Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining its sovereignty (self-governance) over its perceived homeland to create a nation-state. It holds that each nation should govern itself, free from outside interference (self-determination), that a nation is a natural and ideal basis for a polity, and that the nation is the only rightful source of political power. It further aims to build and maintain a single national identity, based on a combination of shared social characteristics such as culture, ethnicity, geographic location, language, politics, religion, traditions and belief in a shared singular history, and to promote national unity or solidarity. There are various definitions of a "nation", which leads to different types of nationalism. The two main divergent forms are ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism.
A nation is a type of social organization where a collective identity, a national identity, has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, territory or society. Some nations are constructed around ethnicity while others are bound by political constitutions.
Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppression; and the relationships between power and gender as they intersect with other identities and social locations such as race, sexual orientation, socio-economic class, and disability.
National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language".
Historiography is the study of how history is written. One pervasive influence upon the writing of history has been nationalism, a set of beliefs about political legitimacy and cultural identity. Nationalism has provided a significant framework for historical writing in Europe and in those former colonies influenced by Europe since the nineteenth century. Typically official school textbooks are based on the nationalist model and focus on the emergence, trials and successes of the forces of nationalism.
Primordialism is the idea that nations or ethnic identities are fixed, natural, and ancient. Primordialists argue that each individual has a single inborn ethnic identity independent of historical processes. While implicit primordialist assumptions are common in society and academic research, primordialism is widely rejected by scholars of nationalism and ethnicity, as individuals can have multiple ethnic identities which are changeable and socially constructed.
Anthony David Stephen Smith was a British historical sociologist who, at the time of his death, was Professor Emeritus of Nationalism and Ethnicity at the London School of Economics. He is considered one of the founders of the interdisciplinary field of nationalism studies.
Civic nationalism, otherwise known as democratic nationalism, is a form of nationalism that adheres to traditional liberal values of freedom, tolerance, equality, and individual rights, and is not based on ethnocentrism. Civic nationalists often defend the value of national identity by saying that individuals need it as a partial shared aspect of their identity in order to lead meaningful, autonomous lives and that democratic polities need a national identity to function properly. Liberal nationalism is used in the same sense as 'civic nationalism', but liberal ethnic nationalism also exists, and "state nationalism" is a branch of civic nationalism, but it can also be illiberal.
Walker F. Connor was Distinguished Visiting Professor of Political Science at Middlebury College. Connor is best known for his work on nationalism, and is considered one of the founders of the interdisciplinary field of nationalism studies.
Cultural nationalism is a term used by scholars of nationalism to describe efforts among intellectuals to promote the formation of national communities through emphasis on a common culture. It is contrasted with "political" nationalism, which refers to specific movements for national self-determination through the establishment of a nation-state.
Among scholars of nationalism, a number of types of nationalism have been presented. Nationalism may manifest itself as part of official state ideology or as a popular non-state movement and may be expressed along civic, ethnic, language, religious or ideological lines. These self-definitions of the nation are used to classify types of nationalism, but such categories are not mutually exclusive and many nationalist movements combine some or all of these elements to varying degrees. Nationalist movements can also be classified by other criteria, such as scale and location.
Thomas Spira (1923–2005) was Professor of History at the University of Prince Edward Island and editor of the Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism, the first academic journal devoted to the study of nationalism. Born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, Spira moved to the United States just before the outbreak of World War II. He enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts program at the City College of New York in 1964, and later completed his M.A. and Ph.D. in History at McGill University in Montreal. Spira began teaching at the University of Prince Edward Island in 1980, and was named Professor Emeritus by its Board of Governors in 1998.
John Hutchinson is a British academic. He is a reader in nationalism at the London School of Economics (LSE), in the Department of Government.
Umut Özkırımlı is a political scientist known for his work in nationalism studies, social movements, and identity politics.
Ethnosymbolism is a school of thought in the study of nationalism that stresses the importance of symbols, myths, values and traditions in the formation and persistence of the modern nation state.
According to some scholars, a national identity of the English as the people or ethnic group dominant in England can be traced to the Anglo-Saxon period.
Ethnicities is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes research in the fields of sociology and politics concerning questions of ethnicity, nationalism and related issues such as identity politics and minority rights. It was established in 2001 and is published bimonthly by SAGE Publications. The editors-in-chief are Stephen May and Tariq Modood.
Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric approach to various political issues related to national affirmation of a particular ethnic group.
Several scholars of nationalism support the existence of nationalism in the Middle Ages. This school of thought differs from modernism, the predominant school of thought on nationalism, which suggests that nationalism developed largely after the late 18th century and the French Revolution. Theories on the existence of nationalism in the Middle Ages may belong to the general paradigms of ethnosymbolism and primordialism (perennialism).
Modernization theory is the predominant explanation for the emergence of nationalism among scholars of nationalism. Prominent modernization scholars, such as Benedict Anderson, Ernest Gellner and Eric Hobsbawn, say nationalism arose with modernization during the late 18th century. Processes that lead to the emergence of nationalism include industrialization and democratic revolutions.
