Using ‘exceptional’ nations as examples of positive deviants A look around the globe with an eye toward ‘exceptions’ can yield some interesting observations and lead -perhaps- to some useful questions. Not long ago I spent 5 months in Costa Rica teaching a class which compared the American culture with that of Costa Rica.  What I found doing my background research (see Bowman’s New Scholarship on Costa Rican Exceptionalism) is that these two nations have something in common:  both believe themselves to be exceptional.  American exceptionalism has been an oft used -and maligned- trope for many scores of years, the idea being first offered by the French historian and ethnographer Alexis de Tocqueville back in 1931.  That many nation-states (and before that, empires) see themselves as exceptional is just another manifestation of ethnocentrism or, by its other name, nationalism. Are there other ‘exceptional’ nations? Ghana and Namibia have been cited as … Continue reading Exceptionalisms