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This article discusses how notions of fear, survival and war influenced nationalism in Scandinavia in the 19th century. It argues that fear of annihilation and concerns about security led to an obsession with size and capability among several leading politicians and national ideologues, making them embrace unification nationalism as a means of national security and survival. Thus, in offering empirical support for Eric Hobsbawm's theory of a threshold principle nations in the 19th century, the article also lends support to John Hutchinson's emphasis on the significance of warfare in nation‐formation. The present article shows that 19th‐century nationalism in Scandinavia in the nineteenth century had a less benign side than traditional studies suggest, as the quest for security and survival in an anarchic and dangerous world meant that war was reckoned with or even thought of as necessary. Consequently, influential contemporaries advocated other kinds of state‐formation than the current Scandinavian nation‐states, deeming unification as the best way to offer security. Yet, notions of fear, survival and war did not only apply to unification nationalism as the case of Norwegian secession nationalism shows. This suggests that, generally, 19th‐century nationalism in Scandinavia is compatible with the realist school of international relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by previous research showing how populist radical right‐wing parties capitalise discussions around nation, this article examines Finnish lay citizens' understanding of nationhood in the context of rising right‐wing populism. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with voters of a populist party (N = 25) and using the photo‐elicitation method, this study explores how participants use time, place and emotions to construct their national identity. Through a narrative‐discursive analysis, three emotional narratives were identified—respecting the past, beloved places of identity and admiring traditional ways of living—each contributing to social identity continuity. The findings reveal the interplay between political discourses and embodied, affective meaning‐making, highlighting the importance of approaching the nation as an affective community and using image‐based methodologies to study complex national identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the extent to which participating in Independence Day practices influences people's national identity while taking into consideration the differences between public top‐down practices and private bottom‐up habits. It is a longitudinal study that uses a four‐wave panel survey to inspect levels of national identity across time as well as participation in various Independence Day practices over two successive years. There was an increase in the levels of some dimensions of national identity among those who participated in Independence Day practices – both top‐down and bottom‐up – while there were no changes in these levels among those who did not participate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the significance of fun and solidarity in constructing national belonging. Drawing inspiration from Erving Goffman's analysis of social occasions, the article examines the establishment of an Irish‐American Gaelic Athletic League in New York City from 1904 to 1916. Tracing the gradual shaping of the games, it shows how organizers used sporting competitions to draw participants and regulate the interactions between immigrants from different counties in Ireland. Successful regulation of the games allowed immigrants from various counties in Ireland to engage each other in a spirit of friendly competition and develop solidarity. Far from being an obstacle to national belonging, these differences became the basis for fun sociability, leading to broad Irish belonging and pride. The enjoyment derived from participation in well‐regulated occasions contributes to the formation of social bonds and solidarity among potential members, ultimately fostering national identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on national solidarity is puzzled by the question of how solidarity can bridge social differences and has not asked how it works through sameness; that question was relegated to the literature on national identity. But can solidarity create nationhood through sameness? This theoretical article rehabilitates Durkheim's underused concept of mechanical solidarity and proposes to study sameness not as a human given, identity or group quality, but as a social performance that constitutes similarity between people and thus also solidarity. Whilst mechanical solidarity can function in all types of groups, it is particularly prominent in the context of nationhood. To explain how, the article explores performances of national customs related to food, which convey a conformist and unreflective subjectivity as well as horizontal unanimity. When people do things collectively, they perform national solidarity without necessarily indicating a collective identity that exists out there or agreeing about ideas and values. Contrary to common stereotypes of modern societies as ‘complex’, the article underscores sameness as crucial to modern nationalism—still the most significant socio‐political principle of our era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to the themed section on ‘Mechanisms of National Solidarity’ explores key questions and challenges related to studying national solidarity as distinct from national identity. Focusing on the ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’, this section highlights the importance of examining and theorising the social mechanisms that shape different manifestations of national solidarity. These mechanisms include interpersonal interactions, social networks, communicative processes, socio‐political institutions and iconic material objects. Additionally, the introduction briefly outlines the six contributions in this section, which examines specific solidarity mechanisms within particular national contexts. The contributions offer valuable insights into the study of nationhood and nationalism in both everyday life and public events, helping to unravel the under‐explored relationship between collective identity formation and the creation of solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates geography textbooks of the 1930s in Türkiye, contending that geographical knowledge played a pivotal role in shaping nationhood within a modernising state. This study's critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the early republican geography textbooks showcases how (1) Türkiye's spatial formation was reimagined in 1930s; (2) defining markers of Turkishness and the Turkish nation were forged through erasures and breakups of minority groups, and (3) the new national identity was “bridged” to the geography of the newly founded Republic. This paper posits that a nation's portrayal of its geography and global positioning is not merely a factual recording, but also a reflection of ideological and political choices. Such portrayals are complete social constructs, inherently influenced by power dynamics and disputes. Beneath the ostensibly impartial depictions of space and spatial relations, invisible power dynamics and assertions underlie the assignments of specific meanings to geographic areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of an effort to establish a national identity within the education sector, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) revised its 2018/2019 textbooks. This study seeks to understand the motivation behind the revisions, focusing on how the new content depict 'the self' and 'the other'. Through our analysis, it was discovered that the textbooks should be seen as an extension of the Palestinian struggle for nation‐building and self‐determination. The PNA's strategy to curricula development represents a departure from the previous Oslo framework with a focus on historical Palestine and defining 'the other' on their own terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to consider the relationship between sport and identity formation by examining testimonies of 24 British women who attended the Solheim Cup golf tournament in 2019 to support a transnational team made up of professional European women players. Relatively little is known about the effects of transnational sports teams on identity formation, not least because such teams are themselves rare. The Solheim Cup, contested by teams of female professional golfers representing the United States and Europe, is one such example. The data set consists of interviews with women who attended the competition that took place in a period of political uncertainty between the UK electorate voting to leave the European Union and Brexit actually taking place. The paper analyses the women's views in relation to national identity, European identity and cosmopolitanism. Although it emerges that most of the women felt more European in the context of a competition involving a team representing Europe and were opposed to the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, they could also be described as cosmopolitan as a result of their educational level, social class and experience of living in or regularly visiting foreign countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although protests are an essential part of modern politics, scholars in nation branding, public diplomacy and soft power have had very little to say about these episodes. Discussions in the field have only marginally addressed dissent and disruption, falling into a methodological statism that emphasises what states do to construct and legitimise specific versions of national identity. Debates on nation promotion consequently overlook how individuals and organisations outside the state and outside national boundaries can be equally important in the construction and communication of national images. Drawing on domestic and foreign news coverage of protests in Brazil, Romania and Chile, we propose three frames to analyse the relationship between protests and nation promotion: (1) protests as threats, (2) protests as expression of the true nation and (3) protests as strategic communications. These frames shed light on how bottom‐up efforts contest—overtly or covertly—state‐sponsored versions of national identity and how protests are visibility arenas where competing discourses about the nation are communicated. Protests should therefore be acknowledged not as mere disruptions to national images or reputations but as another expression of the contingent, multifaceted and shifting nature of nationhood, particularly in highly mediatised contemporary societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While exclusionary national identities are widespread among Europeans, relatively few people vote for the far right in most countries. Thus, an exclusionary identity in many cases does not lead to voting for the most nativist types of parties. We explain this empirical puzzle by showing that these identities need to be activated to become behaviourally relevant. To this end, we analyse longitudinal comparative data of over 135,000 individuals across more than 26 years and 26 countries combining different survey programmes and manifesto data. We use latent class analysis to show that over half of respondents hold exclusionary conceptions of nationhood. Moreover, this type of national identity predicts voting far right. Using multi‐level modelling and within‐country estimators, we further demonstrate that this relationship is significantly stronger when a country's political elites across all parties become more exclusionary. Taking the activation hypothesis to the test in a European context, we conclude that the effect of national identity is conditional on its prior activation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civic education has long been viewed as a political tool to construct identity in nation‐states. This view, however, is complicated by the cases of Hong Kong and Macau. As former colonies and current autonomous regions of China, the two cities went through decolonisation without becoming nation‐states. Does this status affect Hong Kong's and Macau's identity discourses? Are civic textbooks tools to construct or deconstruct a Chinese/national identity? What explains the two cities' different identity discourses? Going beyond the civic–ethnic binary, this article argues that identities in 'postcolonial territorial autonomies', such as Hong Kong and Macau, should be analysed through a multilevel framework of identity/state–society interactions, reflecting the local, national and global forces at play. The interactions of these forces shape Hong Kong's layered identity, Macau's ambiguous identity and the two cities' contradictory attitudes towards colonial legacies. This study contributes to a relational and interactional rethinking of national identity and decolonisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secularisation theory contends that religiosity and trust in religious organisations tend to decline when trust in their secular counterparts increases. However, it is puzzling why religious organisations receive public trust as high as their secular counterparts in countries where religiosity is low. If religious organisations are deemed to be doomed as trust in secular counterparts rises, why do people still trust them? We argue that a high level of trust in religious organisations is associated with their importance in nation‐building and national identity construction: Individuals with a strong national identity are more likely to trust religious organisations. Using both qualitative and quantitative data about public trust in the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) and Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC), this study finds that the historical role of religious organisations in strengthening national cohesion and building national identity during times of instability leads ordinary citizens to place both generational and strategic trust in these religious organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Danish‐Jewish publisher Meïr Aron Goldschmidt was an active political voice in Denmark in the 1840s and 1850s during the crisis of the Danish Oldenburg monarchy, when the 'Danish Empire' was troubled by territorial defragmentation, succession crisis, foreign military threats, Danish–German ethnic tensions and calls for democratic reforms by National Liberals. This article reflects on Goldschmidt's life and works as he attempted to syncretise the inherent dualities of nationalism and liberalism. His vision became a Swiss‐inspired federalism that should create a shared national identity based on liberal democracy to reunite the ethnic groups of the 'Danish Empire'. Ultimately, history took another course, and the nationalist path was taken with disastrous results for Denmark. However, Goldschmidt has left a legacy in his writings as a microcosm of the ideas of his time by trying to syncretise nationalism and liberalism, cosmopolitanism and nationalism and a Danish and Jewish national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between racism and the memory politics of the anti‐communist underground in Poland. It explores a covert antisemitism behind the conservative nationalist hegemonic project of transforming the anti‐communist underground into the ideologically charged symbol of the Cursed Soldiers. It demonstrates that under the conditions of the condemnation of antisemitism, the symbolism of the Cursed Soldiers has become a covert way of expressing anti‐Jewish prejudice in hegemonic memory politics. The paper argues that this covert antisemitism must be seen in the broader context of historical racialised antisemitism and racialised structures of Polish national identity. The paper challenges the notion of Poland as a country free from racism, by unpacking the role of racialisation in the dominant understanding of Polishness. It demonstrates how the memory politics of the Cursed Soldiers fit into the racialised logic of the dominant ideology of Polish national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article demonstrates how and when the nation—whether in the shape of concrete national symbols or as an abstract frame of reference—became relevant to ordinary people. It focuses on the experiences and activities of Amsterdam citizens in the second half of the 19th century. Central to the analysis is the apparent contradiction between 'banal' or 'everyday nationalism', in which nationalist symbols and rhetoric appeared to successfully reach their audience because of their omnipresence in daily life, and 'national indifference', as referring to the absence of national identification among the masses. It argues that in order to overcome the dichotomies between elites and masses and national and non‐national performances, we should focus on the popular incentives for national identification, rather than on the ideological content and the (physical or symbolic) borders of the national community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to the themed section 'The history of national indifference. A critical appraisal' explores the challenges and possibilities of the concept of national indifference. It starts from the premise that national indifference remains a very useful concept to avoid falling into teleological narratives of nationalism. The central argument is that national indifference needs to be theorized as a non‐binary, relative concept that is not the complete opposite of national identification. Indeed, the contributions show that national indifference has gradations and can coexist with explicit, banal or everyday forms of nationalism, both among elites and ordinary people, both in and outside of East Central Europe, both before and after the Two World Wars. This central argument results from an engagement with three areas of debate surrounding the national indifference literature, which all relate to its (inadvertent) reproduction of binary understandings of nationalism: the dichotomous conceptualization of east versus west, nationalisation versus non‐nationalisation and elites versus masses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper draws on 2008 and 2017 European Values Study (EVS) data to analyse the differences in popular understandings of national identity between Western and Eastern European countries as well as the changes in popular views over the 2010s. Using latent class analysis (LCA), five categories of respondents are identified according to people's understandings of national identity—anti‐ascriptive nationalists, liberal nationalists, voluntarist‐leaning multiple nationalists, moderate nationalists and ardent nationalists. While on average half of the Western countries' respondents of the 2017 EVS wave thought that ascriptive criteria of national membership (ancestry, place of birth) were not important while voluntarist (respect for the institutions/laws, speaking the national language) were, the corresponding proportion in an average Eastern country was just over 20%. It is argued that persistent and historically ingrained differences in popular conceptions of nationhood between West and East are contributing to policy tensions within the EU, most notably in the management of migration and refugee flows. Furthermore, the article found no evidence that the gap between Western and Eastern Europe in popular nationhood views was decreasing over the 2010s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western societies over the last few decades have seen an increased interest in questions of group belonging and group identities, including ethno‐national groups. According to essentialising or constructivist paradigms, belonging to a national group is commonly conceptualised in the range of objective versus subjective criteria, where objective entails ascription and subjective, self‐identification. This paper suggests disentangling the paired dimensions—objective and other‐classification versus subjective and self‐classification—by analysing the late Habsburg Empire. I argue that the introduction of national registers in the new provincial constitutions and electoral laws of Moravia, Bukovina and Galicia accelerated an objective understanding of nationality and increasingly favoured other‐classification over self‐classification in cases where national belonging had become an administrative category. Yet, to do justice to the individual's subjective feelings, authorities were supposed to investigate objectively a citizen's subjective identification—a procedure that can be termed "objectivisation." Such objectivising procedures thus reconciled an individual's subjective identification with an increasingly objective understanding of nationality by developing guidelines on how classification by others should proceed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well documented that individuals' conceptions of national identity influence their opinions about immigration. The most well‐known ideal types to capture conceptions of national identity are the civic and ethnic conceptions. Yet, this dichotomy does not reflect contemporary debates about immigration, which are framed in cultural terms. Scholars have thus proposed a cultural conception of national identity. The relationship between this conception and immigration, however, remains contested. Using an innovative approach to studying public opinion, this research analyses qualitative interviews conducted with individuals from the general public to investigate how each conception of national identity influences opinions about immigration in the context of Quebec, Canada. It shows that the cultural conception of national identity is related to both positive and negative opinions about immigration. This is explained by an evaluation mechanism whereby individuals evaluate if immigrants are included or excluded from the national group based on their (non)conformity to specific markers of identity. This evaluation is subjective and is often informed and substantiated by mediatised information about immigration‐related issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is Chinese nationalism? Is nationalism the most effective framework for understanding how people in China are making sense of the world today? These are among the questions raised by Allen Carlson in his 2009 article 'A flawed perspective: the limitations inherent within the study of Chinese nationalism', which developed a provocative critique of decades of scholarship. Acknowledging the insights of Carlton's questions while disagreeing with his proposed conceptual shift towards national identity construction, I propose a further shift towards national identity deconstruction. In doing so, I combine the political insights of Hong Kong nationalists with the theoretical insights of deconstruction. This shift redirects the study of Chinese nationalism away from an abstract conceptualisation of nationalism to a more precise definition of the phenomena under study, as well as moving the debate on potential impacts away from international relations to consideration of the complex dynamics of China's ethnic politics. New definitions of both nationalism and minzu (of minzu zhuyi) are developed, reconceptualising the phenomena heretofore known as 'Chinese nationalism' as external symptoms of underlying tensions between conflicting identity narratives. In conclusion, the practical implications of this reconceptualisation are considered, exploring potential future paths for the People's Republic of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the extent to which history forms national identity among Latvian youth. Being a multiethnic country, Latvia provides a unique opportunity to study the role of history in nation‐building among dominant and minority ethnic groups. The majority of Latvia's ethnic minorities are Russian‐speaking; therefore, a peculiarity of the Latvian case is the influence of the historical narratives promoted by Russia. The research problem of the paper is the formation of national identity when a foreign country promotes distorted historical narratives to discredit a state. The empirical findings are based on 30 in‐depth interviews with young people. The main conclusion is that history plays a rather limited direct role in forming national identity among youth in Latvia. The influence of Russia's historical narratives is observable but not as strong as expected in the context of Russia's influence activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National identity is widely used to explain anti‐immigrant attitudes and thus the appeal for right‐wing (populist) parties. Yet, consensus on how to capture national identity is lacking. This article identifies ideal‐typical patterns of national boundary making across 42 countries and more than 25 years beyond the ethnic–civic dichotomy and addresses the multidimensionality of national identity. Using latent class analysis and cluster analysis, four ideal‐typical conceptions of nationhood are identified and shown to be differently related to national attachment, national pride, and national chauvinism. Overall, the results close the methodological–empirical gap between classical approaches and recent inductive approaches to national identity and demonstrate that national identity is a cross‐cultural phenomenon with distinct types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identity formation is a complex process and has been discussed by post‐structuralist discourse theorist Ernesto Laclau. This paper focuses on Laclau's proposed ideas on the means of identity production and populism and studies the popular independence movement for Bangladesh under that rubric. It locates charismatic leadership as a necessary condition for populism and identifies Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the charismat suturing the various chains of equivalence that rose to become the populist movement that resulted in the nation's struggle for independence in 1971. This paper also looks at the transformational leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and acknowledges it as a necessary condition for the patterns of identity creation in East Bengal in the late 1960s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social trust is crucial for the functioning of societies and states as well as for the wellbeing of individuals. In this article, I expand on previous literature and scrutinise the role of definitions of group membership in the form of national belonging as a key predictor of three distinct dimensions of social trust: particularised trust, trust in strangers and identity‐based trust. Drawing on recent data from the European Values Study, I find that stronger ethnic conceptions of nationhood are related to higher identity‐based trust, whereas the reverse holds for trust in strangers. The latter relationship, however, must be qualified regarding majority conceptions at the respective national level. Results for particularised trust, however, point towards a more complex relationship than outlined in the theoretical expectations. Thus, this article contributes to extant literature by presenting a comprehensive argument linking all three dimensions to conceptions of nationhood challenging simplified notions of generalised trust. Further, I go beyond extant studies by combining conceptions of nationhood at the individual level with several country‐level variables to demonstrate the robustness of the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the concept of national identity has recaptured the imagination of public opinion research and with it individuals' conceptions of what it takes to be a "true" member of their nation. This investigation aims to add to the explanation of varying conceptions of nationhood by scrutinising their personality‐based foundations. It provides the first systematic analysis of a yet unstudied link between the Big Five personality traits and two ideal‐typical conceptions of nationhood: civic and ethnic national identity. Using 18 samples from six European countries (Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, and the United Kingdom), each containing around 1000 individuals, we uncover psychological underpinnings of attitudes towards national membership, revealing several consistent trait patterns. We find a negative relationship between openness to experience and an ethnic national identity, while conscientiousness associates positively with the civic ideal type of national identity content. The findings presented extend current understandings of how people conceptualise national belonging and provide evidence that distinct conceptions of nationhood are related to different dispositional foundations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rather than addressing the Kurdish conflict in Turkey directly, this study focuses on how the rising nationalist populism bears on Kurdish voters supporting the pro‐Kurdish party HDP. There are very few studies on how Kurds are affected by the nationalist populism often expressed in Turkey by the governing People's Alliance (Cumhur İttifakı) with its slogan "domestic and national," even though the literature offers a broad variety of studies on the Kurdish conflict. To fill this gap, this study is supported by focus group discussions with the Kurds in Turkey who support the HDP, based on a sample of the Kurds living in Istanbul, which is sometimes referred to as the "largest Kurdish city." This study claims that the populist slogan of the "domestic and national" not only marginalises the Kurdish interviewees but also weakens their sense of belonging to Turkey, thus encouraging them to establish their own national identities. An important result of the focus group meetings is that AKP's polarising policy not only causes polarisation among Turks but also among the Kurds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces our themed section on The Left(s) and Nationalism(s), which provides a comparative analysis of the relationship between nationalism and different left‐wing parties in Western Europe. It highlights the innovative comparative perspectives offered by this themed section, which not only concerns a series of different geographical cases studies but also involves the ideological plurality of the Left. The larger research question that our contributors address is how different left‐wing parties have dealt with the inherent ideological tension between the universality claimed by the Left and the particularism inherent in nationalism, as a doctrine and a principle of political legitimacy. The article stresses three main contributions of our themed section: (1) Western European left‐wing parties do engage with the themes of nationalism and nationhood, but they often rely on convenient silence to solve some of the contradictions with their progressive ideology. (2) None of these parties have formulated thick versions of the respective national identities. (3) State‐wide left‐wing parties have used instrumental conceptions of nationhood to address the challenge of separatist parties, but only with mixed results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How German were German anarchists in the United States and Brazil? Did the experience of exile and immigration preserve or even heighten a national identity among radicals who openly espoused revolutionary internationalism? Anarchists distinguished between nation and nationality on the one hand, and the state and nationalism on the other. This article examines expressions of nationality by a handful of German anarchist editors and writers from the 1880s to the end of World War II. They wanted to be stateless, but not nationless. This article argues that German exile anarchists in the United States and Brazil expressed a militant, countercultural, antistatist and anticlerical nationality. They were 'rooted cosmopolitans': They identified with the international revolutionary tradition and at the same time remained attached to Germany's heritage of radical politics, arts and humanities. There was a remarkable consistency in their commentary levelled against Bismarck, the Kaiser, the Weimar government and the Nazis either in Germany or in the host country. Anarchists advocated for a borderless global federation of free communities and, to that end, rejected nationalism and urged people to stop 'seeing like a state' by exposing the false promises and crimes of statism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Finnish national identities because they expressed the shared experiences of newly established Finnish communities, and they were crucial in constructing a new nation. It also explores created images of the Finnish and Finland, as well as community construction in Republican China, especially after Finland gained independence in 1917. Another aim is to examine those Finnish political, cultural and economic activities that supported their identity construction in China. The specific emphasis will be on analysing the largest and sometimes cross‐functioning Finnish groups in China: the governmental officials and the commercial community. By using qualitative methods, namely, discourse analysis and historical analysis, this study shows how the Finnish community created alternative, sometimes imaginative and frequently anti‐imperialist national identities in the new Republican China. Indeed, by signing the Treaty Principles of Reciprocity and Equal Treatment, it was agreed that Finland and China 'shall enjoy same rights, privileges, favours, immunities and exemptions which [might] be accorded to similar foreign agents in accordance with the principles of international law'. This article argues that Finnish aspirations were positively regarded by many Chinese, and they respected this quite unique national connection with Finland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent article in this journal, Josep Lobera and Juan Roch formulate a thoughtful critique of scholarly works on the nationalist dimension of left‐wing populist discourses, and, in their analysis on Podemos, they engage especially with my works on the subject. They argue that not only do Podemos supporters express lower levels of national identification than the rest of the Spanish population, but also that, coherently with its electorate, Podemos avoids talking about issues related to Spanish identity and exhibits a non‐nationalist or even anti nationalist narrative. Contrarily, in my studies I found that Podemos has made extensive use of nationalist rhetoric. In this article I briefly respond to their critique, further clarifying the findings of my works and explaining why they do not match with the findings of Lobera and Roch. More broadly, I see this response as a chance to contribute to the further development of the recent and vibrant scholarly debate on the Left and its relation to nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A national dress is a reflection of national consciousness towards the nation and its cultural heritage. Instead of simply being functional, a national dress is also a script that exhibits people's identities. This study examines how Zimbabweans identify with the national dress as a facet of achieving national identity. Qualitative research methods and Gramscianism were employed in the study. It is revealed that the majority of Zimbabweans fail to identify with the national dress due to political, cultural and economic reasons. The national dress is perceived as a campaign strategy being used by the state to achieve political expediency and to be seen as champion of moral as well as cultural regeneration. Some participants associate the dress with cultural imperialism and waste of resources. Very few participants take the dress as a positive step towards the decolonisation of cultural spaces and identities. Conclusively, the majority of Zimbabweans find the dress insignificant in their lives and in national identity construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The national flag, anthem and emblem are the three symbols through which an independent country proclaims its identity and sovereignty. These symbols are universal signs of particularity. In spite of their symbolic significance, national anthems have not been the subject of widespread scholarship. This is particularly true with regard to the Arab world. The aim of this article is, therefore, threefold: first, to explore the historical, political and cultural sources of these anthems; second, to analyse the anthems' themes; and finally, to explore whether a commonality between the various Arab anthems can be found. The article advances three arguments: First, in contrast to the stability of anthems outside the Middle East, anthems in the Arab world underwent changes since independence, yet several countries retained their original anthems. The changes reflected the change of regime and/or historical narrative. Second, the consolidation of the territorial Arab state has also been reflected in the symbolic framework. And, finally, the Arab anthem is a hybrid symbol, amalgamating Western and Eastern cultural artefacts—Arab, Muslim or territorial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars stress the role national identities play as an essential element that shapes interests and explains political behaviours. Others, however, contend that national identities are too amorphic and highlight the analytical challenge of employing them as a research variable. We propose the use of metanarratives as a theoretical framework that captures the essence of national identities and allows the comparative study of their similarities and differences. Metanarratives are shared dominant stories that guide values, beliefs and behaviours and help communities understand who they are. We develop a new systematic method for measuring their content and present a three‐step process for gauging metanarratives. We demonstrate this method on 159 countries, analysing constitution preambles to assess each nation's metanarrative and create a global identity orientation map. We show how this approach enables the classification and comparison of national identities and discuss its potential contribution to further empiric study of national identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the last two decades have seen a vast increase in studies that analyse banal nationalism in media, there is one medium that has largely been ignored in these discussions: video games. This article fills part of this gap by analysing the way in which the historical strategy game Civilization V represents the Past and what role it gives nations within historical processes. This video game was marketed globally by an American company, but it evokes Spanish, Japanese, and English nationalist narratives and imagery. Although globalization and nationalism are often framed as opposing forces, this is hardly the case here. This paper will combine insights of Game Studies and Nationalism Studies to illustrate how the elements that conform Civilization V incentivise and enable players to re‐enact a narrative that portrays essentialised nation‐states as the only relevant actors in the past, present, and future of humankind. Although a product of globalization, Civilization V strengthens rather than erodes national boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the reopening of certain shrines in Istanbul in 1950 as a result of the amendment to Law 677, which in 1925 had closed all shrines in the country and banned visits to them. Drawing on previously untapped archival evidence and combining an analysis at both the macro‐level (nation‐state in a global world) and micro‐level (Istanbul as local and shrines as sites), I discuss changes in cultural policies, historiography and Turkish foreign policy and make use of the contributions of ethno‐symbolic and social constructionist approaches of nationalism theories. I contend that during the transition to the multi‐party system, 'chosen' shrines were used as tools to reattach Ottoman roots to Turkish national identity as 'Turks' and 'Muslims' and reposition Turkey as a strong nation‐state in the new global order. Furthermore, I demonstrate how the former multi‐ethnic and multi‐religious capital, Istanbul, became a part of the national territory as a legitimate Turkish and Muslim city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National identities are an important tool for collective political persuasion and mobilisation among political elites and lay people. Recent research on nationalism has shown that the negotiating of national identities, like any political deliberations and operations, increasingly occur on the Internet. In this study, we contribute to this research by examining the relational construction of Finnish identity online. More specifically, we focus on how the users of the largest discussion forum in Finland constructed Russia as a threat. A massive dataset spanning 12 years enables us to map the recurring patterns and temporal shifts in the discussions. We show that the construction of Russia as a threatening national other was used to both oppose and support Finland's alliance with the West, namely, becoming a member of NATO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the definitions of Eurasian identity utilising the authority‐defined, everyday‐defined, and national identity concepts by Shamsul Amri. The authority‐defined explains the influence of authority figures such as the British administration during the colonial era and the Malaysian government during the postcolonial era via established bumiputera‐based policies that have impacted the Eurasian community, alongside the Eurasian Associations in Malaysia, which acts as an authority in preserving and curating Eurasian culture and identity. The everyday‐defined concept focuses on personal experiences of Eurasians, specifically on the hybridity of culture, religion and language that shifts as newer generations emerge. Findings show that Eurasians defined according to the authority‐defined concept is based on the governmental documentation such as their birth certificate whereas the everyday‐defined concept is based on ancestral lineage and peranakan heritage that has been established by Malaysian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues for an analytic distinction between questions of collective identity and questions of solidarity in studies of nationhood. Whereas the former inquiry centres on group classifications and commonalities, the latter examines cooperation and patterns of interaction among group members. Although theoretical discussion of national solidarity is sparse, three central approaches in the field can be highlighted: understanding solidarity as a byproduct of identity, as a relationship between strangers and as an extension of sociability. The distinction between solidarity and identity bears on the much‐disputed dichotomy between ethnic and civic nationalism. Civic nationalism has been widely criticized for failing to account for group boundaries and shared culture. Yet its emphasis on patterns of interaction and cooperation should not be neglected either. Instead of addressing the civic–ethnic dichotomy as two types of national identity, one could benefit from differentiating between epistemological questions about (ethnic‐national) identity and those about (civic‐national) solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politicians often seek to strengthen national identity by encouraging immigrants to adopt the 'national values', thus supposedly boosting trust. However, empirical studies of the social effects of national identity have focused almost exclusively on the native majority. In this article, we instead ask how national identity among immigrant minorities affects their trust, including towards natives. We draw on unique survey data from a representative sample of the five largest non‐Western immigrant groups and their descendants in Denmark. This reveals that national belonging, national pride and citizenship preferences are positively linked to social as well as institutional trust. These relationships hold even when controlling for the perception of sharing one's values with others and the extent to which one holds 'typically Danish' values widely shared among the majority population. This suggests that the emotional component of national identity, but not its content in the form of values, indeed forms an important basis for social cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are populism and nationalism two inseparable dimensions? The controversial argument is that both exclusionary and inclusionary populism draw on nationalist representations and traditions to construct their political discourse. In the case of Podemos, several scholars have argued that this party presents a nationalistic character based on its invocation of the 'patria' and a demarcated, imagined political community. This article relies on an original data set in order to test this hypothesis related to Podemos's supply and demand. With regard to supply, we explore four party manifestos to elucidate how Podemos refers to the nation, Spanish identity, sovereignty and immigration. To evaluate demand, we analyse the party's supporters' political attitudes and values regarding the nation, assimilation of immigrants and national preferentialism. Our results show that Podemos's supporters express lower levels of national identification than the remainder of the population. Similarly, the former analysis reveals a pro‐immigration position and a tendency of the party Podemos to avoid issues related to national identity. Departing from these results, we draw several implications on the use of nationalism for the categorisation of political parties and, in particular, left‐wing populism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liberal nationalism has been the subject of increased attention in the wake of the 2010s rise in national populism. It has been seen to offer a concessionary form of national identity which is compatible with the liberal values of inclusivity and egalitarianism. This paper argues that recent attempts to delineate the contours of a specifically liberal national identity fail to highlight much that is distinctively liberal, as opposed to conservative, about its content. The criteria that such attempts propose typically apply almost equally to conservative accounts, thereby overshooting the target. However, further ideological excavation reveals that there is an alternative axis for distinguishing between liberal and conservative conceptions of national identity: democratic inclusivity. The paper further proposes that shifting the emphasis to this dimension, and to liberal and conservative accounts differing aims and formation processes, is conducive to both greater ideological transparency and bridging the gap between theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2018, the Government of Catalonia redefined its educational language policy through a programmatic document entailing a relevant shift: instead of highlighting the protection of Catalan as the national language, it stressed multilingualism and interculturalism as educational pillars. In doing so, it widened the scope of linguistic rights and duties of immigrants (LRDI). The exceptional growth of international immigration in Catalonia over the last two decades is at the root of this change. This article addresses LRDI from a theoretical and empirical perspective. First, it contributes a categorisation of approaches to LRDI (adjustive, accommodative and transformative) based on a comprehensive analysis of contemporary linguistic justice theories. Second, it analyses the challenging position of minority nations in managing LRDI and suggests that their explicitness in language policies has often been misinterpreted as monist by the literature. Finally, it documents a trend in Catalonia, in terms of rationale and policies, towards a pluralist reframing of national identity and the recognition of immigrants' languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I explore whether, and if so how, national identity affects the level of formal democracy in a country. I theorize and then investigate four assumptions: (i) classical nationalist stances hold that national membership depends on the accident of origin and cultural markers learned by early socialization. This non‐voluntary identity gives human beings a natural sense of belonging in society and fosters solidarity and trust that lead to better democracy; (ii) drawing on ideas about core values of ideal democracy the non‐voluntarist national identity exhibits an inherent contradiction between in‐group bias and intrinsic equality, which leads to lower levels of democracy; (iii) homogeneity in belief about what constitutes national belonging eases the dynamics between majority and minority, which benefits democracy; (iv) the presence of an in‐group identity, understood as a shared fellow‐feeling, boosts trust and solidarity and thereby benefits democracy. Individual‐level data about national identity comes from International Social Survey Programme (ISSP, 2013). Data about democracy comes from Varieties of Democracy (Coppedge et al., 2021; Pemstein et al., 2021). Results indicate that higher levels of non‐voluntarist features of national identity are strongly negatively correlated with levels of democracy and heterogeneity in beliefs about what constitutes national belonging relating to a higher level of liberal democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is interested in Syrian and Syrian refugees' ties of belonging to their country in times of war and displacement. By looking at individuals, the paper follows a micro‐level approach to research societal ties of belonging to a country that has slipped into war. It argues that during conflicts, the meaning and boundaries of national identity are grasped in individuals' re‐imagination of their country in either more "civic" or "ethnic" terms. As a result of this process, national identity may gain an inclusive, civic meaning based on the idea of citizenship or a more exclusive content based on the narrower confines of ethnicity and sect. Empirically, 100 Syrians and 100 Syrian refugees provided their vision of a future Syrian state in online interviews. The findings show that the majority of respondents' visions of Syria follows a civic rationale, with most survey participants linking their belonging to a future Syria with the broader ideas of citizenship, political rights and participation, rather than identifying the country in ethnic/sectarian terms. Combined with the theories, these results offer a glimpse into the societal formation of a new Syrian "we" amid an ongoing war and continuing waves of displacement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas the literature asks whether immigrants and their descendants come to resemble the 'mainstream', this paper places the acquisition of a new national identity at the centre of attention, contending that the views of ethnic outsiders provide strategic leverage in identifying any underlying consensus regarding the bounds of the nation and the means by which those bounds should be implemented. We contend that becoming 'American' entails adopting American attitudes towards persons beyond the territorial divide, a population that includes nationals of one's country of origin or ancestry. The paper develops a conceptual framework to understand how attachment to the people of the state of emigration gets transformed into attachment to the people of the state of immigration. The paper provides a demonstration of that process, focusing on Mexican immigrants and their descendants and using a variety of data sources to highlight and unpack different dimensions of Americanisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most theoretical and empirical approaches to nationalism not only distinguish between ethnic and civic notions of national belonging but also differentiate national identity from national hubris, pride, and attachment. In this research note, we examine recently published research on nationalist sentiments in the United States that takes a different approach. The study in question, 'Varieties of American Popular Nationalism' by Bonikowski and DiMaggio (2016), has already become quite influential in the field and has the potential to change how we conceptualise and operationalise attitudes about the nation. In this research note, we revisit its analytical strategy and exploratory methods. We ask two questions. First, does this study allow us to draw conclusions about American nationalism? To answer this, we replicate the original model and then execute additional postestimation analyses, whose results undermine the study's main conclusions. Second, we investigate whether judicious revisions to the study's model generate results that would lead us to the article's same conclusions. The 385 additional models lend no support. Based on this evidence, we argue that the original study's conclusions stem from a misinterpretation of its latent class analysis (LCA), as our own analyses demonstrate that there is no empirical basis for its claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the evolution of Syrian nationalism, showing how the early pan‐Arabist ideals of the Baathist founders morphed into a cult of personality focused narrowly on emotional attachments to the regime. Current Syrian state nationalism is a "constructed primordialism" consisting of vague and sentimental concepts of the Syrian people and their history, despite the fact that the Syrian state in its current territorial identity has only existed for a few decades and incorporates a diverse mosaic of ethnic, cultural, religious and national backgrounds. In the absence of a cohesive pre‐existing community to form the basis of Syrian national identity, the regime tempered its nominal commitment to Arabism with heavily Romanticized rhetoric emphasizing familial bonds of love and devotion between the people and the leader. This primordialist construct has thwarted the emergence of a civic‐oriented national identity in Syria and contributed to tensions underlying the current civil war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on several studies on each of these movements and on primary sources, I claim that Zionism and Québécois nationalism have a unique set of similarities. The first part of this article focuses on the redefinition of national identity made by both movements—the end of a religious‐ethnic identity and a new focus on language and territory—and on its various consequences. In the second part, I compare Zionists' and Québécois nationalists' arguments for sovereignty, demonstrating their similarities, with a shared wish to become a majority, a common fear from assimilation, the same aspiration towards normality, and the same claim that national independence will bring with it a new era of progress. By doing so, I point to possible directions of more thorough comparative analyses bringing these two movements together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, the Syrian regime has been attempting to build a 'Syrian national identity' to promote identification with the Syrian state (al hawiyya al‐wataniyya) while concurrently following policies of survival and legitimisation, to preclude suppressing tribal identity (al hawiyya al‐asha'rya). The regime instead fostered tribal identity and relied on it when confronting internal and external challenges. The Syrian regime's policies aimed to empower tribal identity, while seeking to manipulate this perception for its own ends. As a result, tribal and national identities have been integrated in a relatively harmonious way for three decades. The economic liberalisation project that Bashar al‐Assad pursued, however, disturbed the delicate balance that Hafez al‐Assad had constructed between the national and tribal identities. In the wake of the Syrian uprising, it has become clear that tribal identity was a significant element in the conflict that engulfed the country, shaping local politics and influencing social dynamics in north eastern Syria and parts of the south. Over the past few years, tribal identity has become a powerful form of expression in Syria, which is increasingly evolving to replace its national counterpart. This paper will use a constructivist approach, which argues that tribal identity has its roots in the origins of the tribes but has been subject to external manipulation by political actors in their struggles for power. In Syria, as in other states, such actions carry the risk of civil war, precipitating degrees of state failure (Hashemi, 2015) in which the tribal and national identities clash. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]