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Since Nigeria’s return to democratic governance in 1999, there have been renewed calls―predominantly amongst ethnic Igbos in southeast Nigeria―for the restoration of the defunct secessionist state of Biafra. The resurgent Biafran separatism has been explored through the prisms of relative marginalisation and material deprivation. However, some scholars have drifted away from dominant discussions on the rationale behind the re‐emergence of the secessionist agitations and instead focused on the myriad media that Biafran separatist movements utilise to make claims of self‐determination for Igbos. These scholars―typically linguists―invariably explore online activism by resorting to meticulous analysis of the discourses of pro‐Biafra separatists on the Internet. Whilst such robust discourse analyses of separatists’ speeches shed light on the discursive dynamics of Biafran separatism in contemporary Nigeria, they do not underscore the varied repertoires of collective action of Biafran separatists beyond Internet activism. This article fills this gap in the scholarly literature on resurgent Biafran separatism in democratic Nigeria. Drawing on the American sociologist Charles Tilly’s analytical framework of contentious contention and focusing on the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)―a transnational separatist movement―I argue that the various online and offline activities of Biafran separatists in the southeastern region be construed as repertoires of contention geared toward contesting the sovereignty of the Nigerian state in order to restore the short‐lived secessionist Biafran state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public discourse about autonomous regions and de facto ‐‐‐ or unrecognized ‐‐‐ states can influence the policies that parent states adopt to respond to these entities. I theorize that public discourse about autonomous regions will underscore commonalities with the parent state. Public discourse about de facto states will treat the state as a separate entity. I employ newspaper data as a measure of public discourse about Adjara and Abkhazia, Georgia. Using sentiment analysis and topic models, I show that public discourse about autonomous regions discusses domestic politics whereas discourse about de facto states emphasizes international relations. This analysis of public discourse offers insight into the ways in which people in parent states discuss separatist entities and how leaders may wish to steer public discourse about these regions in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we elaborate on the central themes of our recent book, The New Nationalism in America and Beyond (OUP, 2022), before responding to the comments and criticisms of several esteemed colleagues (Phil Gorski, Cynthia Miller‐Idriss, and Sophie Duchesne). In sum, our book argues that the relative success of right‐wing populists among the white majorities of the West – including Donald Trump in the US, Marine Le Pen in France, and the Brexit Campaigners in the UK – is partly due to the way in which they draw upon long‐established ethnic nationalist myths and symbols in their political communication. By adapting this cultural content to the contemporary context, these elites are ensuring that their messaging resonates among their target populations. In making this case, our book seeks to demonstrate the value of taking culture seriously in the analysis of the so‐called ‘new nationalism.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the division and conflict during the formative phase of Turkish nationalism in the Early Republican Period. Turkish nationalism, the founding ideology of Türkiye, was oriented towards identity and state building, and it developed an ethno‐secular vision. In contrast, Turkism‐Turanism nationalism, emerging from civilian circles, adopted a critical stance towards the official ideology and the prevailing understanding of ideology during that period, as evidenced by Atsız Mecmua. Using discourse analysis, this study examines prominent themes in Atsız Mecmua, such as anthropological Turkishness, Turanism, militarism, and a holistic approach to history. Conversely, communism in its ideological sense and identities other than Turkish were depicted as the other. Atsız Mecmua attempted to foster a new conception of nationalism to challenge Kemalist nationalism, seeking to forge Turkish unity through militarism and a fascist state model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zimbabwe has distinct urban nationalist myths stemming from the colonial period—urban modernity and economic exceptionalism. The modernity myth has been constructed from the colonial period and came to be associated with urban order, lifestyle and social mobility. The economic exceptionalism myth refers to Zimbabwe's past exceptional economic performance during the colonial and early postcolonial periods. However, the economic crisis and informalisation from the late 1990s have challenged these myths as neither previous practices of urban modernity nor the feeling of exceptional economic performance is attainable any more. In this context, people in the informal sector reimagine what these nationalist myths mean to them. In particular, they engage in debates about which economic practices are modern enough to be implemented in urban areas, especially in the city centre, and how to identify themselves make a claim to urban modernity. The memory of economic exceptionalism in the meantime acts as a reference point in discussions about future national development. All these translate into the question of legitimacy—of the informal economy and its practices and the government that failed to uphold the modernity and exceptionalism myths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cricket in India has evolved much beyond its fundamental definition as a game or form of entertainment in the present century. The liberalization process in the 1990s, followed by the drastic social changes in the country, impacted the game, leading it to acquire new meanings as cultural text. Currently, Indian cricket forms part of collective enjoyment, forming people's habitus and playing a central ideological role in the politics of ethnonationalism. This article attempts to analyze Indian Cricket using Slavoj Zizek's concept of "national Thing," to critically understand its potential to evoke hyper‐nationalism in the Indian polity. The concept of "national Thing," proposed by Zizek, postulates that the recourse to nationalism can cause a pleasure‐in‐pain situation and evoke extreme "enjoyment" (jouissance), which functions on the idea of sudden sense of loss. Drawing insights from this, this paper theoretically investigates sport‐induced nationalism in cricket in the backdrop of escalating neo‐nationalist sentiments in India. Additionally, the article expounds on how cricket becomes a "lost Thing" in Indian popular culture by critically analyzing the Indian film Kai Po Che (2013), in which cricket emerges as a social and political entity, intervening with the lives of ordinary youths in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We recognise nationalist and centre‐seeking ethnic civil wars as distinct types of conflict and draw on key ideas from political sociology to make hypotheses about the causes of each. First, we argue that the character of states shapes antistate actors in ways that channel ethnic conflict in different ways, with pluralist states promoting nationalist warfare but integrative states contributing to centre‐seeking civil war. Second, we propose that the relative power of communities affects the type of ethnic civil war, arguing that centre‐seeking civil war is most common in situations of communal multipolarity whereas nationalist civil war is concentrated in regions with asymmetric power relations. And because historical statehood promotes elements of pluralist states and asymmetric communal power relations, we hypothesise that the risk of nationalist civil war is high in places with large and longstanding states. To test these hypotheses, we use ethnic fractionalisation to measure configurations of communal power and the state antiquity index to measure level of historical statehood, create a variable measuring the extent to which colonial states were pluralist, and run panel analyses of the odds of civil war onset. With one possible exception, the findings support our hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This first article in the 2024 World Affairs special issue examines the Narendra Modi regime in India. Often acerbic political rhetoric is attached to official policies of the regime, creating fear and hopelessness within sections of the population. In this study, five sets of political activities of the government are evaluated. First, cultural authoritarianism became apparent with complicity toward "cow vigilantism," slapping sedition charges against those showing political dissent, banning the history books of selected progressives, and stereotyping sections of the left and liberals as antinationals. Second, the demonetization policy was implemented without adequately following the economic protocols of the state. Third, the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Bill indicates the thwarting of democratic and federalist ideas. Fourth, the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens exercise in Assam demonstrate the communal‐fascist worldview of the regime in profiling population groups. Finally, the sloppy handling of the COVID‐19 pandemic and the new Information Technology rules show the government's callous approach toward science and privacy. By analyzing such political activities, the article points out that majoritarian religious nationalism, coupled with authoritarianism, has been the ideological expression of the Modi regime, coexisting with both state surveillance and electoral democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religious sentiments have become a potent tool for political elites, altering national identities and citizenship criteria. This manipulation, driven by majoritarian ideologies, has marginalized religious minorities, leading to discrimination, violence, and legal persecution against them. Hindu, Islamic, and Buddhist nationalisms seem to collectively erode secular democracy in South Asia. Moreover, right‐wing populist leaders, notably Modi in India and the Rajapaksas in Sri Lanka, have merged religious nationalism with authoritarian political orientations posing a challenge to democratic foundations and impacting significantly on the dynamics of state and societal relations. This is the context in which this World Affairs 2024 special issue delves into the relationship(s) between religion, politics, and authoritarianism in the South Asian region. It examines the evolving "religion‐politics" nexus or "complex" to explicate the relationship between religion and authoritarianism, particularly with respect to authoritarian governments mobilizing religion as a readily available resource for popular political mobilization, legitimization, and power consolidation. India's BJP employs Hindutva ideology to marginalize minorities, Bangladesh's regime uses Islam for political legitimacy, and Sri Lanka's Sinhala‐Buddhist nationalism fosters exclusionary policies. By fostering social and cultural polarization, this fusion of authoritarianism with religious nationalism poses a serious challenge to the secular state. The articles in this special issue explore these themes comprehensively, delving into the ideological foundations of political decisions and their consequences for marginalized communities. By shedding light on this multifaceted interplay, the collection offers valuable insights into South Asia's sociopolitical landscape, serving as a vital resource for scholars, policy makers, and global observers seeking to understand the region's complex dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of India's 2019 Islamophobic Citizenship Amendment Act, this article is based on ethnographic research with young Muslim women from Aligarh which aimed to show that their narratives of displacement and exclusion from citizenship inspired their search for belonging and enabled them to reinscribe spaces with their own, marginalised, but nonetheless real, projects of belonging. From exclusion and debasement springs new imagination of belonging: this is my finding. Drawing on intersectional feminist writings, postcolonial and critical Muslim studies, I propose that Muslim women's geographies become forms of contestation of the national project producing non-citizens. In this context, I trace the interconnections between physical and spiritual geographies to show us how Muslim women continue to carve space for themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As factionalism becomes increasingly prominent within the Conservative Party, understanding the worldviews of the respective groupings has become key to understanding the party itself. This is especially true regarding the one nation group which is the most numerous in Parliament. From the Cameron era, the term 'one nation' expressed leaders' attempts to modernise the party, reckon with the Thatcherite social legacy, and carve out a distinct centre‐right identity which contained both socially liberal and distinctly conservative elements. However, reconciling 'modern' and 'conservative' views has been singularly difficult. Whilst bridging the two rhetorically and intellectually has been possible, leaders have struggled to translate such a synthesis into a viable governmental agenda that unites the party. Underlying this difficulty is fierce disagreement on immigration, sovereignty, nationhood and cosmopolitanism, resulting in one nation conservatism becoming a signal of intra‐party disagreement rather than unifying leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of Esperantism in 1887 coincided with a nationalist movement in Catalonia that was gaining momentum. During the first decades of the 20th century, both phenomena became deeply intertwined, as Catalan nationalists embraced the constructed language and used the transnational network that developed around it to revindicate their cultural particularities. This article explores how the relationship between the constructed language and Catalanists evolved between 1887 and 1928, when a political regime unfavourable to regional nationalisms forced the Catalan Esperanto movement to reframe their activities and adopt a more apolitical and neutral position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars generally argue that nationalism and secessionism pose important dilemmas for national, regional and global order. Yet, there is inadequate discussion on the varied contexts of nationalist secessionist movements and how they influence or are influenced by domestic and global forces. Addressing this concern, this article undertakes a three‐case comparison of the Western Togoland separatist movement in Ghana, Southwest and Northwest (Anglophone) Cameroon's secessionist movement and the movement for independent Catalonia in Spain. These dissimilar cases—both from Global South and North—enable a broader examination of how themes such as political history, state capacity and regional/continental organisations affect nationalist‐induced secessionist movements and the measures to address them. Using a thematic comparative approach, this article examines the relevant literature on secessionism, nationalism, regionalism and cognate fields to demonstrate that the dynamics and consequence of secessionist movements depend largely on four interwoven factors: (a) the internal organisation and support for the nationalists' course, (b) state capacity to handle uprisings, (c) political conditions and conflict context of neighbouring countries and (d) interest and (re)actions of regional bodies and international allies. The comparative approach thus offers nuance, illustrating the critical angles of variations and intersections in secessionist movements and the effect on global order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While fossil fuels are a well‐researched element of nationalist discourse, the relationship between nationalism and renewable energy has not yet been adequately explored. We address this gap by investigating the impact of the energy transition on the Scottish National Party's (SNP) discourse between 1983 and 2021. Through an analysis of SNP manifestos and speeches, we discursively trace the evolution of three pertinent amalgams of nationalism—green nationalism, resource nationalism and techno‐nationalism—revealing renewable energy to have been co‐opted and deployed in all three. Rather than the energy transition intuitively resulting in the decline of fossil fuel‐based nationalisms in favour of those rooted in an emergent renewable energy paradigm, we find that adaptations in the SNP's discursive strategies allowed the former to co‐exist with the latter, enhancing complementarity and mitigating goal conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under Putin's tenure, the geopolitical representation of Russia as an 'energy superpower' has become a powerful mainstay for the restoration of a global status and a revanchist foreign policy. This article seeks to assess the extent to which such a nationalist narrative is prevalent among Russian academics in the oil and gas sector. Using a survey administered to research and teaching staff in selected industrial universities in 2021, we found partial confirmation of the relevance of centre‐periphery relations and that nationalist attitudes are aligned with a state‐centric approach. However, this perspective does not necessarily entail opposition to industry privatisation or foreign partnerships. These findings highlight the inadequacy of a simplistic privatisation/nationalisation dichotomy in capturing the hybrid nature of resource governance in petro‐states. Additionally, our study suggests that resource nationalism plays a role in shaping experts' support for the government's energy policy. These findings contribute to the literature on resource nationalism and suggest potential avenues for future research exploring the role of higher education institutions in shaping resource governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article suggests that local places and civic identities were historically relevant in the period when national politics and cultures emerged in Europe but have largely not received due attention in the historiography. It argues that the production of the local is a significant factor for understanding the configuration of the nation and that it was tied to how communities—and the agents that constituted them—constructed their own subjectivity and negotiated their place in the social world. It first provides a review of recent historical studies on collective territorial identities to underscore the relative lack of attention given to the local dimension and identify approaches that can be applied to the study of local cultures. It then focuses on the case of Catalonia in Restoration Spain, showing how region‐building dynamics and nationalisation processes coexisted and interacted with strongly assertive civic identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is often considered as motivated by a desire to challenge the international status quo, a challenge the West is trying to mitigate. Social constructivists account for this challenge via a norm of nationalistic assertiveness in Chinese foreign policy; a norm constructed in the synergetic relationship between China's Communist Party and its nationalist movement. However, this work argues that Chinese foreign policy is motivated, in part, by nationalist pressure arising from an antagonistically symbiotic relationship between the Communist Party and China's nationalist movement. This understanding is significant as it indicates that western policies are paradoxically factoring in the emergence of a challenger China. © 2023 Victoria University of Wellington and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amhara nationalism emerged in the Ethiopian political discourse in the 1990s, and has appeared at varying paces across time. This article examines whether the trajectories in Amhara identity conceptions go from rejection to embracing Amhara ethnicity. A qualitative data analysis is used gleaned from various sources including archives, opinions expressed in social media platforms, and key informant interviews undertaken largely in 2020. The article revealed how Amhara ethnicity has been built under various political contexts in Ethiopia. In the last, nearly three decades' actors and political parties shift their subscription from Ethiopian identity to Amhara and the other way around. This shows the situationality, and variability of ethnicity, and more importantly, the weight of context in the construction of identity discourses and practices. The practice of "Amhara democratic nationalism", with its Bolshevik ingredients, aimed to "discipline" Amhara, accompanied by the attitude of many ethnonationalist elites which consider all Amhara as an oppressor gave way to reactive ethnicity, and Amhara political identity is already established with essential implications for the current political discontent and future of Ethiopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2017 Catalan Independence Referendum prompted a historic resurgence of Spanish ‘centre’ nationalism. Such resurgence is indicative of a change in Spanish national identity as overt nationalism and is connotationally related to the Franco regime. This research focuses on the power and dissemination of newspaper narratives in the promotion and descriptions of such nationalism. Newspapers are discursively analysed to understand the decreasing reticence towards ‘centre’ nationalism in Spain, as evidenced by nationalist rhetoric and symbolism, and the significance of this change for the Spanish transition to democracy. It is found that the Catalan referendum inspired a strong counter‐reaction of dissociating centre‐periphery relations suggestive of pre‐democratic transition sentiments in the maintenance of the ‘centre’ as dominant and relegating the ‘periphery’ to its Franco‐era ‘threat’ status. Newspapers facilitated this shift in the nationalist narrative through their descriptions of the independence movement and the use of references and allusions to Spain's history and ‘near past.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding and documenting the ways that objects become entangled in, produce, sustain, and rupture family relations are crucial contributions of museum studies to anthropological kinship theory. This article analyzes a Canadian exhibit entitled "Family: Bonds and Belonging," developed in response to Canada's 150th anniversary, in 2017, by a British Columbia provincial museum, then brought to Canada's national immigration museum in Nova Scotia in 2019. The article demonstrates how curators invite objects to narrate kinship, and entangle visitors as theoretical accomplices, all while building national projects. Layered concepts of "family" plays a central role in this exhibit, simultaneously introducing "family" as complex, diverse, and varied while also reproducing middle‐class conventions of family. I argue that this contradiction partly undercuts the representational content of the exhibit, and that the simultaneous multivalence and ideological uniformity of family in this setting points to how museum practices and procedures can unintentionally reproduce conventional ideas that implicitly counter curatorial work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining how gender and sexuality norms are expressed through nationalist ideology, this article argues that homonationalist hegemony is being reinforced through media representations of nationalist social movements attacking LGBTQ people, events, and symbols. The argument builds on a critical discourse analysis of 320 newspaper articles published between 2016 and 2020. The discourses in the material manifest how the neo‐Nazi groups the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) and Nordic Youth (NY), as well as the nationalist party Sweden Democrats (SD), have respectively been represented as threats to Swedish national unity in media due to their anti‐LGBTQ attacks or statements. The analysis concludes that nationalism is reproduced through struggles over its symbolic expressions, especially through changing articulations of who belongs to the nation and who constitutes its "Others". The symbolism of gendered and sexual norms is crucial to these struggles, as the evolvements of homonationalist discourse highlights the struggle to define national unity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research found that Christian nationalism, a belief that integrates Christian identity with American national identity, was associated with more negative views toward marginalized groups, such as religious minorities. Relatively less known is the relationship between Christian nationalism and attitudes toward atheists. Specifically, even less is known about whether or not Christian nationalism that is above individuals at the macro, geographic level may influence individual views of atheists. Using nationally representative multilevel data, this study found that higher individual Christian nationalism was associated with more negative views toward atheists. No robust state‐level Christian nationalism influence was found for anti‐atheist attitude. However, Blacks, relative to Whites, were less likely to view atheists negatively in states where Christian nationalism was higher. Meanwhile, in states where Christian nationalism was higher, Black Protestants were less prejudiced against atheists compared to Evangelical Protestants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reads Maurice Merleau‐Ponty's ontology of the "flesh of the world" alongside the ontology that seems to undergird Frantz Fanon's sociodiagnostics as well as his theory of sociogeny. It argues that reading Fanonian sociogeny in terms of the ambiguity and intercorporeality of the flesh of the world renders the ethical and political imperatives of Fanon's decolonial project all the more pressing, since the "new human" is prefigured—if not totally determined—in the national consciousness obtained by "les damnés" through the decolonization process. It then examines how Sylvia Wynter's Fanonian call to (re)fashion the future of humanness through (re)conceptualizing "being human as praxis," also seems to rely on this ontology of the flesh of the world. Bringing these arguments together, the article suggests that the conceptual content of the new human can be found in the liberation struggles of les damnés across what Wynter calls the "poverty archipelagos" wrought by colonial humanism. Hence, the "new skin" for which Fanon calls is fashioned through forming international solidarity with les damnés, with the conceptual content of the new humanism emerging sociogenically—and autopoetically—from those struggles themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on nationalism have recently transitioned from macro‐level analyses of large structural factors to micro‐level examinations, emphasizing nationalism as a set of cultural and political beliefs held by individuals. Such works that use opinion measures to explore heterogeneity in national self‐understandings show that nationalist beliefs distribute among the public in particular and non‐random ways, though the extent to which these heterogeneities induce variation in behavioural outcomes remains relatively unexplored. In this article, we argue that varying conceptions of nationhood inform ethnonational boundary‐making strategies and social action. Using latent class analyses and a resource allocation task in original representative survey data (N = 1,460), we ask whether varying cultural positions on nationhood covaries with preferential behaviour. We found that nationalist cultural models provide heterogeneous cultural templates and lead to preferential treatment of ethnonational ingroups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National pride relates to nationalism, one of the most powerful forces in modern politics. Many surveys have shown that most citizens are proud of their countries, but few have directly examined the underlying reasons for why people are proud of their countries. Using parallel national surveys in China and the United States, we investigate the sources and contents of national pride in the two most powerful nation‐states in the world. Our results reveal clear differences between citizens in the two countries. While the sources of American national pride are largely ideational, the sources of Chinese national pride tend to be material. The evidence provides a first set of insights into the sources of national pride and challenges conventional depictions of nationalism as a monolithic concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper probes the relationship between nationalism and belonging. In the context of the enactment of the ‘Nation‐State Law’ in Israel, it addresses a twofold question: how do members of the Druze community articulate the minority group's sense of belonging to the national community, and what do their constructions of belonging suggest about how Druze might shape and secure their belonging in the Jewish nationalist project? Our analytical approach draws on theoretical accounts of the politics of belonging and nationalist projects centred on culture and political values; civic identifications and attachments; and the racialized positioning of social groups. The analysis of 18 semi‐structured interviews evoked four metaphors through which we elaborate the impact of the Nation‐State Law on Druze belonging and explore the implications for Druze engagement with this Jewish nationalist project. We envision the possibility of Druze pursuing a transversal intersectional political project of belonging as non‐Jews in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the prevalence and implications of the research foci methodological nationalism, methodological globalism, and transnationalism in publications regarding the 2011 Arab uprisings. We propose a new typology that contrasts state‐centered methodological nationalism with the cosmopolitan lens of methodological globalism as two opposite ends of a spectrum. Transnationalism is conceptualized in between these two, due to its sensitivity to multiple localities and cross‐border variables. We compare the merits and limits of these three research foci through quantitative research and content analysis. Our systematic review of one decade of scholarship on the Arab uprisings suggests a consistent trend toward the dominance of methodologically nationalist research approaches in Middle Eastern studies. This is surprising because the multilocal nature of the Arab uprisings suggests that it can best be analyzed transnationally. This article, therefore, critically discusses the methodological nationalist bias to better understand and illustrate the trend. We conclude by highlighting some comparative advantages offered by transnational perspectives on actors and processes in the Arab uprisings and its aftermath. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article combines insights from historical institutionalism with the literature on ideational policy change to explain why Belgian sport institutions like the national football team appear as outliers in the story of the country's unidirectional move towards a decentralised federal state. It shows how Flemish nationalist ideas drove the asymmetrical decentralisation of the originally unitary Belgian sport system. On one hand, mechanisms of gradual institutional change led to the complete decentralisation of public sport policy. The Flemish government consequently has the authority and means to generate symbols and policies that boost Flemish identity through sport, while no comprehensive policies can be developed at the federal level for instrumentalising sport to build Belgian identity. On the other hand, mechanisms of institutional stability including vested interests, strong veto players and Flemings' dislike of secessionism prevent the full decentralisation of the Belgian non‐governmental sport governing bodies. This implies that Belgium continues to be represented in international sport competitions as a nation and that sport can thus also be employed to create and sustain Belgian alongside Flemish identity. Sport therefore contributes to sustaining the Flemings' dual Flemish‐Belgian identity, which ultimately stands in the way of a fully autonomous Flemish state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the issue of Russian imperial nationalism in the early phase of its formation, namely the nationalization of patriotism in literature during the Crimean War, 1853–56. Using historical studies and theories of nationalism, the author shows how and why an acute discourse of a nationalistic experience of community uniting the elite with the common people arose in St. Petersburg society, theater, and literature. Drawing on many published and archival materials, the article describes the institutions of escalating nationalism (thick journals, newspapers, the Maritime Ministry, theater, salons, and circles), everyday rituals (wearing "Russian" clothes), and the images of peasants, who in the fiction of Aleksei Potekhin, Aleksei Pisemskii, Ivan Gorbunov, Ivan Turgenev, and Dmitrii Grigorovich acted as bearers of authentic "Russianness." The growing popularity of these writers' texts can be explained by the fact that they demonstratively linked the psychology and subjectivity of peasant characters with their ethnic identity. Contrary to official propaganda that portrayed peasants as loyal to the tsar, faith, and Fatherland, the new representation satisfied the demand of the elite and socially diverse theater audience for images of unity within a single national community and compensated for the disappointment of defeats at the front. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Although studies have linked Christian nationalist beliefs with greater emotional distress, little is known about the potential underlying mechanisms or subgroup variations. Informed by the strain‐struggles‐distress model and the concept of structural amplification, we tested whether religious/spiritual (R/S) struggles mediate and moderate the association between Christian nationalist beliefs and emotional distress. Methods: Regression models were conducted on national survey data collected in 2021 (n = 1704). Results: Results suggested that respondents who reported stronger Christian nationalist beliefs also tended to report higher levels of R/S struggles, anger, and psychological distress. Mediation analyses revealed significant indirect effects of Christian nationalist beliefs on emotional distress through R/S struggles. Moderation analyses also indicated that the effects of Christian nationalist beliefs on emotional distress were amplified at higher levels of R/S struggles. Conclusion: In support of the strain‐struggles‐distress and structural amplification models, we find that the adverse emotional impacts Christian nationalism are explained and intensified by the cognitive vulnerabilities of R/S struggles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī (d. 1871) wrote Khātamayah nāṣirīyyah (Naṣīrean Epilogue), a concise treatise of a few pages, in 1865 (eighteenth of Rajab of 1273 hijri); thirteen years after the emergence of the Bābī movement and seven years after the execution of Sayyid ʿAlī Muḥammad Shīrāzī (d. 1850) in Tabriz. In this treatise, he expresses his loyalty to both the fourth Qajar monarch, Nāṣir al‐Dīn Shah (d. 1896) and Twelver Shīʿīsm. Furthermore, he expounds on the political inclination of Kirmānī Shaykhīsm as well as the suspicious affiliation of his school with the Bābīs, which was a matter of speculation for the court. Khātamayah nāṣirīyyah, which took its name from the Shah, should be treated as Kirmānī's political manifesto, reflecting his uncomfortable attitude toward the presence of foreigners in a Muslim country, which was resented by the monarch as well. Kirmānī not only takes sides with him, but also warns him of the harm of becoming too close to infidels, which may even result in the dominance of kuffār on Muslim territories. Kirmānī's outlook toward politics was largely shaped by the Bābī movement. As no hint of having any political philosophy is traceable in his writings prior to 1260 H/1852, and since Khātamayah nāṣirīyyah was written shortly after the suppression of the movement, one can come to the conclusion that the socio‐religious anxiety and the radical tone of Bābīsm made him adopt such a conservative approach, which seemed to be the only tenable way of representing his patriotism. Moreover, Khātamayah nāṣirīyyah, should be treated as the official response of the Shaykhī school to the messianic radicalism of Shīrāzī and his followers. Khātamayah nāṣirīyyah has a sister text, Nāṣirīyyah dar jihād (Naṣīrean in Jihād), which was finished in the same year, although it is lengthier and discusses Jihād, inter alia, in a more nuanced way. In some copies, Nāṣirīyyah is published with Khātamah as its epilogue. In this paper, I will read and analyze both Khātamayah nāṣirīyyah and Nāṣirīyyah dar jihād to investigate Kirmānī's stance on politics, religion and nationalism. Relevant to this are his arguments against any probable affiliation with Bābīsm. As a product of its time, Khātamayah nāṣirīyyah reflects the concerns of a jurist‐theologian who was able to foresee how the religious messianism and social radicalism of Bābīsm and similar movements, can bring considerable changes to state, society and faith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article calls for revisiting the predominant yet flawed nationalism‐patriotism dichotomy, which has to date remained unchallenged. It advocates for a more nuanced triad: nationalism, exclusively referring to the nation; patriotism, revolving around the homeland; and democratic patriotism, with democracy as its object of attachment. This novel conceptual approach explicitly theorizes these three objects of attachment, which have hitherto rarely been considered. In so doing, the article synthesizes the field's predominant research traditions that have not been fully recognized as diverging nor been simultaneously investigated. By responding to calls for more theoretically robust measures, it not only makes a theoretical but also an empirical contribution to the field. Drawing on data from a representative sample (N = 1875) in Germany in 2022, the study introduces a three‐factor measurement model of nationalism, patriotism, and democratic patriotism. Taking into account both the antecedents of the triad and its impact on outgroup hostility, the measures are further validated. To establish its applicability in non‐German contexts, the model is additionally supported using data from a representative sample (N = 1164) in Denmark in 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reconstructs the genesis and developments of contemporary Corsican nationalism between 1959 to 1998, from the emergence of regionalism to the most dramatic phase of the resurgence of violence represented by the murder of Prefect Claude Érignac. The underlying hypothesis for this study is that Corsica embodies the community of destiny through a dialogue between tradition and modernity. With regard to permanency, what remains is a community and clan‐oriented mentality with a lasting impact upon nationalism. The emergence of contemporary Corsican nationalism must be viewed from a dual perspective: on the one hand, as a traditional system reserved for members of certain families according to a clan‐based approach; on the other, there is a protest movement that does not imply the dismantlement of the clan system but its renewal on the basis of criteria of democracy, equality and justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses L. T. Hobhouse's project for the creation of a new European Federation based on a social‐liberal model of the State without sacrificing the principle of national identity. The nineteenth century, according to Hobhouse, associated the idea of nationality and liberty, and the connection was genuine enough as long as it applied to subject peoples struggling to be free. But that very growth of national consciousness which inspired the struggle for freedom, turned to exclusiveness and imperiousness as soon as it had achieved its end. Nationality has thus turned into an exclusive principle and has become a dominating force in twentieth‐century politics. World War I proved that nationalism was Janus‐faced, promoting first freedom and self‐government, and then international aggression and militarism which are the product of an overstimulation of the sentiment of nationality. For this reason, Hobhouse distinguishes between a negative and a positive meaning of nationality, which he describes as patriotism. Patriotism is a more spontaneous, genuine and deeper feeling of national belonging. It is a part of a 'sentimental education' taking place within a national community. This positive conception of patriotism, borrowed from authors such as Thomas Hill Green and Giuseppe Mazzini, is the means by which, as Hobhouse believes, permanent tranquillity may be established in Europe. Using the philosophical idea behind the notion of patriotism, Hobhouse is able to overcome the arguments of the liberal economic cooperation, such as those exposed by Norman Angell, by mixing them with an ethical vision of the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the internationalization of survey methodology by discussing a case from a totalitarian state, the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2020, GAMAAN (The Group for Measuring and Analyzing Attitudes in Iran) conducted an online survey on religion. The survey had 50,000 participants, around 90 percent of whom lived in Iran. This article discusses the result that, after weighting, 8 percent identified as Zoroastrian—many times the number of Zoroastrians as recorded by scholarship on Iranian Zoroastrianism. We dub this phenomenon "Survey Zoroastrianism" and offer an explanation for this finding. After describing the position of Zoroastrianism in modern Iran and adding two further online surveys conducted by GAMAAN in 2022, we discuss the Survey Zoroastrians' demographics and their religious and political views. The analysis shows that participating in surveys beyond the government's control provided affordances for performing alternative identity aspirations tied to notions of nationalism and civilizational heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While posited as a unified ideology, Christian Nationalism (CN) actually contains two distinct views of what it means to be a "Christian Nation"—one which envisions a Christian civil society separate from the profanities of politics, what we call "Religious Traditionalism." The other envisions a Christian federal government where power is wielded exclusively by ethno‐religious insiders, or "Christian Statism." Multiple waves of two national surveys confirm that current measures of CN contain these two factors, which have become increasingly divergent in the past 20 years. In addition, we find that Christian Statism predicts nativism, Islamophobia, anti‐Semitism, and racial distrust while Religious Traditionalism, in most instances, predicts the opposite. Historically, Religious Traditionalists have always sought to influence civil society and focused mainly on family/sexual issues. But a different brand of CN has emerged, wherein all federal and state authority should rightfully and exclusively belong to Christian Statists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, the author discusses how the television (TV) show "Ted Lasso" satirizes and criticizes the depiction of the gendered American heartland mythos in the media and its relationship to the contradictions of the U.S. imperial-capitalist discourses. Other topics include how regional identities like Heartland tropes reproduce and adapt nationalism and globalized forms of racism in the media.

Can territorial disputes within countries be a basis for affective polarization? If so, how does it vary across territories? A burgeoning literature on affective polarization has largely focused on partisan divisions; we argue that contentious political issues such as those relating to territorial integrity can also be a basis for such affective polarization, where citizens feel concord with those sharing such policy preferences and animus for those who do not. We specify hypotheses about territorial‐policy‐based affective polarization and bring comparative survey evidence from three European regions with salient and contentious territorial claims: Scotland, Catalonia and Northern Ireland. While these three cases encompass different outcomes of territorial disputes, our results show strikingly similar levels of affective polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dichotomy between civic Western nationalism and ethnic non‐Western nationalism (also known as "the Kohn dichotomy" after the historian of nationalism Hans Kohn) remains one of the most influential frameworks for understanding nationalism. It is also one of the most controversial: The binary schema has been criticised not only for its conceptual inconsistencies but also for entrenching an ethnocentric hierarchy that depicts Western nations as fountains of civic virtue. This article enriches these longstanding debates by excavating the neglected inverse side of the Kohn dichotomy. Since the late nineteenth century, the idealised Western nation is imagined not only as a civic polity united by common political traditions but also as an organic community blessed with natural boundaries. In short, Western nations are depicted as both civic and ethnic. Meanwhile, non‐Western nations are denied the privilege of being contradictory and deemed to suffer from a perennial mismatch between civic and ethnic elements: Non‐Western nations are depicted either as ethnic communities lacking civic traditions or as artificial political constructions lacking organic roots. Without taking into account this intricate dialectic between the civic and ethnic poles of the nation form, critics of the Kohn dichotomy will struggle to fully grasp its ideological functions or historical longevity. [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]

The politics of the European Union's crises of the 2010s required the emergence of analyses and theorisation that sought to explain the possibility of European disintegration. This article makes a conceptual contribution to the emerging literature on European disintegration by arguing for the inclusion of nationalism as an important—yet under‐represented—variable in the politics and process of disintegration in the European Union. It draws together elements of enduring value in classical explanations of the rise and operation of nationalism in Europe from Ernest Gellner, Tom Nairn and John Breuilly, with a postfunctionalist emphasis on the politicisation of European Union politics at the member‐state level. The article concludes that a consideration of nationalism illuminates the process and politics of European disintegration by showing that the politics of European integration in the 2010s created nationalism rather than contained it, as it had been historically designed to do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The common market of the EU imposes standards on food products and minimum requirements for their quality. Products that do not meet these requirements have to be renamed. This article analyses the media coverage of a prominent political controversy surrounding four food products, produced in the Czech Republic: Inland Rum, Fruit Marmalade, Spread Butter and Almond Brandy. The renaming of these products has triggered a wave of nationalist sentiments and anti‐EU backlash. To explain these developments, the article follows the strong programme in cultural sociology, and it introduces the concept 'banal gastronationalism'. It argues that the anti‐EU backlash is culturally rooted in two deeply rooted binary distinctions: the split between the centre (of the EU) and the periphery and the tension between the inner and the external. Together, these distinctions co‐create an imagined community of consumers and readers, which gets mobilised through a perceived threat to its food products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scottish Labour, once viewed as the most divided party in the UK, appears buoyant, the result of the growing popularity of its leader, Anas Sarwar, a more positive relationship with UK Labour, and most notably, significant gains in the polls. The party has sought to find a centre ground in a political system defined by opposing visions of Scotland's political future, a strategy which has previously left it squeezed between more assertive nationalist and unionist rivals. However, with little prospect of another independence referendum in the near term, this centre ground may yet prove fruitful. The party has an opportunity to position itself as a viable alternative in a dramatically changed political landscape. While Labour's optimism is not unfounded, its polling perhaps speaks more to the weaknesses of its political rivals than the strength of the party itself; and questions persist about Scottish Labour's political vision and constitutional offering in a political system which remains bifurcated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews myths about English identity, using 'myth' in a social scientific way, a truth held to be self‐evident; not something which is patently untrue. It argues that there must be three defining dimensions of English 'nationalism' if it is to be treated as such: first, whether there has been a significant increase in the proportion of people claiming 'English' as their national identity; second, how 'England' is treated as an 'imagined community'; and third, the degree to which the Conservative Party is the political vehicle for English nationalism. These dimensions are labelled the social, the cultural and the political. Only if there is sustained evidence for all three aspects might we consider English nationalism to be a significant phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the victory of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey's 2023 presidential election, the role of fear‐oriented populist nationalism in Turkish politics, and the implications of the results for society. It argues that Turkey faces a deep moral and social crisis rather than a mere political problem. The article explores the sociocultural origins of polarization, as competing communities with few shared values contribute to divisions. It also analyzes the formation and ideologies of the People's Alliance and the Nation Alliance, the two major blocs involved in the 2023 elections, providing insights into their visions for Turkey. Last, the article scrutinizes the cult of the strongman, the widespread use of nationalism and religion, the utilization of state resources by Erdoğan's administration, and the influence of media—largely controlled by Erdoğan—on public opinion. This includes investigating the impact of alternative truths and narratives on the electoral process. The analysis highlights the deep‐rooted moral bankruptcy Turkey faces in the third decade of Erdoğan's rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars note that since the early 1990s, the CCP has been invoking Chinese nationalism to rescue the party's declining ideological legitimacy. Probing China's political indoctrination (thought work), this article makes two contributions to such conventional consensus. First, empirically it argues that the rise of nationalism in the 1990s was not altogether new. Instead, from the early 1980s, the CCP had been switching to "patriotism." Second, this article argues that the communist regime's transition to nationalism was hesitant. It was an interactive process whereby multiple layers of the society and elite, confused alike, worked together to explore whether and how to embrace nationalism. The nation‐building also bore the imprint of the revolutionary and state‐socialist past. This article suggests that though the nation‐state has become the dominant political format of the world, as a pattern it fuses with a society's traditions, preconditions, and internal struggles. Such fusions made nation‐building in the non‐Western world unseparated from quasi‐national legacies such as revolution and socialism and could yield consequences other than capitalism and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until 24 February 2022, when Russia launched its full‐scale attack on Ukraine, Mariupol, like many other Ukrainian government‐controlled cities in the country's eastern regions, was trying to reinvent and rebrand itself as a modern European city. But it was missing something: the golden arches, that ubiquitous symbol of globalisation that can be found in almost any medium‐sized city in Europe. Because McDonald's restaurants are perceived as powerful symbols of global capitalism and of Western or American culture, the establishment of new McDonald's restaurants has sometimes been challenged – even violently – by nationalist or anti‐globalist forces. In Mariupol, which lost its status as a 'McDonald's city' at the beginning of the Donbas war in 2014, this was not the case. In this intervention, I describe how the restaurant was a symbolic centrepiece of local debates taking place in this geopolitical fault‐line city, where deep divisions surrounding foreign policy and geopolitical preferences carried the potential for volatile and unpredictable urban conflict, trumping most frictions related to the city's diverse ethno‐national structure. In its role as globally signifying flagship, McDonald's had generated an area of popular and political consensus – a Pax McDonaldica – while also acting as a (welcome?) distraction from a low‐intensity war that had already lasted for eight years. This all came to an end when Russia attacked Ukraine, destroying much of the city, killing man thousands, forcefully displacing or deporting hundreds of thousands, and terrorising those left behind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking document analysis as its method, this paper examines the Tibetans' response to the Chinese state nationalism. Due to the fear of political secession, the Chinese government has stayed silent about the Tibetans' right to self‐determination and subjected regional ethnic autonomy to the centralised political system. The Chinese authorities continue to dismiss the Tibetans' nationalist struggles as an imported foreign design and warn the international community not to sympathise with the Dalai Lama and his supporters. Amidst an adverse national and international political environment, the Tibetans have managed to sustain their nationalist wishes and obtain substantive international attention. Taking this background into account, this paper explores how the Tibetans have succeeded to resist China's state nationalism and position themselves as a champion of inclusion, justice, and minority rights. It argues that the Tibetans recognise the Chinese government's fear of secession and utilise that fear to forward their nationalist aspirations. The Tibetans shift their demand from independence to autonomy and highlight their own desire for recognition as a distinct community within the Chinese state. This strategy has helped them to claim that they are against the violations of autonomy but not against the Chinese state's territorial norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent debates about whether educators should teach America's racist history have sparked activism and legislation to ensure students are taught American history in such a way that promotes "patriotism," amplifying cherished national myths, emphasizing American exceptionalism, and erasing negative historical facts. Building on insights from both social dominance theory and Christian nationalism research, we propose Christian nationalism combines legitimizing myths that whitewash America's past with authoritarian impulses and thus seeks to enforce "patriotic" content in public school classrooms. We also theorize this connection varies across racial, partisan, and ideological identities. Data from a nationally‐representative survey of Americans affirm Christian nationalism is by far the leading predictor Americans believe "We should require public school teachers to teach history in a way that promotes patriotism." This association is consistent across race (possibly due to divergent meanings of both "Christian nationalism" and "patriotism" across groups), but varies by partisanship and ideological identity for whites. Specifically, Christian nationalism brings whites who identify with the ideological and political left into complete alignment with their conservative counterparts who are already more likely to support mandatory patriotic education. Our findings provide critical context for ongoing battles over public‐school curricula and education's role in perpetuating social privilege. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]