Andreas Wimmer

Andreas Wimmer is a Swiss sociologist who is the Lieber Professor of Sociology and Political Philosophy at Columbia University.^[1][2] He has a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Zurich.^[3] He is known for his research on nationalism, nation building, and ethnic conflict.^{[4][5][6][7][8][9]}

Nation Building: Why Some Countries Come Together While Others Fall Apart[]

Wimmer was awarded the 2019 Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research in recognition of his book Nation Building: Why Some Countries Come Together While Others Fall Apart.^[10] In the book, he argues that three factors tend to determine whether nation-building succeeds in the long term: "the early development of civil-society organisations, the rise of a state capable of providing public goods evenly across a territory, and the emergence of a shared medium of communication."^[11][1][12] Harris Mylonas described the book as "instant classic comparable to Karl Deutsch's Nationalism and Social Communication (1953) or Ernest Gellner's Nations and Nationalism (1983)."^[13]

Wimmer does not see ethnic or racial diversity as detrimental to nation-building, arguing instead that linguistic diversity is a key stumbling block to nation-building.^[1][14] He argues that a shared language makes it easier for political alliances and networks to emerge within a prospective nation that ultimately contribute to shared national identification.^[1]

Selected Works[]

• Andreas Wimmer, Ethnic Boundary Making: Institutions, Power, Networks, New York, Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Andreas Wimmer, Waves of War: Nationalism, State Formation, and Ethnic Exclusion in the Modern World, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013.
• Andreas Wimmer, Nation Building: Why Some Countries Come Together While Others Fall Apart, Lawrenceville, Princeton University Press, 2017.

References[]