Inter-state nationalist wars are elite-driven and mobilize masses only after the fact

Evidence

I emphasize leaderships, because it is leaderships, not people, who inherit old switchboards and palaces. No one imagines, I presume, that the broad masses of the Chinese people give a fig for what happens along the colonial border between Cambodia and Vietnam. Nor is it at all likely that Khmer and Vietnamese peasants wanted wars between their peoples, or were consulted in the matter. In a very real sense these were ‘chancellory wars’ in which popular nationalism was mobilized largely after the fact and always in a language of self-defence. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 628

Categorization

• XREF: Directly scaffolds the imagined-community toolkit — popular nationalism here is shown to be a manufactured, retroactive mobilization, connecting to questions of who gets to define national enemies. — connects to: War serves nationalist ends even when unwinnable — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 269; Elite ideological battles can pass almost unwitnessed by mass publics — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 1970

Related

• War serves nationalist ends even when unwinnable (similarity 0.79)