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Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Smith, Anthony. Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History. Polity, 2010. pp. 9, 25–30; especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining its sovereignty (self-governance) over its perceived homeland to create a nation-state. It holds that each nation should govern itself, free from outside interference (self-determination), that a nation is a natural and ideal basis for a polity, and that the nation is the only rightful source of Politics power.Yack, Bernard. Nationalism and the Moral Psychology of Community. University of Chicago Press, 2012. p. 142 It further aims to build and maintain a single national identity, based on a combination of shared social characteristics such as culture, ethnicity, geographic location, language, politics (or the government), religion, traditions and belief in a shared singular history, and to promote national unity or solidarity. There are various definitions of a "nation", which leads to different types of nationalism. The two main divergent forms are ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism.
Beginning in the late 18th century, particularly with the French Revolution and the spread of the principle of popular sovereignty or self determination, the idea that "the people" should rule was developed by political theorists. (2025). 9780191727191, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191727191 Three main theories have been used to explain the emergence of nationalism:
The moral value of nationalism, the relationship between nationalism and patriotism, and the compatibility of nationalism and cosmopolitanism are all subjects of philosophical debate. Nationalism can be combined with diverse political goals and ideologies such as conservatism (national conservatism and right-wing populism) or socialism (left-wing nationalism).Bonikowski, Bart and Paul DiMaggio (2016) "Varieties of American Popular Nationalism" . American Sociological Review, 81(5): 949–980. In practice, nationalism is seen as positive or negative depending on its ideology and outcomes. Nationalism has been a feature of movements for freedom and justice, has been associated with cultural revivals,Smith, Anthony. Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History. Polity, 2010. pp. 6–7, 30–31, 37 and encourages pride in national achievements. It has also been used to legitimize racial, ethnic, and religious divisions, suppress or attack minorities, undermine human rights and democratic traditions, and start wars, being frequently cited as a cause of both world wars.
Nationalism as derived from the noun designating 'nations' is a newer word; in the English language, dating to around 1798. The term gained wider prominence in the 19th century.See Norman Rich, The age of nationalism and reform, 1850–1890 (1970). The term increasingly became negative in its connotations after 1914. Glenda Sluga notes that "The twentieth century, a time of profound disillusionment with nationalism, was also the great age of globalism."Glenda Sluga, Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) ch 1
Academics define nationalism as a political principle that holds that the nation and state should be congruent. According to Lisa Weeden, nationalist ideology presumes that "the people" and the state are congruent.
Smith posits the challenges posed to traditional religion and society in the Age of Revolution propelled many intellectuals to "discover alternative principles and concepts, and a new mythology and symbolism, to legitimate and ground human thought and action".Smith, A.D. (1991). National Identity. Penguin. p.96. He discusses the simultaneous concept of 'historicism' to describe an emerging belief in the birth, growth, and decay of specific peoples and cultures, which became "increasingly attractive as a framework for inquiry into the past and present and ... an explanatory principle in elucidating the meaning of events, past and present".Smith, A.D. (1991). National Identity. Penguin. p.87.
The Prussian scholar Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) originated the term in 1772 in his "Treatise on the Origin of Language" stressing the role of a common language. He attached exceptional importance to the concepts of nationality and of patriotism "he that has lost his patriotic spirit has lost himself and the whole world about himself", whilst teaching that "in a certain sense every human perfection is national". Erica Benner identifies Herder as the first philosopher to explicitly suggest "that identities based on language should be regarded as the primary source of legitimate political authority or locus of political resistance". (2025). 9780198768203, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198768203 Herder also encouraged the creation of a common cultural and language policy amongst the separate German states.
The consensus is that nationalism as a concept was firmly established by the 19th century. In histories of nationalism, the French Revolution (1789) is seen as an important starting point, not only for its impact on French nationalism but even more for its impact on Germans and Italians and on European intellectuals.Raymond Pearson, ed., The Long-man companion to European nationalism 1789–1920 (2014) p. xi, with details on each country large and small. The template of nationalism, as a method for mobilizing public opinion around a new state based on popular sovereignty, went back further than 1789: philosophers such as Rousseau and Voltaire, whose ideas influenced the French Revolution, had themselves been influenced or encouraged by the example of earlier constitutionalist liberation movements, notably the Corsican Republic (1755–1768) and American Revolution (1775–1783).
Due to the Industrial Revolution, there was an emergence of an integrated, nation-encompassing economy and a national public sphere, where British people began to mobilize on a state-wide scale, rather than just in the smaller units of their province, town or family. The early emergence of a popular patriotic nationalism took place in the mid-18th century and was actively promoted by the British government and by the writers and intellectuals of the time. , anthems, national myth, flags and narratives were assiduously constructed by nationalists and widely adopted. The Union Jack was adopted in 1801 as the national one.Nick Groom, The Union Jack: The Story of the British Flag (2007). Thomas Arne composed the patriotic song "Rule, Britannia!" in 1740, and the cartoonist John Arbuthnot invented the character of John Bull as the personification of the English national spirit in 1712.
The political convulsions of the late 18th century associated with the American and French revolutions massively augmented the widespread appeal of patriotic nationalism.Iain McLean, Alistair McMillan, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, " French Revolution... It produced the modern doctrine of nationalism, and spread it directly throughout Western Europe ...", Oxford, 2009, . Napoleon Bonaparte's rise to power further established nationalism when he invaded much of Europe. Napoleon used this opportunity to spread revolutionary ideas, resulting in much of the 19th-century European Nationalism.
Some scholars argue that variants of nationalism emerged prior to the 18th century. American philosopher and historian Hans Kohn wrote in 1944 that nationalism emerged in the 17th century. In , Linda Colley explores how the role of nationalism emerged in about 1700 and developed in Britain reaching full form in the 1830s. Writing shortly after World War I, the popular British author H. G. Wells traced the origin of European nationalism to the aftermath of the Reformation, when it filled the moral void left by the decline of Christian faith:
As the idea of Christianity as a world brotherhood of men sank into discredit because of its fatal entanglement with priestcraft and the Papacy on the one hand and with the authority of princes on the other, and the age of faith passed into our present age of doubt and disbelief, men shifted the reference of their lives from the kingdom of God and the brotherhood of mankind to these apparently more living realities, France and England, Holy Russia, Spain, Prussia.... **** In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the general population of Europe was religious and only vaguely patriotic; by the nineteenth it had become wholly patriotic.
During the 19th century nationalism became one of the most significant political and social forces in history; it is typically listed among the top causes of World War I.
Napoleon's conquests of the German and Italian states around 1800–1806 played a major role in stimulating nationalism and the demands for national unity.
English historian J. P. T. Bury argues:
Between 1830 and 1870 nationalism had thus made great strides. It inspired great literature, quickened scholarship, and nurtured heroes. It had shown its power both to unify and to divide. It had led to great achievements of political construction and consolidation in Germany and Italy; but it was more clear than ever a threat to the Ottoman and Habsburg empires, which were essentially multi-national. European culture had been enriched by the new vernacular contributions of little-known or forgotten peoples, but at the same time such unity as it had was imperiled by fragmentation. Moreover, the antagonisms fostered by nationalism had made not only for wars, insurrections, and local hatreds—they had accentuated or created new spiritual divisions in a nominally Christian Europe.J. P. T. Bury, "Nationalities and Nationalism," in J. P. T. Bury, ed. "The New Cambridge Modern History Vol. 10 (1830–70)" (1960) pp. 213–245 245 online.
Henceforth, until the enemies have been driven from the territory of the Republic, all the French are in permanent requisition for army service. The young men shall go to battle; the married men shall forge arms in the hospitals; the children shall turn old linen to lint; the old men shall repair to the public places, to stimulate the courage of the warriors and preach the unity of the Republic and the hatred of kings.
This nationalism gained pace after the French Revolution came to a close. Defeat in war, with a loss in territory, was a powerful force in nationalism. In France, revenge and return of Alsace-Lorraine was a powerful motivating force for a quarter century after their defeat by Germany in 1871. After 1895, French nationalists focused on Dreyfus and internal subversion, and the Alsace issue petered out.
The French reaction was a famous case of Revanchism which demands the return of lost territory that "belongs" to the national homeland. Revanchism draws its strength from patriotic and retributionist thought and it is often motivated by economic or geo-political factors. Extreme revanchist ideologues often represent a hawkish stance, suggesting that their desired objectives can be achieved through the positive outcome of another war. It is linked with irredentism, the conception that a part of the cultural and ethnic nation remains "unredeemed" outside the borders of its appropriate nation state. Revanchist politics often rely on the identification of a nation with a nation state, often mobilizing deep-rooted sentiments of ethnic nationalism, claiming territories outside the state where members of the ethnic group live, while using heavy-handed nationalism to mobilize support for these aims. Revanchist justifications are often presented as based on ancient or even autochthonous occupation of a territory since "time immemorial", an assertion that is usually inextricably involved in revanchism and irredentism, justifying them in the eyes of their proponents.Karine Varley, "The Taboos of Defeat: Unmentionable Memories of the Franco-Prussian War in France, 1870–1914." in Jenny Macleod, ed., Defeat and Memory: Cultural Histories of Military Defeat in the Modern Era (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) pp. 62–80.
The Dreyfus Affair in France 1894–1906 made the battle against treason and disloyalty a central theme for conservative Catholic French nationalists. Dreyfus, a Jew, was an outsider, that is in the views of intense nationalists, not a true Frenchman, not one to be trusted, not one to be given the benefit of the doubt. True loyalty to the nation, from the conservative viewpoint, was threatened by liberal and republican principles of liberty and equality that were leading the country to disaster.
By the 1860s, as a result of educational indoctrination, and due to conservative resistance to ideas and ideologies which were transmitted from Western Europe, a pan-Slavism had emerged and it produced both a sense of Russian nationalism and a nationalistic mission to support and protect pan-Slavism. This Slavophilia movement became popular in 19th-century Russia. Pan-Slavism was fueled by, and it was also the fuel for Russia's numerous wars against the Ottoman Empire which were waged in order to achieve the alleged goal of liberating Orthodox nationalities, such as Bulgarians, Romanians, Serbs and Greeks, from Ottoman Empire. Slavophiles opposed the Western European influences which had been transmitted to Russia and they were also determined to protect Russian culture and traditions. Aleksey Khomyakov, Ivan Kireyevsky, and Konstantin Aksakov are credited with co-founding the movement.Astrid S. Tuminez, Russian Nationalism since 1856: Ideology and the Making of Foreign Policy (2000)
Nationalists sought to encompass masculinity in their quest for strength and unity.Karen Hagemann, "Of 'manly valor' and 'German Honor': nation, war, and masculinity in the age of the Prussian uprising against Napoleon." Central European History 30#2 (1997): 187–220. It was Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck who achieved German unification through a series of highly successful short wars against Denmark, Austria and France which thrilled the pan-German nationalists in the smaller German states. They fought in his wars and eagerly joined the new German Empire, which Bismarck ran as a force for balance and peace in Europe after 1871.Hagen Schulze, The Course of German Nationalism: From Frederick the Great to Bismarck 1763–1867 (Cambridge UP, 1991).
In the 19th century, German nationalism was promoted by Hegelian-oriented academic historians who saw Prussia as the true carrier of the German spirit, and the power of the state as the ultimate goal of nationalism. The three main historians were Johann Gustav Droysen (1808–1884), Heinrich von Sybel (1817–1895) and Heinrich von Treitschke (1834–1896). Droysen moved from liberalism to an intense nationalism that celebrated Prussian Protestantism, efficiency, progress, and reform, in striking contrast to Austrian Catholicism, impotency and backwardness. He idealized the Hohenzollern kings of Prussia. His large-scale History of Prussian Politics (14 vol 1855–1886) was foundational for nationalistic students and scholars. Von Sybel founded and edited the leading academic history journal, Historische Zeitschrift and as the director of the Prussian state archives published massive compilations that were devoured by scholars of nationalism.Louis L. Snyder, Encyclopedia of Nationalism (1990) pp. 77–78, 381–382.
The most influential of the German nationalist historians, was Treitschke who had an enormous influence on elite students at Heidelberg and Berlin universities.Adolf Hausrath, ed. Treitschke, his doctrine of German destiny and of international relations: together with a study of his life and work (1914) online edition Treitschke vehemently attacked parliamentarianism, socialism, pacifism, the English, the French, the Jews, and the internationalists. The core of his message was the need for a strong, unified state—a unified Germany under Prussian supervision. "It is the highest duty of the State to increase its power," he stated. Although he was a descendant of a Czech family, he considered himself not Slavic but German: "I am 1000 times more the patriot than a professor."Snyder, Encyclopedia of Nationalism (1990) pp. 399–401
German nationalism, expressed through the ideology of Nazism, may also be understood as trans-national in nature. This aspect was primarily advocated by Adolf Hitler, who later became the leader of the Nazi Party. This party was devoted to what they identified as an Aryan race, residing in various European countries, but sometime mixed with alien elements such as Jews.
Meanwhile, the Nazis rejected many of the well-established citizens within those same countries, such as the Romani people and Jews, whom they did not identify as Aryan. A key Nazi doctrine was lebensraum (living space), which was a vast undertaking to transplant Aryans throughout Poland, much of Eastern Europe and the Baltic nations, and all of western Russia and Ukraine. Lebensraum was thus a vast project for advancing the Aryan race far outside of any particular nation or national borders. Nazi goals were focused on advancing the Aryan race as they perceived it, the modification of the human race via eugenics, and the eradication of human beings that they deemed inferior. But their goals were trans-national and intended to spread across as much of the world as they could achieve. Although Nazism glorified German history, it also embraced the supposed virtues and achievements of the Aryan race in other countries, including India. The Nazis' Aryanism longed for now-extinct species of superior bulls once used as livestock by Aryans and other features of Aryan history that never resided within the borders of Germany as a nation.
Crispi pursued policies whose openly aggressive character would not be equaled until the days of the Fascist regime. Crispi increased military expenditure, talked cheerfully of a European conflagration, and alarmed his German or British friends with these suggestions of preventative attacks on his enemies. His policies were ruinous, both for Italy's trade with France, and, more humiliatingly, for colonial ambitions in East Africa. Crispi's lust for territory there was thwarted when on 1 March 1896, the armies of Ethiopian Emperor Menelik routed Italian forces at Adowa ... in what has been defined as an unparalleled disaster for a modern army. Crispi, whose private life and personal finances ... were objects of perennial scandal, went into dishonorable retirement.Bosworth, R. J. B. (2013). Italy and the Wider World: 1860–1960. London: Routledge. p. 29. .
Italy joined the Allies in the First World War after getting promises of territory, but its war effort was not honored after the war and this fact discredited liberalism paving the way for Benito Mussolini and a political doctrine of his own creation, Fascism. Mussolini's 20-year dictatorship involved a highly aggressive nationalism that led to a series of wars with the creation of the Italian Empire, an alliance with Hitler's Germany, and humiliation and hardship in the Second World War. After 1945, the Catholics returned to government and tensions eased somewhat, but the former two Sicilies remained poor and partially underdeveloped (by industrial country standards). In the 1950s and early 1960s, Italy had an economic boom that pushed its economy to the fifth place in the world.
The working class in those decades voted mostly for the Communist party, and it looked to Moscow rather than Rome for inspiration and was kept out of the national government even as it controlled some industrial cities across the North. In the 21st century, the Communists have become marginal but political tensions remained high as shown by Umberto Bossi's Padanism in the 1980s (whose party Lega Nord has come to partially embrace a moderate version of Italian nationalism over the years) and other separatist movements spread across the country.
The nationalization process accelerated in the 19th century, in parallel to the origin of Spanish nationalism, the social, political and ideological movement that tried to shape a Spanish national identity based on the Castilian model, in conflict with the other historical nations of the State. Politicians of the time were aware that despite the aggressive policies pursued up to that time, the uniform and monocultural "Spanish nation" did not exist, as indicated in 1835 by Antonio Alcalà Galiano, when in the Cortes del Estatuto Real he defended the effort:
"To make the Spanish nation a nation that neither is nor has been until now."Building the nation (as in France, it was the state that created the nation, and not the opposite process) is an ideal that the Spanish elites constantly reiterated, and, one hundred years later than Alcalá Galiano, for example, we can also find it in the mouth of the fascist José Pemartín, who admired the German and Italian modeling policies:
"There is an intimate and decisive dualism, both in Italian fascism and in German National Socialism. On the one hand, the Hegelian doctrine of the absolutism of the state is felt. The State originates in the Nation, educates and shapes the mentality of the individual; is, in Mussolini's words, the soul of the soul."And will be found again two hundred years later, from the socialist Josep Borrell:
"The modern history of Spain is an unfortunate history that meant that we did not consolidate a modern State. Independentists think that the nation makes the State. I think the opposite. The State makes the nation. A strong State, which imposes its language, culture, education."The creation of the tradition of the political community of Spaniards as common destiny over other communities has been argued to trace back to the Cortes of Cádiz. From 1812 on, revisiting the previous history of Spain, Spanish liberalism tended to take for granted the national conscience and the Spanish nation.
A by-product of 19th-century Spanish nationalist thinking is the concept of Reconquista, which holds the power of propelling the weaponized notion of Spain being a nation Islamophobia. The strong interface of nationalism with colonialism is another feature of 19th-century nation building in Spain, with the defence of slavery and colonialism in Cuba being often able to reconcile tensions between mainland elites of Catalonia and Madrid throughout the period.
During the first half of 20th century (notably during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and the Francoist Spain), a new brand of Spanish nationalism with a marked Militarism and an authoritarian stance (as well as promoting policies favouring the Spanish language against the other languages in the country) as a means of modernizing the country was developed by Spanish conservatives, fusing Regenerationism principles with traditional Spanish nationalism. The authoritarian national ideal resumed during the Francoist dictatorship, in the form of National-Catholicism, which was in turn complemented by the myth of Hispanidad.
A distinct manifestation of Spanish nationalism in modern Spanish politics is the interchange of attacks with competing regional nationalisms. Initially present after the end of Francoism in a rather diffuse and reactive form, the Spanish nationalist discourse has been often self-branded as "constitutional patriotism" since the 1980s. Often ignored as in the case of other State nationalisms, its alleged "non-existence" has been a commonplace espoused by prominent figures in the public sphere as well as the mass-media in the country. began as a rebellion by Greek revolutionaries against the ruling Ottoman Empire.]]
In 1918, the region of Banat, Bačka and Baranja came under control of the Serbian army, later the Great National Assembly of Serbs, Bunjevci and other Slavs voted to join Serbia; the Kingdom of Serbia joined the union with State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs on 1 December 1918, and the country was named Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. It was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929, and a Yugoslavism was promoted, which ultimately failed. After the Second World War, Yugoslav Communists established a new SFR Yugoslavia. That state broke up again in the 1990s.Sabrina P. Ramet, Nationalism and federalism in Yugoslavia, 1962–1991 (Indiana Univ Press, 1992).
In the late 19th and early 20th century, many Polish nationalist leaders endorsed the Piast Concept. It held there was a Polish utopia during the Piast dynasty a thousand years before, and modern Polish nationalists should restore its central values of Poland for the Poles. Jan Poplawski had developed the "Piast Concept" in the 1890s, and it formed the centerpiece of Polish nationalist ideology, especially as presented by the National Democracy Party, known as the "Endecja," which was led by Roman Dmowski. In contrast with the Jagiellon concept, there was no concept for a multi-ethnic Poland.
The Piast concept stood in opposition to the "Jagiellon Concept," which allowed for multi-ethnicism and Polish rule over numerous minority groups such as those in the Kresy. The Jagiellon Concept was the official policy of the government in the 1920s and 1930s. Soviet Union dictator Josef Stalin at Tehran in 1943 rejected the Jagiellon Concept because it involved Polish rule over Ukrainians and Belarusians. He instead endorsed the Piast Concept, which justified a massive shift of Poland's frontiers to the west. After 1945 the Soviet-back puppet communist regime wholeheartedly adopted the Piast Concept, making it the centerpiece of their claim to be the "true inheritors of Polish nationalism". After all the killings, including Nazi German occupation, terror in Poland and population transfers during and after the war, the nation was officially declared as 99% ethnically Polish.
In current Polish politics, Polish nationalism is most openly represented by parties linked in the Liberty and Independence Confederation coalition. As of 2020 the Confederation, composed of several smaller parties, had 11 deputies (under 7%) in the Sejm.
The Bulgarian national revival started with the work of Saint Paisius of Hilendar, who opposed Greece domination of Bulgaria's culture and religion. His work Istoriya Slavyanobolgarskaya ("History of the Slav-Bulgarians"), which appeared in 1762, was the first work of Bulgarian historiography. It is considered Paisius' greatest work and one of the greatest pieces of Bulgarian literature. In it, Paisius interpreted Bulgarian medieval history with the goal of reviving the spirit of his nation.
His successor was Saint Sophronius of Vratsa, who started the struggle for an independent Bulgarian church. An autonomous Bulgarian Exarchate was established in 1870/1872 for the Bulgarian diocese wherein at least two-thirds of Orthodox Christians were willing to join it.
In 1869 the Internal Revolutionary Organization was initiated.
The April Uprising of 1876 indirectly resulted in the re-establishment of Bulgaria in 1878.
Zionism, ultimately the most successful of Jewish nationalist movements, advocated in the creation of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel. Labour Zionism hoped that the new Jewish state would be based on socialist principles. They imagined a new Jew that, in contrast to the Jews of the diaspora, was strong, worked the land, and spoke Hebrew. Religious Zionism instead had various religious reasonings for returning to Israel. Although according to historian David Engel, Zionism was more about fear that Jews would end up dispersed and unprotected, rather than fulfilling old prophecies of historical texts. The efforts of the Zionist movement culminated in the establishment of the State of Israel.
Jewish Territorialism split from the Zionist Movement in 1903, arguing for a Jewish state no matter where. As more Jews Aliyah, the main territorialist organization lost support, eventually disbanding in the 1925. Smaller territorialist movements lasted until the establishment of the State of Israel.
Jewish Autonomism and Bundism instead advocated for Jewish national autonomy within the territory they already lived in. Most manifestations of this movement were left-wing in nature, and actively anti-Zionist. While successful among Eastern European Jews in the early 20th century, it lost most of its support due to the Holocaust, although some support lasted through the 20th century.
From this moment I will destroy the old and build the new, and fight for the self-determination of the people, and will apply all my strength to the support of the Chinese Republic and the realization of democracy through the Three Principles, ... for the progress of good government, the happiness and perpetual peace of the people, and for the strengthening of the foundations of the state in the name of peace throughout the world.Hans Kohn, Nationalism: Its Meaning and History (1955) p. 87.
The Kuomintang largely ran China until the Communists took over in 1949. But the latter had also been strongly influenced by Sun's nationalism as well as by the May Fourth Movement in 1919. It was a nationwide protest movement about the domestic backwardness of China and has often been depicted as the intellectual foundation for Chinese Communism.Shakhar Rahav, The Rise of Political Intellectuals in Modern China: May Fourth Societies and the Roots of Mass-Party Politics (Oxford UP, 2015). The New Culture Movement stimulated by the May Fourth Movement waxed strong throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Historian Patricia Ebrey says:
Nationalism, patriotism, progress, science, democracy, and freedom were the goals; imperialism, feudalism, warlordism, autocracy, patriarchy, and blind adherence to tradition were the enemies. Intellectuals struggled with how to be strong and modern and yet Chinese, how to preserve China as a political entity in the world of competing nations.Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge Illustrated History of China (1996) p. 271.
In 1911, following the Xinhai Revolution, Sun's multicultural form of Chinese nationalism manifested as Zhonghua minzu, a concept that promoted the idea of Five Races Under One Union, that sidelined Han Chinese Sinocentrism in favor of coexistence alongside Manchu people, Mongols, Chinese Muslims (Hui people/Uyghurs), and Tibetans, all of which were supposedly equal branches of the Chinese nation. The rhetorical move, as China historian Joseph Esherick points out, was based on practical concerns about imperial threats from the international environment and conflicts on the Chinese frontiers. (2025). 9780742578159, Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780742578159
The 4th of August regime was a Fascism or fascistic nationalist authoritarian dictatorship inspired by Benito Mussolini Fascist Italy and Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and led by Greek general Ioannis Metaxas from 1936 to his death in 1941. It advocated for the Third Hellenic Civilization, a culturally superior Greek civilization that would be the successor of the First and Second Greek civilizations, that were Ancient Greece and the Byzantine Empire respectively. It promoted Greek traditions, folk music and Greek dances, classicism as well as medievalism.
Across Africa, nationalism drew upon the organizational skills that natives had learned in the British and French, and other armies during the world wars. It led to organizations that were not controlled by or endorsed by either the colonial powers or the traditional local power structures that had been collaborating with the colonial powers. Nationalistic organizations began to challenge both the traditional and the new colonial structures and finally displaced them. Leaders of nationalist movements took control when the European authorities exited; many ruled for decades or until they died off. These structures included political, educational, religious, and other social organizations. In recent decades, many African countries have undergone the triumph and defeat of nationalistic fervor, changing in the process the loci of the centralizing state power and patrimonial state.Gabriel Almond and James S. Coleman, The Politics of the Developing Areas (1971)Festus Ugboaja Ohaegbulam, Nationalism in colonial and post-colonial Africa (University Press of America, 1977).Thomas Hodgkin, Nationalism in Colonial Africa (1956)
South Africa, a British colony, was exceptional in that it became virtually independent by 1931. From 1948, it was controlled by white Afrikaner nationalists, who focused on racial segregation and white minority rule, known as apartheid. It lasted until 1994, when multiracial elections were held. The international anti-apartheid movement supported black nationalists until success was achieved, and Nelson Mandela was elected president.Nancy L. Clark and William H. Worger, South Africa: The rise and fall of apartheid (Routledge, 2013).
The Zionism movement, emerged among European Jews in the 19th century. In 1882, Jews, from Europe, began to emigrate to Ottoman Palestine with the goal of establishing a new Jewish homeland. The majority and local population in Palestine, Palestinian Arabs were demanding independence from the British Mandate.
In his 1992 article Jihad vs. McWorld, Benjamin Barber proposed that the fall of communism would cause large numbers of people to search for unity and that small-scale wars would become common, as groups will attempt to redraw boundaries, identities, cultures and ideologies. The fall of communism also allowed for an "us vs. them" mentality to return. Governments would become vehicles for social interests, and the country would attempt to form national policies based on the majority culture, religion or ethnicity. Some newly sprouted democracies had large differences in policies on matters, which ranged from immigration and human rights to trade and commerce.
The academic Steven Berg felt that the root of nationalist conflicts was the demand for autonomy and a separate existence. That nationalism can give rise to strong emotions, which may lead to a group fighting to survive, especially as after the fall of communism, political boundaries did not match ethnic boundaries. Serious conflicts often arose and escalated very easily, as individuals and groups acted upon their beliefs and caused death and destruction. When that happens, states unable to contain the conflict run the risk of slowing their progress at democratization.
Yugoslavia was established after the First World War and joined three acknowledged ethnic groups: Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The national census numbers from 1971 to 1981 measured an increase from 1.3% to 5.4% in the population that ethnically identified itself as Yugoslavs. That meant that the country, almost as a whole, was divided by distinctive religious, ethnic and national loyalties after nearly 50 years.
Nationalist separatism of Croatia and Slovenia from the rest of Yugoslavia has basis in historical imperialist conquests of the region (Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire) and existence within separate spheres of religious, cultural and industrial influence – Catholicism, Protenstantism, cultural orientation in the northwest, versus Orthodoxy, Islam and Orientalism in the southeast. Croatia and Slovenia were subsequently more economically and industrially advanced and remained as such throughout existence of both forms of Yugoslavia.
In the 1970s, the leadership of the separate territories in Yugoslavia protected only territorial interests, at the expense of other territories. In Croatia, there was almost a split within the territory between Serbs and Croats so that any political decision would kindle unrest, and tensions could cross adjacent territories: Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia had no group with a majority; Muslim, Serb, Croat, and Yugoslavs stopped leadership from advancing here as well. Political organizations were not able to deal successfully with such diverse nationalisms. Within the territories, leaderships would not compromise. To do so would create a winner in one ethnic group and a loser in another and raise the possibility of a serious conflict. That strengthened the political stance promoting ethnic identities and caused intense and divided political leadership within Yugoslavia.
In the 1980s, Yugoslavia began to break into fragments. Economic conditions within Yugoslavia were deteriorating. Conflict in the disputed territories was stimulated by the rise in mass nationalism and ethnic hostilities. The per capita income of people in the northwestern territory, encompassing Croatia and Slovenia, was several times higher than that of the southern territory. That, combined with escalating violence from ethnic Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo, intensified economic conditions. The violence greatly contributed to the rise of extreme nationalism of Serbs in Serbia and the rest of Yugoslavia. The ongoing conflict in Kosovo was propagandized by a communist Serb, Slobodan Milošević, to increase Serb nationalism further. As mentioned, that nationalism gave rise to powerful emotions which grew the force of Serbian nationalism by highly nationalist demonstrations in Vojvodina, Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo. Serbian nationalism was so high that Slobodan Milošević ousted leaders in Vojvodina and Montenegro, repressed Albanians within Kosovo and eventually controlled four of the eight regions/territories. Slovenia, one of the four regions not under communist control, favoured a democratic state.
In Slovenia, fear was mounting because Milošević would use the militia to suppress the country, as had occurred in Kosovo. Half of Yugoslavia wanted to be democratic, the other wanted a new nationalist authoritarian regime. In fall of 1989, tensions came to a head, and Slovenia asserted its political and economic independence from Yugoslavia and seceded. In January 1990, there was a total break with Serbia at the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, an institution that had been conceived by Milošević to strengthen unity and later became the backdrop for the fall of communism in Yugoslavia.
In August 1990, a warning to the region was issued when ethnically divided groups attempted to alter the government structure. The republic borders established by the Communist regime in the postwar period were extremely vulnerable to challenges from ethnic communities. Ethnic communities arose because they did not share the identity with everyone within the new post-communist borders, which threatened the new governments. The same disputes were erupting that were in place prior to Milošević and were compounded by actions from his regime.
Also, within the territory, the Croats and the Serbs were in direct competition for control of government. Elections were held and increased potential conflicts between Serbian and Croat nationalism. Serbia wanted to be separate and to decide its own future based on its own ethnic composition, but that would then give Kosovo encouragement to become independent from Serbia. Albanians in Kosovo were already practically independent from Kosovo, but Serbia did not want to let Kosovo become independent. Albanian nationalists wanted their own territory, but that would require a redrawing of the map and threaten neighboring territories. When communism fell in Yugoslavia, serious conflict arose, which led to the rise in extreme nationalism.
Nationalism again gave rise to powerful emotions, which evoked, in some extreme cases, a willingness to die for what one believed, a fight for the survival of the group. The end of communism began a long period of conflict and war for the region. For six years, 200,000–500,000 people died in the Bosnian War. All three major ethnicities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnian Muslims, Croats, Serbs) suffered at the hands of each other. The war garnered assistance from groups, Muslim, Orthodox, and Western Christian, and from state actors, which supplied all sides; Saudi Arabia and Iran supported Bosnia; Russia supported Serbia; Central European and the West, including the US, supported Croatia; and the Pope supported Slovenia and Croatia.
Since 2010, Catalan nationalists have led a renewed Catalan independence movement and declared Catalan independence. The movement has been opposed by Spanish nationalists." Madrid Unity Rally Mired by Fascist Salutes From Far-right Falange Party Members ". Haaretz. 8 October 2017. In the 2010s, the Greek economic crisis and waves of immigration have led to a significant rise of Fascism and Greek nationalism across Greece, especially among the youth.
In Russia, exploitation of nationalist sentiments allowed Vladimir Putin to consolidate power. This nationalist sentiment was used in Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and other actions in Ukraine. Nationalist movements gradually began to rise in Central Europe as well, particularly Poland, under the influence of the ruling party, Law and Justice (led by Jarosław Kaczyński). In Hungary, the anti-immigration rhetoric and stance against foreign influence is a powerful national glue promoted the ruling Fidesz party (led by Viktor Orbán). Nationalist parties have also joined governing coalitions in Bulgaria, Slovakia, Latvia and Ukraine.
In India, Hindu nationalism has grown in popularity with the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party, a right-wing party which has been ruling India at the national level since 2014. The rise in religious nationalism comes with the rise of right-wing populism in India, with the election and re-election of populist leader Narendra Modi as Prime Minister, who promised economic prosperity for all and an end to corruption. Militant Buddhist nationalism is also on the rise in Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka.
In Japan, nationalist influences in the government developed over the course of the early 21st century, largely from the far right Conservatism Nippon Kaigi organization. Nippon Kaigi: Empire, Contradiction, and Japan’s Future . Asia-Pacific Journal. Author – Sachie Mizohata. Published 1 November 2016. Retrieved 12 January 2020. The new movement has advocated re-establishing Japan as a military power and pushed revisionist historical narratives denying events such as the Nanking Massacre.
A referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom was held on 18 September 2014. The proposal was defeated, with 55.3% voting against independence. In a 2016 referendum, the British populace unexpectedly voted to withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Union (known as Brexit). As the promise of continued European Union membership was a core feature of the anti-independence campaign during the Scottish referendum, there have been calls for a second referendum on Scottish independence.
The 2016 United States presidential campaign saw the unprecedented rise of Donald Trump, a businessman with no political experience who ran on a populist/nationalist platform and struggled to gain endorsements from mainstream political figures, even within his own party. Trump's slogans " Make America Great Again" and " America First" exemplified his campaign's repudiation of globalism and its staunchly nationalistic outlook. His unexpected victory in the election was seen as part of the same trend that had brought about the Brexit vote. On 22 October 2018, two weeks before the mid-term elections President Trump openly proclaimed that he was a nationalist to a cheering crowd at a rally in Texas in support of re-electing Senator Ted Cruz who was once an adversary. On 29 October 2018 Trump equated nationalism to patriotism, saying "I'm proud of this country and I call that ''nationalism.''
In 2016, Rodrigo Duterte became president of the Philippines running a distinctly nationalist campaign. Contrary to the policies of his recent predecessors, he distanced the country from the Philippines' former ruler, the United States, and sought closer ties with China (as well as Russia).
In 2017, Turkish nationalism propelled President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to gain unprecedented power in a national referendum. Reactions from world leaders were mixed, with Western European leaders generally expressing concern while the leaders of many of the more authoritarian regimes as well as President Trump offered their congratulations.
Many scholars have noted the relationship between state-building, war, and nationalism. John Etherington argues nationalism is inherently exclusionary and thus potentially violent, p.25 while Jeffrey Herbst posits that external threats can foster nationalist sentiment: "External threats have such a powerful effect on nationalism because people realize in a profound manner that they are under threat because of who they are as a nation; they are forced to recognize that it is only as a nation that they can successfully defeat the threat". With increased external threats, the state's extractive capacities increase. He links the lack of external threats to countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, post-independence, to weak state nationalism and state capacity. Barry Posen argues that nationalism increases the intensity of war, and that states deliberately promote nationalism with the aim of improving their military capabilities. Most new nation-states since 1815 have emerged through decolonization.
Adria Lawrence has argued that nationalism in the colonial world was spurred by failures of colonial powers to extend equal political rights to the subjects in the colonies, thus prompting them to pursue independence. Michael Hechter has argued similarly that "peripheral nationalisms" formed when empires prevented peripheral regions from having autonomy and local rule.
Prominent theorists who developed the modernist interpretation of nations and nationalism include: Carlton J. H. Hayes, Henry Maine, Ferdinand Tönnies, Rabindranath Tagore, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, Arnold Joseph Toynbee and Talcott Parsons.
In his analysis of the historical changes and development of human societies, Henry Maine noted that the key distinction between traditional societies defined as "status" societies based on family association and functionally diffuse roles for individuals and modern societies defined as "contract" societies where social relations are determined by rational contracts pursued by individuals to advance their interests. Maine saw the development of societies as moving away from traditional status societies to modern contract societies.
In his book Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887), Ferdinand Tönnies defined a Gemeinschaft ("community") as being based on emotional attachments as attributed with traditional societies while defining a Gesellschaft ("society") as an impersonal society that is modern. Although he recognized the advantages of modern societies, he also criticized them for their cold and impersonal nature that caused alienation while praising the intimacy of traditional communities.
Émile Durkheim expanded upon Tönnies' recognition of alienation and defined the differences between traditional and modern societies as being between societies based upon "mechanical solidarity" versus societies based on "organic solidarity". Durkheim identified mechanical solidarity as involving custom, habit, and repression that was necessary to maintain shared views. Durkheim identified organic solidarity-based societies as modern societies where there exists a division of labour based on social differentiation that causes alienation. Durkheim claimed that social integration in traditional society required authoritarian culture involving acceptance of a social order. Durkheim claimed that modern society bases integration on the mutual benefits of the division of labour, but noted that the impersonal character of modern urban life caused alienation and feelings of anomie.
Max Weber claimed the change that developed modern society and nations is the result of the rise of a charismatic leader to power in a society who creates a new tradition or a rational-legal system that establishes the supreme authority of the state. Weber's conception of charismatic authority has been noted as the basis of many nationalist governments.
The evolutionary theory of nationalism perceives nationalism to be the result of the evolution of human beings into identifying with groups, such as ethnic groups, or other groups that form the foundation of a nation. Roger Masters in The Nature of Politics describes the primordial explanation of the origin of ethnic and national groups as recognizing group attachments that are thought to be unique, emotional, intense, and durable because they are based upon kinship and promoted along lines of common ancestry.
The primordialist evolutionary views of nationalism often reference the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin as well as Social Darwinist views of the late nineteenth century. Thinkers like Herbert Spencer and Walter Bagehot reinterpreted Darwin's theory of natural selection "often in ways inconsistent with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution" by making unsupported claims of biological difference among groups, ethnicities, races, and nations. Modern evolutionary sciences have distanced themselves from such views, but notions of long-term evolutionary change remain foundational to the work of evolutionary psychologists like John Tooby and Leda Cosmides.
Approached through the primordialist perspective, the example of seeing the mobilization of a foreign military force on the nation's borders may provoke members of a national group to unify and mobilize themselves in response. There are proximate environments where individuals identify nonimmediate real or imagined situations in combination with immediate situations that make individuals confront a common situation of both subjective and objective components that affect their decisions. As such proximate environments cause people to make decisions based on existing situations and anticipated situations.
Critics argue that primordial models relying on evolutionary psychology are based not on historical evidence but on assumptions of unobserved changes over thousands of years and assume stable genetic composition of the population living in a specific area and are incapable of handling the contingencies that characterize every known historical process. Robert Hislope argues:
The articulation of cultural evolutionary theory represents theoretical progress over sociobiology, but its explanatory payoff remains limited due to the role of contingency in human affairs and the significance of non-evolutionary, proximate causal factors. While evolutionary theory undoubtedly elucidates the development of all organic life, it would seem to operate best at macro-levels of analysis, "distal" points of explanation, and from the perspective of the long-term. Hence, it is bound to display shortcomings at micro-level events that are highly contingent in nature.Robert Hislope "From Ontology to Analogy: Evolutionary Theories and the Explanation of Ethnic Politics: in Patrick James and David Goetze ed. Evolutionary Theory and Ethnic Conflict (2000) p. 174.
In 1920, English historian G. P. Gooch argued that "[while patriotism is as old as human association and has gradually widened its sphere from the clan and the tribe to the city and the state, nationalism as an operative principle and an articulate creed only made its appearance among the more complicated intellectual processes of the modern world."
Nationalist mobilization in French colonial Africa and British colonial India developed "when colonial regimes refused to cede rights to their increasingly well-educated colonial subjects", who formed indigenous elites and strategically adopted and adapted nationalist tactics. (2025). 9781107640757, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107640757 (2025). 9781139519076, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139519076 New national identities may cross pre-existing ethnic or linguistic divisions. Anti-colonial independence movements in Africa and Asia in the 1900s were led by individuals who had a set of shared identities and imagined a homeland without external rule. Anderson argues that the racism often experienced as a result of colonial rule and attributed to nationalism is rather due to theories of class.
Gellner's theory of nationalism argues that nationalism works for combining one culture or ethnicity in one state, which leads to that state's success. For Gellner, nationalism is ethnic, and state political parties should reflect the ethnic majority in the state. This definition of nationalism also contributes to anti-colonial nationalism, if one conceives of anti-colonial movements to be movements consisting of one specific ethnic group against an outside ruling party. Edward Said also saw nationalism as ethnic, at least in part, and argued that nationalist narratives often go hand in hand with racism, as communities define themselves in relation to the other.
Anti-colonial nationalism is not static and is defined by different forms of nationalism depending on location. In the anti-colonial movement that took place in the Indian subcontinent, Mahatma Gandhi and his allies in the Indian independence movement argued for a composite nationalism, not believing that an independent Indian nation should be defined by its religious identity. (2025). 9788187712268, SAIACS Press & Oxford House Research. ISBN 9788187712268 Despite large-scale opposition by the Indian National Congress supporters, the insistence of the Muslims under the separatist Muslim League resulted in the Indian subcontinent being partitioned into two states in 1947 along religious lines into the Muslim-majority Dominion of Pakistan and the Hindu-majority Dominion of India. (1998). 9788170249825, APH Publishing. ISBN 9788170249825
Because of colonialism's creation of state and country lines across ethnic, religious, linguistic and other historical boundaries, anti-colonial nationalism is largely related to land first. After independence, especially in countries with particularly diverse populations with historic enmity, there have been a series of smaller independence movements that are also defined by anti-colonialism.
Philosopher and scholar Achille Mbembe argues that post-colonialism is a contradictory term, because colonialism is ever present. Those that participate in this intellectual practice envision a post-colonialism despite its being the defining frame for the world. This is the case with anti-colonialism as well. Anti-colonial nationalism as an intellectual framework persisted into the late 20th century with the resistance movements in Soviet satellite states and continues with Arab Spring in the Arab world in the 21st century.
Civic nationalism is normally associated with liberal nationalism, although the two are distinct, and did not always coincide. On the one hand, until the late 19th and early 20th century adherents to anti-Enlightenment movements such as French Legitimism or Spanish Carlism often rejected the liberal, national unitary state, yet identified themselves not with an ethnic nation but with a non-national dynasty and regional feudal privileges. Xenophobic movements in long-established Western European states indeed often took a 'civic national' form, rejecting a given group's ability to assimilate with the nation due to its belonging to a cross-border community (Irish Catholics in Britain, Ashkenazic Jews in France). On the other hand, while subnational separatist movements were commonly associated with ethnic nationalism, this was not always so, and such nationalists as the Corsican Republic, United Irishmen, Breton Federalist League or Catalan Republican Party could combine a rejection of the unitary civic-national state with a belief in liberal universalism.
Liberal nationalism is commonly considered to be compatible with liberal values of freedom, Toleration, Egalitarianism, and individual rights.Tamir, Yael. 1993. Liberal Nationalism. Princeton University Press. Ernest RenanRenan, Ernest. 1882. "Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?" and John Stuart MillMill, John Stuart. 1861. Considerations on Representative Government. are often thought to be early liberal nationalists. Liberal nationalists often defend the value of national identity by saying that individuals need a national identity to lead meaningful, autonomous lives,For criticism, see: and that liberal democratic polities need national identity to function properly.For criticism, see: ;
Civic nationalism lies within the traditions of rationalism and liberalism, but as a form of nationalism it is usually contrasted with ethnic nationalism. Civic nationalism is correlated with long-established states whose dynastic rulers had gradually acquired multiple distinct territories, with little change to boundaries, but which contained historical populations of multiple linguistic and/or confessional backgrounds. Since individuals living within different parts of the state territory might have little obvious common ground, civic nationalism developed as a way for rulers to both explain a contemporary reason for such heterogeneity and to provide a common purpose (Ernest Renan's classic description in What is a Nation? (1882) as a voluntary partnership for a common endeavor). Renan argued that factors such as ethnicity, language, religion, economics, geography, ruling dynasty and historic military deeds were important but not sufficient. Needed was a spiritual soul that allowed as a "daily referendum" among the people. Civic-national ideals influenced the development of representative democracy in multiethnic countries such as the United States and France, as well as in constitutional monarchies such as Great Britain, Belgium and Spain.
Whereas nationalism in and of itself does not imply a belief in the superiority of one ethnicity or country over others, some nationalists support Ethnocentrism supremacy or protectionism.
The humiliation of being a second-class citizen led regional minorities in multiethnic states, such as Great Britain, Spain, France, Germany, Russia and the Ottoman Empire, to define nationalism in terms of loyalty to their minority culture, especially language and religion. Forced assimilation was anathema.Timothy Baycroft, Nationalism in Europe 1789–1945 (1998) p. 56.
For the politically dominant cultural group, assimilation was necessary to minimize disloyalty and treason and therefore became a major component of nationalism. A second factor for the politically dominant group was competition with neighboring states—nationalism involved a rivalry, especially in terms of military prowess and economic strength.Baycroft, Nationalism in Europe 1789–1945 (1998) p. 58.
History, political ideologies, and religions place most nations along a continuum of muscular nationalism. Muscular nationalism conceptualizes a nation's identity as being derived from muscular or masculine attributes that are unique to a particular country. If definitions of nationalism and gender are understood as socially and culturally constructed, the two may be constructed in conjunction by invoking an "us" versus "them" dichotomy for the purpose of the exclusion of the so-called "other," who is used to reinforce the unifying ties of the nation. The empowerment of one gender, nation or sexuality tends to occur at the expense and disempowerment of another; in this way, nationalism can be used as an instrument to perpetuate heteronormative structures of power. The gendered manner in which dominant nationalism has been imagined in most states in the world has had important implications on not only individual's lived experience, but on international relations. Colonialism has historically been heavily intertwined with muscular nationalism, from research linking hegemonic masculinity and empire-building, to intersectional oppression being justified by colonialist images of the "other", a practice integral in the formation of Western identity. This "othering" may come in the form of orientalism, whereby the East is feminized and sexualized by the West. The imagined feminine East, or "other," exists in contrast to the masculine West.
The status of conquered nations can become a causality dilemma: the nation was "conquered because they were effeminate and seen as effeminate because they were conquered." In defeat they are considered militaristically unskilled, not aggressive, and thus not muscular. In order for a nation to be considered "proper", it must possess the male-gendered characteristics of virility, as opposed to the stereotypically female characteristics of subservience and dependency. Muscular nationalism is often inseparable from the concept of a warrior, which shares Ideology commonalities across many nations; they are defined by the masculine notions of aggression, willingness to engage in war, decisiveness, and muscular strength, as opposed to the feminine notions of peacefulness, weakness, non-violence, and compassion. This masculinized image of a warrior has been theorized to be "the culmination of a series of gendered historical and social processes" played out in a national and international context. Ideas of cultural dualism—of a martial man and chaste woman—which are implicit in muscular nationalism, underline the raced, Social class, , and heteronormative nature of dominant national identity.
Nations and gender systems are mutually supportive constructions: the nation fulfils the masculine ideals of comradeship and brotherhood. Masculinity has been cited as a notable factor in producing political militancy. A common feature of national crisis is a drastic shift in the socially acceptable ways of being a man, which then helps to shape the gendered perception of the nation as a whole.
Some of the qualities that characterize integral nationalism are anti-individualism, statism, radical extremism, and aggressive-expansionist militarism. The term Integral Nationalism often overlaps with fascism, although many natural points of disagreement exist. Integral nationalism arises in countries where a strong military ethos has become entrenched through the independence struggle, when, once independence is achieved, it is believed that a strong military is required to ensure the security and viability of the new state. Also, the success of such a liberation struggle results in feelings of national superiority that may lead to extreme nationalism.
Pan-nationalism is unique in that it covers a large area span. Pan-nationalism focuses more on "clusters" of ethnic groups. Pan-Slavism is one example of Pan-nationalism. The goal is to unite all Slavic people into one country. They did succeed by uniting several South Slavs people into Yugoslavia in 1918.Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia (Cornell University Press, 1984).
Many nationalist movements are dedicated to national liberation, in the view that their nations are being persecuted by other nations and thus need to exercise self-determination by liberating themselves from the accused persecutors. Anti-Revisionism Marxism–Leninism is closely tied with this ideology, and practical examples include Stalin's early work Marxism and the National Question and his socialism in one country edict, which declares that nationalism can be used in an internationalist context, fighting for national liberation without racial or religious divisions.
Other examples of left-wing nationalism include Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement that launched the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Cornwall's Mebyon Kernow, Ireland's Sinn Féin, Wales's Plaid Cymru, Galicia's Galician Nationalist Bloc, the Awami League in Bangladesh, the African National Congress in South Africa and numerous movements in Eastern Europe.Robert Zuzowski, "The Left and Nationalism in Eastern Europe" East European Quarterly, 41#4 (2008) online Alexander J. Motyl, ed., Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2 vol. 2000).
A position developed in Europe during the 1990s, national-anarchist groups have seen arisen worldwide, most prominently in Australia (New Right Australia/New Zealand), Germany (International National Anarchism) and the United States (BANA). National-anarchism has been described as a radical right-wing nationalist ideology which advocates White separatism and white racial purity. National-anarchists claim to syncretize Neotribalism ethnic nationalism with philosophical anarchism, mainly in their support for a stateless society whilst rejecting anarchist social philosophy. The main ideological innovation of national-anarchism is its anti-state palingenetic ultranationalism. National-anarchists advocate homogeneous communities in place of the nation state. National-anarchists claim that those of different Ethnic group or racial groups would be free to develop Separatism in their own while striving to be politically meritocratic, economically non-capitalist, ecologically sustainable and socially and culturally traditional.
Although the term national-anarchism dates back as far as the 1920s, the contemporary national-anarchist movement has been put forward since the late 1990s by British political activist Troy Southgate, who positions it as being "Third Position". The few scholars who have studied national-anarchism conclude that it represents a further evolution in the thinking of the radical right rather than an entirely new dimension on the political spectrum. National-anarchism is considered by anarchists as being a rebranding of totalitarian fascism and an oxymoron due to the inherent contradiction of anarchist philosophy of anti-fascism, abolition of unjustified hierarchy, dismantling of national borders and universal Egalitarianism between different nationalities as being incompatible with the idea of a synthesis between anarchism and fascism.
National-anarchism has elicited scepticism and outright hostility from both left-wing and far-right critics. Critics, including scholars, accuse national-anarchists of being nothing more than white nationalists who promote a communitarian and racialist form of ethnic and racial separatism while wanting the militant chic of calling themselves anarchists without the historical and philosophical baggage that accompanies such a claim, including the anti-racist egalitarian anarchist philosophy and the contributions of Jewish anarchists. Some scholars are sceptical that implementing national-anarchism would result in an expansion of freedom and describe it as an authoritarian anti-statism that would result in authoritarianism and oppression, only on a smaller scale.
Territorial nationalists assume that all inhabitants of a particular nation owe allegiance to their country of birth or adoption. Middle East and North Africa: Challenge to Western Security by Peter Duignan and L.H. Gann, Hoover Institution Press, 1981, p. 22 A sacred quality is sought in the nation and in the popular memories it evokes. Citizenship is idealized by territorial nationalists. A criterion of a territorial nationalism is the establishment of a mass, public culture based on common values, codes and traditions of the population.
The French Empire was not far behind the British in the use of sports to strengthen colonial solidarity with France. Colonial officials promoted and subsidized gymnastics, table games, and dance and helped football spread to French colonies.Driss Abbassi, "Le sport dans l'empire français: un instrument de domination?." Outre-mers 96.364 (2009): 5–15. online
Philosopher A. C. Grayling describes nations as artificial constructs, "their boundaries drawn in the blood of past wars". He argues that "there is no country on earth which is not home to more than one different but usually coexisting culture. Cultural heritage is not the same thing as national identity".
Nationalism is considered by its critics to be inherently divisive, as adherents may draw upon and highlight perceived differences between people, emphasizing an individual's identification with their own nation. They also consider the idea to be potentially oppressive, because it can submerge individual identity within a national whole and give elites or political leaders potential opportunities to manipulate or control Common people. Much of the early opposition to nationalism was related to its geopolitical ideal of a separate state for every nation. The classic nationalist movements of the 19th century rejected the very existence of the multi-ethnic empires in Europe, contrary to an ideological critique of nationalism which developed into several forms of internationalism and anti-nationalism. The Islamic revival of the 20th century also produced an Islamism critique of the nation-state. (see Pan-Islamism) World Book Encyclopedia, 2018 ed., s.v. "Muslims"
At the end of the 19th century, Marxists and other socialists and communists (such as Rosa Luxemburg) produced political analyses that were critical of the nationalist movements then active in Central and Eastern Europe, although a variety of other contemporary socialists and communists, from Vladimir Lenin (a communist) to Józef Piłsudski (a socialist), were more sympathetic to national self-determination.
In his classic essay on the topic, George Orwell distinguishes nationalism from patriotism (which he defines as devotion to a particular place). More abstractly, nationalism is "power-hunger tempered by self-deception".George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism , orwell.ru . For Orwell, the nationalist is more likely than not dominated by irrational negative impulses:
A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist—that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating—but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations. He sees history, especially contemporary history, as the endless rise and decline of great power units and every event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his own side is on the upgrade and some hated rival is on the downgrade. But finally, it is important not to confuse nationalism with mere worship of success. The nationalist does not go on the principle of simply ganging up with the strongest side. On the contrary, having picked his side, he persuades himself that it is the strongest and is able to stick to his belief even when the facts are overwhelmingly against him.
In the Liberalism political tradition, there was mostly a negative attitude toward nationalism as a dangerous force and a cause of conflict and war between nation-states. The historian Lord Acton put the case for "nationalism as insanity" in 1862. He argued that nationalism suppresses minorities, places country above moral principles and creates a dangerous individual attachment to the state. He opposed democracy and tried to defend the pope from Italian nationalism. Since the late 20th century, liberals have been increasingly divided, with some philosophers such as Michael Walzer, Isaiah Berlin, Charles Taylor and David Miller emphasizing that a liberal society needs to be based in a stable nation state.Motyl 1:298
The pacifist critique of nationalism also concentrates on the violence of some nationalist movements, the associated militarism, and on conflicts between nations inspired by jingoism or chauvinism. National symbols and patriotic assertiveness are in some countries discredited by their historical link with past wars, especially in Germany. British pacifist Bertrand Russell criticized nationalism for diminishing the individual's capacity to judge his or her fatherland's foreign policy. Russell Speaks His Mind, 1960. Fletcher and son Ltd., Norwich, United Kingdom Albert Einstein stated that "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind". Jiddu Krishnamurti stated that "Nationalism is merely the glorification of tribalism".
Transhumanism have also expressed their opposition to nationalism, to the extent that some transhumanists believe national identities should be dissolved entirely. The influential transhumanist FM-2030 refused to identify with any nationality, referring to himself as 'universal'. Furthermore, in The Transhumanist Handbook, Kate Levchuk stated that a transhumanist "doesn't believe in nationality". (2025). 9783030169206, Springer Nature. ISBN 9783030169206
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