Nationalism: What We Know and What We Still Need to Know

Abstract

Amid the global resurgence of nationalist governments, what do we know about nationalism? This review takes stock of political science debates on nationalism to critically assess what we already know and what we still need to know. We begin by synthesizing classic debates and tracing the origins of the current consensus that nations are historically contingent and socially constructed. We then highlight three trends in contemporary nationalism scholarship: ( a) comparative historical research that treats nationalism as a macropolitical force and excavates the relationships between nations, states, constitutive stories, and political conflict; ( b) behavioral research that uses survey data and experiments to gauge the causes and effects of attachment to nations; and ( c) ethnographic scholarship that illuminates the everyday processes and practices that perpetuate national belonging. The penultimate section briefly summarizes relevant insights from philosophy, history, and social psychology and identifies knowledge gaps that political scientists are well-positioned to address. A final section calls for more comparative, cross-disciplinary, cross-regional research on nationalism.

Delivery structure of nationalism message on Twitter in the context of Indonesian netizens

“…Benedict Anderson published Imagined Communities (Anderson 1983), The Invention of Tradition by Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983), and Nations and Nationalism by Ernest Gellner (1983. These scholars viewed the nation and nationalism as contemporary phenomena evolved of urbanization, industrialization, print capitalism, and anti-colonial struggle (Mylonas and Tudor 2021).…”

Why, When, and How did Nationalism Become Grounded?

“…Grounded Nationalisms rightly debunks the idea that Brexit or the election of Donald Trump constitute some type of “new nationalism”; however, there is no doubt that there is something distinctive about “Make X country great again” type of politics. Most of these cases involve a return to more exclusionary constitutive stories that had been considered outdated, at least by progressive elites of these societies (Mylonas and Tudor 2021). In this sense, there is nothing new about this phenomenon, but there is worrying movement along the axis of inclusion-exclusion that commentators appear to be picking up.…”

Direitos humanos: Por que analistas do comportamento deveriam se importar?

“…Particularmente, creio que os eventuais riscos da empreitada não justificam abandonar a perspectiva de acordos universais sobre direitos. Atualmente, diversas forças políticas assumem uma postura nacionalista e "antiglobalista", não raro acompanhada de traços xenofóbicos e racistas (Mylonas & Tudor, 2021;Norris & Inglehart, 2019). Os representantes de tais forças frequentemente defendem que os governos de seus países deveriam se dedicar exclusivamente aos seus problemas internos, retirando-se de organismos multilaterais que buscam alcançar compromissos e acordos coletivos, extensivos a todos os países--membros.…”