Irredentism is usually understood as a desire by one state to annex a territory of another state. This desire can be motivated by ethnic reasons because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to the population of the parent state. Historical reasons may also be responsible, i.e., that the territory previously formed part of the parent state. However, difficulties in applying the concept to concrete cases have given rise to academic debates about its precise definition. Disagreements concern whether either or both ethnic and historical reasons have to be present and whether non-state actors can also engage in irredentism. A further dispute is whether attempts to absorb a full neighboring state are also included. There are various types of irredentism. For typical forms of irredentism, the parent state already exists before the territorial conflict with a neighboring state arises. However, there are also forms of irredentism in which the parent state is newly created by uniting an ethnic group spread across several countries. Another distinction concerns whether the country to which the disputed territory currently belongs is a regular state, a former colony, or a collapsed state.
A nation-state is a political unit where the state, a centralized political organization ruling over a population within a territory, and the nation, a community based on a common identity, are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant national or ethnic group.
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining the nation's 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. Nationalism, therefore, seeks to preserve and foster a nation's traditional culture. There are various definitions of a "nation", which leads to different types of nationalism. The two main divergent forms identified by scholars are ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism.
A nation is a large type of social organization where a collective identity has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, territory and/or society. What constitutes a nation can vary widely, as some nations are constructed around ethnicity while others are bound by political constitutions. A nation is generally more overtly political than an ethnic group. A nation has also been defined as a cultural-political community that has become conscious of its autonomy, unity and particular interests.
The term Greater Romania usually refers to the borders of the Kingdom of Romania in the interwar period, achieved after the Great Union. It also refers to a pan-nationalist idea.
Pan-Turkism or Turkism is a political movement that emerged during the 1880s among Turkic intellectuals who lived in the Russian region of Kazan (Tatarstan), Caucasus and the Ottoman Empire, with its aim being the cultural and political unification of all Turkic peoples. Turanism is a closely related movement but it is a more general term, because Turkism only applies to Turkic peoples. However, researchers and politicians who are steeped in the pan-Turkic ideology have used these terms interchangeably in many sources and works of literature.
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". National identity may refer to the subjective feeling one shares with a group of people about a nation, regardless of one's legal citizenship status. National identity is viewed in psychological terms as "an awareness of difference", a "feeling and recognition of 'we' and 'they'". National identity also includes the general population and diaspora of multi-ethnic states and societies that have a shared sense of common identity identical to that of a nation while being made up of several component ethnic groups. Hyphenated ethnicities are an example of the confluence of multiple ethnic and national identities within a single person or entity.
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.
Pan-nationalism is a specific term, used mainly in social sciences as a designation for those forms of nationalism that aim to transcend traditional boundaries of basic or historical national identities in order to create a "higher" pan-national (all-inclusive) identity, based on various common denominators. Pan-nationalism can occur as a specific variant of all common forms of nationalism. In relation to classical state nationalism, pan-nationalism manifests itself through various political movements that advocate the formation of "higher" (pan-national) forms of political identity, based on a regional or continental grouping of national states. In terms of ethnic nationalism, pan-nationalism can also manifest itself through specific ethnic movements that advocate setting up "higher" (pan-national) forms of common identity that are based on ethnic grouping. Other forms of nationalism also have their pan-national variants.
Russian nationalism is a form of nationalism that promotes Russian cultural identity and unity. Russian nationalism first rose to prominence as a Pan-Slavic enterprise during the 19th century Russian Empire, and was repressed during the early Bolshevik rule. Russian nationalism was briefly revived through the policies of Joseph Stalin during and after the Second World War, which shared many resemblances with the worldview of early Eurasianist ideologues.
Thomas Ambrosio is a professor of political science in the Criminal Justice and Political Science Department at North Dakota State University. He teaches courses in international relations and international law.
Diaspora politics is the political behavior of transnational ethnic diasporas, their relationship with their ethnic homelands and their host states, and their prominent role in ethnic conflicts. The study of diaspora politics is part of the broader field of diaspora studies.
Greater Mauritania is a term for the Mauritanian irredentist claim that generally includes the Western Sahara and other Sahrawi-populated areas of the western Sahara desert. The term was initially used by Mauritania's first president, Mokhtar Ould Daddah, as he began claiming the territory then known as Spanish Sahara even before Mauritanian independence in 1960.
Azerbaijani nationalism, also referred to as Azerbaijanism, started out as a cultural movement among Azerbaijani intellectuals within the Russian Empire during the second half of the 19th century. While initially cultural in nature, it was later developed further into a political ideology which culminated in the establishment of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918.
Spanish irredentism mainly focuses on claims over the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, whose long-standing territorial vindication as a British colony is enshrined in the Spanish foreign policy. Along history, other minor irredentist proposals have claimed territories such as the whole of Portugal, Andorra, parts of Northern Africa, the Roussillon and the French Basque Country.
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.
Coptic nationalism refers to the nationalism of the Copts, an ethnic and religious minority that primarily inhabit the area of modern Egypt. Coptic nationalism does not have a claim for a own Coptic nation but asks for a equal position for Copts in Egypt. Most Copts live in the south of Egypt but the largest concentrations of Copts lives in Cairo and Alexandria. The Copts, like the rest of Egyptian, are the descends from the pharaonic inhabitants of Egypt. Most ethnic Copts belongs to the Coptic Orthodox Church. Copts number between 10-15 percent of the Egyptian population of 104 million
Russian irredentism, sometimes expressed by the term Greater Russia, refers to territorial claims made on behalf of the Russian Federation to parts of the former Russian Empire and/or the former Soviet Union. It seeks to politically incorporate Russians who are living in territories that fall outside of Russia's modern borders.
Georgian nationalism is a form of nationalism which argues for promotion of Georgian national identity and a nation state based on it.
