Acton y Balmes: Ideas sobre el nacionalismo

Acton and Balmes: ideas on Nationalism

Abstract

This article analyzes the relationship between two authors, Lord Acton and Balmes, in what we understand to have been the great question of modern politics: the nation and the problem of nationalism. Texts closely related to the subject are cited and those that are more general or, in the case of Balmes, of a more dogmatic or theological nature have been discarded. In the case of the Spanish author, his political writings that appeared in the different press media in which he collaborated throughout his prolific career have been selected. Both authors tried to overcome the absolutism-liberalism dialectic by elevation, and proposed, each in their own way, a model of Constitutional Monarchy that would not yield to nationalism or authoritarianism. They assumed as their own innovative ideas about political freedom, adapted the political forms of American federalism to their circumstances, and defended tradition, religion and the State against what they understood to be the two great threats of their time that were growing under nationalism: rationalist individualism and statist authoritarianism.