events, warfare, being an important cause of transitions between them (Ferguson, 2002). A major outstanding question is whether the same set of causal factors can explain the formation and stability of both of them (Smith, 1998), and what is the nature of the transitions, or critical junctures between them. At present, there are numerous constraints exerted by an international community (including the United Nations, the World Bank, and other states) that only deals with states as actors. They often assume the state as an actor, even in cases where it is not, as in the case of “failed states”, or in a state of civil war. Thus, at the present historical moment, multiple causal influences at both the individual and group level predispose societies to settle on forms of governance that look state-like (especially from the outside!). For analytical purposes, we operationalize states according to territory: generally national boundaries, accepting that in some cases, this may be inadequate. The third concept we employ are the related ideas of a singularity, a rupture, and most generally, a critical juncture. We employ the term singularity to refer to global events of such magnitude – such as the World Wars – that they shift the entire global system into a new possibility space, eventually eliminating empires as attractors (see Hobsbawm, 1987, 1994 for an epic historical account). In the language of critical realism (Bhaskar, 2008; Archer, 1995), the actualizing conditions for the formation of large scale political entities were radically reconfigured by the two World Wars. It was with WWI that the nation–state and nationalism began to acquire hegemonic resonance. It became a universal attractor, even if only as an aspiration for many people on the planet. WWII pushed the process forward in what turned out to be an irreversible manner by making the most powerful of empires, the British, unable or unwilling to maintain itself, and by destroying many its rivals (Ferguson, 2002), opening the way for decolonization. On a smaller scale, a rupture is a historical trajectory where a particular dynamical system moves permanently or at least decisively from one attractor to another for an extended period of time. Ruptures can only be described with certainty in hindsight, as often system changes are impermanent. What looks like a rupture might play out as a momentary deviation from a long-term path or system stability. Therefore, we coin the term critical juncture to describe a moment or certain window in time where there is the significant possibility of a decisive transition from one attractor to another. Examining the agency of different institutional actors at different levels of the system in influencing how a given possibility space plays itself out is an important location for research according to Critical junctures theory. Accumulating data on the “stickiness” of critical junctures, that is, how and whether a critical juncture establishes itself as a rupture in the system is another important topic; often, a window in time is important as an opportunity for change missed rather than one taken. Finally, all this suggests that interpreting in hindsight the possibilities for critical junctures and ruptures within a given historical trajectory (i.e., an extended period of time for a dynamical system, see Lim, Yang, Leong, & Hong; Fisher Onar, Liu, & Woodward, this issue) is a hermeneutical/interpretivist method necessary to advance Critical junctures theory. The concept of agency, to be discussed in detail later, is central to how possibilities are actualized into history. Thus, the concept of a critical juncture Please cite this article in press as: Liu, J. H., et al. Symbologies, technologies, and identities: Critical junctures theory and the multi-layered nation–state. International Journal of Intercultural Relations (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2014.08.012

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potentially leading to rupture can be used as both a predictive test for the theory (e.g., prognosis or diagnoses of system stability), using for example computer simulations of the system parameters, or as a source of materials for hermeneutic or interpretivist forms of inquiry, either in foresight or in hindsight (Mols & Jetten, this issue; Klar, this issue). Theoretical advance can therefore proceed by looking forwards with predictions or looking backwards for explanatory coherence. In the immediate wake of a singularity or rupture, new possibility spaces or attractors emerge and then close, as the system settles into an historical trajectory characterizing a particular attractor that has emerged out of the possibility space. Thus, in critical junctures theory, states are dynamical, complex, and self-organizing systems (capable of both continuity and change). Some systems, like the chaotic weather systems simulated by Lorenz (1963) may display sensitivity to initial conditions, which means that at certain critical junctures, even slight perturbations in the system parameters may lead to the system settling on one attractor versus another. Other systems may be more stable and be characterized by a single attractor with boundary conditions. Thus, complexity theory can help us understand how nations are complex systems which display both continuity and emergent phenomena that can be traced back to the interplay of the three system parameters. These interactions are driven by positive and negative feedback loops that can produce either incremental or non-linear (chaotic) change. The historical trajectories can show path dependency (continuity as the system stays within a particular attractor), and critical junctures (or the special case of rupture, where the system moves from one attractor to another). They may be driven by feedback resonating within the system, but also input from outside the system (e.g., the international environment, see Sakki, this issue; Bobowik et al., this issue; Leone & Sarrica, this issue). Hence, the challenge is how to operationalize this system to allow vibrant interchanges between scholars of different disciplines and with different methodological orientations. 4. Operationalizing system parameters One of the key analytical moves in critical junctures theory is to operationalize its system parameters not as solo, quantitative measures, but as families of variables. In making this move, we acknowledge that reductionism is not likely to yield the same benefits in the social sciences as it has in the physical sciences. Consider, for example, the first parameter of our theoretical system, state symbologies. Every society that expects to endure must generate and maintain a system of meaning; in states, it is the central government that is the most powerful producer of this system, variously called a narrative, ideology, or myth. This system of meaning, which is often an ensemble that is assembled as a consequence of negotiation between different factions (Sibley & Liu, 2013), cannot be reduced to a single measure (nor can it be assumed to apply to all members of a state), though it may be useful to operationalize it in such a manner for the purposes of a particular study. This is a property of the system parameter itself, and is not epiphenomenal to its definition. 4.1. State symbologies A general theory of the state must be able to describe the system of symbolic meaning it inculcates in its subjects (as citizens). Some theorists like Bruner (1986) would describe symbology of state as a narrative. Others regard such a system as a myth (Schopflin, 1997), by which “collectivities – in this contest more especially nations – establish and determine the foundations of their own systems of morality and values” (p. 19). Still others see it as ideology (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). The key is that these are often more about perceptions rather than historically validated truths, and lead to the normalization of some perspectives and alienation of others. The operation of a symbology of state allows for the creation of an “intellectual and cognitive monopoly in that it seeks to establish the sole way of ordering the world and defining world-views. For the community to exist as a community, this mythology is vital,” (Schopflin, 1997, p.19). Myth and ritual are basic components of human cultures and of state and counter-state symbologies. The concept of myth is often associated with religion and with small scale, pre-industrial, non-literate societies. This has more to do with the fact that these were the societies most often studied by anthropologists until the 1960s than with the character of mythic thought. More recent studies have described mythology as being a genuine cultural universal that persists even in secular industrial societies; the persistence of religion in modernity is an illustration of its enduring power. Mythic narrative applies metaphysical postulates to the understanding of the origins and structures of the natural and social worlds. Levi Strauss (1966) argues that myth narratives emerge from a cognitive processes he terms bricolage in which abstract structural principles, or what Sperber (1996) would later call “symbolic knowledge,” are used to construct meaningful orders from what, at first glance, appear to be random phenomena. Moscovici (1961/2008) points out the pluralism of contemporary societies, and argues for the need to study social representations, that is, the multiplicity of and change in belief systems rather than collective representations or myths (which he conceives of as more traditional and monolithic). Our conception of state symbologies is therefore inclusive of oppositional representational systems—they are ensembles of meaning (Sibley & Liu, 2013), and as such contain disparate elements, some of which can be used to mobilize alternatives to the present regime or state of affairs (see Reicher & Hopkins, 2001). Ritual is among the means through which the locations of individuals and social groups within these structures are determined and transformed. Contemporary rituals include elections and inauguration ceremonies for new Presidents or parliamentarians, and release from work for national days of celebration. The symbology of contemporary states includes national songs, heroes, and flags. Some of these work on the emotions to create attachment to the state, others operate on more utilitarian principles. Please cite this article in press as: Liu, J. H., et al. Symbologies, technologies, and identities: Critical junctures theory and the multi-layered nation–state. International Journal of Intercultural Relations (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2014.08.012

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Malinowski (1926) described myth and the “charter” for social institutions and practices. Liu and Hilton (2005) have adopted and updated this idea as follows: “A central part of a group’s representation of its history is thus its “charter”, an account of its origin and historical mission, which will have been amended and renegotiated over time to reflect changing circumstances, and frame its responses to new challenges. Such charters are constitutional: they serve as foundational myth for a society, defining rights and obligations for a group and legitimizing its social and political arrangements (Malinowski, 1926). As well as explaining the group’s present and shaping its future, charters help define the timeless “essence” of a group (Hamilton, Sherman, & Castelli, 2012) – their shared experience and culture transmitted across generations and to newcomers such as immigrants through education and other media” (p. 538). Klar (this issue) describes how Biblical sources have been mobilized and deployed as state symbologies for Israel in direct and dynamic relationship with the rise in power of the state; Leone and Sarrica (this issue) analyze effects on young participants of a clear historical narrative of Italian colonial crimes that straightforwardly challenges a widely shared national myth describing the Italian army as incapable of any cruelty in war; Mols and Jetten (this issue) analyze the speeches of radical right-wing political leaders portraying themselves as alternatives to the dominant state symbologies in Western Europe. Leach (1954) and Tambiah (1977) have shown that there are mythologies associated with social change and that it can be used to make conflict as well as stability part of enduring meaningful orders. Barthes (1957), Schopflin (1997), Tambiah (1977) and Woodward (2010) have shown that similar processes are work in the construction of political and historical narratives of nation states and relationships between them and that they play a critical role in the construction and expression of national and subnational identities. National myths, and especially myths of national origins, are among the basic components of what Bellah (1967) terms the “civil religion” of modern states. It is often the rationality (or verisimilitude) of myth, rather than the calculus of power and economic advantage stressed by rational choice theorists that has led to the establishment of nations, and as we argue here, the emergence of multi-layered nations in which there are national myths and narratives that can be alternatively – and at times simultaneously – complementary or competitive. Thus, we might develop an inventory of the manifest indicators of a symbology of state, and count how many of the indicators a given state has at a particular moment in time. We also might try to describe its dominant discourses of statehood and nationhood (Klar, this issue). We could delve into the characteristics of its civic rituals. We might describe the lexicon and symbolism of its protest movements, reasoning that sometimes the symbology of the state may be best described by its critics or opponents (see Pilecki & Hammack, this issue, for Palestinian counters to the dominant narratives supplied by Israelis). Similarly, prototypical enemies of the state (inside and outside its borders) often set the outlines of state symbology through a narrative of exclusions. Each of these would be valid indicators of the family of variables and exemplars of the range of ideas that we include under the rubric of the system parameter “symbologies of the state”. For scholars who might consider such a wide range of ideas to be too diffuse, we offer more of a focused list in terms of narrative elements (Bruner, 1986; Liu & László, 2007). Among the most central narrative elements of a symbology of the state are (1) its foundational myth or social contract, (2) its ruptures and critical junctures (or climactic decision points), (3) its salient outgroups (or enduring enemies by which it comes to define itself), (4) its prototypical ingroup members (or heroes) and groups, (5) its schematic narrative template (Wertsch, 2002), or the story it tells of itself that facilitates concerted political actions and agendas, and (6) its most prominent national rituals and celebrations. 4.2. Identity spaces While a state attempts to indoctrinate all the people within its borders to adopt its symbology, such efforts will be met with greater and lesser degrees of success in different segments of its population. Given that our first system parameter describes a system of meaning that can be described as a narrative or myth, it follows that there will often be counternarratives that provide plausible alternatives (Pratto et al., 2014; see Pilecki & Hammack, this issue; Mols & Jetten, this issue). A basic proposition of the current theory is that plausible symbolic alternatives to the current system in place are generated and maintained by opposition groups (Moscovici, 1988; Sibley & Liu, 2013); hence a model of the operation of the state as a complex system must include an analysis of the groups that support and oppose its claims to legitimate power, and the content and character of the systems of meaning they espouse (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001). Some of the opposition groups are formal and ideological, as was the case with Communist groups in Western democracies. Others may be more informal, and associated with ethnic minorities or religious dissidents. Some aim to overthrow the government, others to capture or change it. But in any case, the identification of the important groups in society making claims that their beliefs, values, symbols, narratives and ideology should capture, replace, or constitute a viable alternative to the technology/symbology of the state, constitutes the second system parameter of critical junctures theory. Identity space is the system parameter most responsible for connecting macro-level phenomena, like the operation of the institutions of the state, to meso- and micro-level phenomena like protest movements against the state or the willingness of different segments of the population to follow directives of the state. It is the system parameter that we rely on most to anticipate or predict ruptures (like a revolution). Identity spaces are inclusive of the major demographic characteristics of populations, like their religious affiliations and ethnic origins, ideological movements, and if it is salient, class consciousness. Identity spaces in most contemporary states are characterized by demographic diversity. This is because of the ebbing of imperialism and its ability to produce relational hegemony (Liu, Li, & Yue, 2010); and also because of the ability of information technology to preserve difference against majority pressures together with the flow of peoples around the world under globalization (Ritzer, 2010; Arnett, 2002). Please cite this article in press as: Liu, J. H., et al. Symbologies, technologies, and identities: Critical junctures theory and the multi-layered nation–state. International Journal of Intercultural Relations (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2014.08.012

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Social or group identities are constructed in response to the objective conditions of demographic diversity described above. According to Tajfel and Turner’s (1979) influential social identity theory, and Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell (1987) follow-up self-categorization theory, group identities are made salient in response to situational cues and driven by social comparison processes that make a particular division of the social environment into ‘us’ and ‘them’ meaningful. Each person has a repertoire of identities, ranging from individual (e.g. “I am smart”) to group (“I am a Communist”) up to the inclusive level of humanity (“I am a human being”) that are made salient as a consequence of their relevance to frequently encountered or important situations. A central insight of social identity theory is that defining the in-group is a function of social comparison involving differentiating the in-group from the out-group in important situations driven by political entrepreuners (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001). To define the identity space for a state, it is necessary to also know what its key out-groups are. Measures of demographic diversity would therefore be included within the family of variables under the rubric of identity spaces. Further, we would seek to document claims to legitimate power from the various groups that could potentially influence the technology and state symbology. We might attempt to inventory the ways important groups are portrayed in mass media, and thereby understand the closeness or distance of this group from state power. The inclusion versus exclusion of various groups from state symbology and technology, and the extent to which the institutional levers of the state are within their grasp would be another in this family of variables (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Identity spaces emerge at the confluence between demographic measures of diversity and the importance attached to them by people in terms of the mechanisms and meanings of the state. 4.3. Technologies of state The final system parameter in our theory is the technology of state: the institutional and technological apparatuses the state uses to carry out its directives, versus the available means for producing alternatives. This is the most material and least ideational of the three system parameters. All states, for instance, maintain that they and they alone hold the power of the ultimate sanction – the death penalty – within their territory; it takes power to carry out such a sentence. The simplest measures of state technologies would be budgetary (this could be measured in currency or material goods such as grain): the state that has no budgetary power also has little technology of influence. The total spending power of the government, it’s spending per capita, and its expenditures as a percentage of total Gross Domestic Product would be quantitative measures of the technology of state. Of course, government spending alone cannot tell us how the money is being spent, but the ability to collect revenue and the manner and effectiveness of the spending of this revenue (e.g., the number of its civilian and military employees and their outputs) provide firm quantitative measures of the technology of state. Expenditures are of course underpinned by technologies, such as information technology, which are borderless, and strongly affect the ability of the state (and others) to influence people. Information technologies have in the main greatly increased the power and influence of the state over the past few centuries, but there are rumblings that the internet has the ability to disrupt centralized systems of control (see Lim et al., this issue). Any federal structures in expenditure are very important to assess, as these mark devolution of state power to regions and are a component of the technology of state to used manage diversity in its territory (including physical geography). Similarly, any ministries or departments dedicated to particular demographic groups (e.g., minorities, the aged, women, etc.) are also important tools. Some of the limitations of importing a natural science approach like complexity theory to a social science setting can be seen here, as federal structures are discrete, not continuous measures, and hence cannot be operationalized as variable indicators of a system parameter that is in a dynamical relationship with other system parameters. Similarly, one of the most important technologies of state is legislation. This is again a discrete act, so it is hard to operationalize as a continuous variable with dynamic/causal bidirectional relationships with the other system parameters. Rather, discrete instances of technologies of state like federal structures or legislative acts can be thought of either as traditional causal (independent) variables influencing historical trajectories, or as elucidating factors in hermeneutic understanding. Simple quantitative measures may form the base, but the family of variables under technologies of the state also encompasses meanings. For instance, knowing that a state has an annual budget of $50 million to spend on education does not tell us the content of this education. We may be interested in the content of history and geography teaching in the curriculum in so far as they define who belongs as a citizen, what the legitimate borders and grievances regarding the state are (see Kello & Wagner, this issue; Sakki, this issue). Analyses of state sanctioned teaching curricula have frequently been essayed in attempts to document the relationship between technology, symbology, and identity spaces of the state. Articles in this special issue span considerable ground claimed by Critical junctures theory (CJT). Lim et al. (this issue) and Fisher Onar et al. (this issue) provide historical case studies that are the most direct applications of the theory as an explanatory system. Lim et al. narrate the historical trajectory of the city-state of Singapore from pre-inception through to its survivalist focus on racial harmony after independence and the difficult period after expulsion/separation from the Federation of Malaya: they cite its draconian Internal Security Act and its meritocratic multiculturalism as emblematic technologies of state adaptive for that uncertain time. They argue that the stability of this configuration may be challenged by the new technology of social media that provides for identity spaces difficult for the state’s traditional systems of authoritarian control to manage. Fisher Onar et al. (this issue) use Mills’ logic of difference to argue that evidence of revisionist forms of cultural nationalism emerging across disparate case studies (Turkey, Yogyakarta, and New Zealand) suggests convergent global processes taking Please cite this article in press as: Liu, J. H., et al. Symbologies, technologies, and identities: Critical junctures theory and the multi-layered nation–state. International Journal of Intercultural Relations (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2014.08.012

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place in the re-imagining of national identities in a post-colonial world. Despite manifest differences in the balance of power and political geography of these polities, CJT is used as an explanatory framework to narrate commonalities from the selective adaptation of European elements of symbology and governance in the wake of colonization to their subsequent re-imagining as more complex identity spaces in the post-colonial era. Fisher Onar et al. (this issue) argue that these developments were deeply influenced by initial conditions – the prevailing balance of power and geography in each situation. Kello and Wagner (this issue) and Sakki’s (this issue) contributions uniquely focus on the technology of state parameter that is otherwise neglected in this collection. Sakki (this issue) examines secondary school history and civics textbooks across five countries in the European Union (EU) and finds that while German and French textbooks attempt to construct a European identity space of shared values (based on economic cooperation), the textbooks still functioned as a technology of state, narrating the EU from the narrow interests of the nation–state, portraying it as an institutional bureaucracy bereft of unifying heroes or symbols that might lead the reader to form an EU emotional attachment. Substantial reservations were made about the EU in the textbooks, especially by smaller countries threatened by lack of voice and control over its bureaucracy, and by the trenchant Eurosketicism of the UK. We may conclude that at least in this domain, the EU as an attractor is subordinate to the primary attractors of European nation–states loath to surrender their sovereignty to what is viewed as a bureaucratic apparatus with merely instrumental (and not identity-based) costs and benefits. Zeroing in on the role of the people who teach history in the post-Communist secondary schools of Estonia, Kello and Wagner (this issue) report that the teachers they interviewed managed to strike a balance between the patriotic demands of narrating national identity and the disciplinary requirements of their teaching profession that require a liberal, constructivist, and multi-perspective education. Ethnic Estonian teachers expressed the uniqueness and temporal endurance of Estonian identity. Ethnic Russian teachers compared to ethnic Estonians were more exposed to conflicts between different, inner and external, demands and expectations, and more aware of themselves as agents of the state mediating between the current regime and their Russian speaking communities. They had to cope with uncertainty more than majority group teachers, much as other minority group members in other national systems. The next set of papers deals with symbologies of state, or, in the case of Bobowik et al. (this issue) the larger international context within which they are actualized. Using a large multi-national dataset, Bobowik et al. (this issue) found that representations of World War II, part of the great singularity that set the stage for the dominance of nation–states as attractors in the modern era, mediated the effects of hierarchical and collectivistic values, low social development, and being victorious in WWII on willingness to fight in the next war. As students of social representations theory, Bobowik et al. (this issue) have identified part of the actualizing layer that makes nation–states so pervasive as attractors in this era: the meaning of WWII is part of the interpretive machinery that bolsters the survival of nation–states by making meaning that facilitates citizens being willing to fight for the survival of their state. Similarly drawing from cross-national data, this time in the form of speeches by leaders of Populist Right-Wing political Parties (PRWP) in Western Europe, Mols and Jetten (this issue) show how a temporal narrative of history and identity is used to instill a feeling of collective angst and fear of loss of cultural continuity to turn voters against mainstream symbologies of state based on liberal and multicultural ideas, and against immigrants. The discourse of a glorious past is juxtaposed against a bleak future engineered by ruling elites who have betrayed the nation and are not tough enough to fight off the corrupting influence of immigrants who threaten collective continuity and cherished cultural values. This paper demonstrates how critical junctures in the nation’s past can be re-imagined by political entrepreneurs in an attempt to seize the technology of state via democratic means and redefine the identity space in favor of their right-wing agenda (see Reicher & Hopkins, 2001). Focusing on the narrative roots of symbology for Israel, Klar (this issue) draws from ancient Biblical sources, and not so ancient interpretations of them that form the ideological basis for Jewish people’s orientations through the eras from the “sacred reenactment” of their return to Israel to persisting in diaspora, and their treatment of gentiles in the state of Israel today. Klar (this issue) argues that “Do not arouse or awaken love”, “Shivat Zion”, and “Conquest of the Land” form three Biblical paradigms through which religious Jews have comprehended critical junctures in their relationship to the land of Israel and Palestine; he argues that Israeli success in the 1967 War was a critical juncture in which religious Zionists gained the confidence to set in motion political actions that make a negotiated peace in this region extremely difficult. The final three papers are micro-level behavioral science studies using experimental methods typical of psychology that focus on identity space. Pilecki and Hammack (this issue) describe the inability of intergroup dialogue to overcome entrenched group narratives about history held by Israelis and Palestinians in an intergroup contact program held in the United States. The two groups narratively diverged on concrete issues about the future as well: When put in concrete terms, “peace” became a matter of contention fueled by the emergence of mutually exclusive collective narratives. This paper amplifies the conclusions of Klar’s (this issue) meso-level paper at the micro-level. Wohl et al. (this issue) present two experimental studies on psychological precursors of collective political action by people in diaspora. They found support for the idea that feelings of politicized collective identity (PCI) coupled with high levels of collective angst (i.e., concern for the in group’s future vitality) led to attitudinal support among migrants to Canada for violent political actions back in their home countries; however, PCI predicted support for peaceful protest with collective angst was low. This micro-level paper resonates with the meso-level findings of Mols and Jetten described previously: some form of collective angst appears to be a catalyst for hostile actions against an out-group. Finally, bringing the papers full circle, Leone and Sarrica (this issue) report experimental findings on the impact of parrhesia, or truth-telling about a painful history dishonoring past generations (Italian war crimes against Ethiopia waged Please cite this article in press as: Liu, J. H., et al. Symbologies, technologies, and identities: Critical junctures theory and the multi-layered nation–state. International Journal of Intercultural Relations (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2014.08.012

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by Mussolini), on Italian youth. They found that a narrative providing a clear moral stance and precise details of historical injustices committed by the in-group (e.g., use of prohibited poison gas) elicited more emotional reactions in terms of both self-report (readers in the parrhesia text condition felt more angry, ashamed, infuriated and furious) and propensity for action (i.e., they were more involved, more struck and less indifferent in self-report, and showed greater unease on camera). They had much milder reactions to an evasive text describing the same historical events. Leone and Sarrica (this issue) suggest that parrhesia may be adapted as a technology of state to end collective silence about a shameful past and used to open up a space for reconciliation between two peoples separated by historical injustice. 5. Conclusion We have introduced critical junctures theory as an overarching theoretical framework with heuristic value in understanding the transformation of states. Perhaps foremost among the challenges before the theory is the difficulty in identifying a critical juncture temporally (i.e., how long is a given critical juncture, and how can this period be identified) and in terms of its components (i.e., are there different kinds of critical junctures, some involving destabilization of all three system parameters, or others involving just one parameter). Second, the theory needs to be applied to specific case studies in depth to examine how the three system parameters act together to provide system stability versus instability. For instance, when a state symbology changes, this implies that a change in the identity space should follow. If a formerly marginal group captures the technology of the state, then the symbology of the state should change afterwards to accommodate them if the system is to remain stable. 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Please cite this article in press as: Liu, J. H., et al. Symbologies, technologies, and identities: Critical junctures theory and the multi-layered nation–state. International Journal of Intercultural Relations (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2014.08.012