thesis statement on nationalism

Historical development toward a universal community of civilization,' said Rosa Luxemburg, 'will, like all social development, take place in the midst of a contradiction...' Indeed, on its face it seems that the simultaneous consolidation and spreading (within a progressing global order) of nationalist particularism, on the one hand, and of the support for democracy, on the other, do constitute such a contradiction. But is this really the case. Are nationalism and democracy mutually exclusive, or are they reconcilable after all. In this project, to paraphrase Rousseau's words at the beginning of The Social Contract, it is my purpose to enquire whether it is possible to reconcile nationalism with democracy, taking nationalism as it is and democracy as it may be. The dissertation shows that both democracy (as we commonly understand it today) and nationalism are strongly embedded in modern conditions (primarily capitalism) and their inherent contradictions, namely, the development of the autonomous self, on the one hand, and the loss of community and prevalence of identity crisis, on the other. Liberal theories of democracy, the thesis suggests, celebrate the development of the autonomous self but largely neglect or ignore the problem of identity crisis, hence contribute precisely to moral and political tendencies they normally reject. Nationalism and its academic sympathisers, though, may supply a solution to identity crisis but too easily or carelessly sacrifice individual liberty and equality on the altar of renewed Gemeinschaft-like communities. What is urgently needed, I argue, is a form of democracy that could transcend the contradictions latent in modern capitalism and deliver a solution to identity crisis and alienation without subverting the values of individual equality and liberty. Such a democracy, it is concluded, must be a socialist one in which the means of identity production are collectively owned.

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Chapter 1. Introduction

• Central European University Press

Globalization and Nationalism

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1 Globalization and nationalism have often been evoked as the two defining features of the modern world. The former represents rising deterritorialization, integration and universal interconnectedness while the latter arguably represents fragmentation, localization and isolation. The coexistence of these two, arguably opposing, tendencies became particularly problematic in the aftermath of the Cold War, when the world seemed to be struggling with the contradictory processes of nationalist fragmentation on the one hand and global integration on the other. As Ian Clark observed: “the 1990s displayed marked tendencies in both directions at the same time; if anything the economic dimensions of globalization have grown vigorously but they coexist with the unforeseen resurgence of nationalism, which has ruptured the international community, as well as some of its constituent states.” 1 The simultaneous rise of nationalistic and globalizing tendencies came to be seen as one of the central paradoxes of the past decade taking many observers by surprise. According to Michael Ignatieff, “with blithe lightness of mind, we assumed that the world was moving irrevocably beyond nationalism, beyond tribalism, beyond the provincial confines of the identity inscribed in our passports towards a global market culture which was to be our new home. In retrospect, we were whistling in the dark. The oppressed has returned and its name is nationalism.” 2 Similarly Stuart Hall has characterized the resurgence of nationalism alongside globalization as a “remarkable reversal, a most unexpected turn of events.” 3 The sense of paradox, according to Anthony Smith, has been heightened by the fact that in the Western half of Europe the national state appeared to be divesting itself of its powers while in the Eastern half it was eagerly reappropriating those same powers “after the long Soviet winter of political passivity.” 4

2 The collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe provoked a major reappraisal of nationalism and its political significance. Suddenly, nationalism became the elemental force to be reckoned with in the post-Cold War world order, challenging its stability by reshaping boundaries, unleashing wars and disintegrating multinational states. The Western world also appeared to have succumbed to the reinvigorated appeal of nationalist politics. Minorities and non-state peoples of Western Europe such as the Basques and Catalans, Scots and Welsh have reasserted their rights to national autonomy and, in some cases, national independence. Extreme right wing political parties have been gaining political support and popularity, claiming nationalism as their core ideology. In the words of Malcolm Anderson, “a demon of extreme and aggressive nationalism, which may in the stable Western democracies be believed dead, was unleashed… The 20 th century had commenced with ‘an age of nationalism’ and was terminating with a resurgence of nationalism, with destabilizing consequences.” 5

3 Understanding the relationship between globalization and nationalism is the main purpose of this work. In doing so it tries to address the following main questions: What is the link between globalization and nationalism? How does it translate into reality and what empirical evidence supports the existence of such a relationship? And what does it tell us about the nature of contemporary nationalism? There is a vast literature dealing with globalization and nationalism both separately and in connection with each other. A majority of commentators perceive the strength and resilience of nationalism in the era of globalization as a paradox of a world that is simultaneously coming together and coming apart. In this view globalization and nationalism are contradictory processes, the two opposites that are deeply connected through dialectical or causal links. Globalization is arguably generating nationalist backlash in response to and as a counter-reaction against those globalizing tendencies that appear to threaten local cultures and identities. Nationalism appears to have found a renewed sense of purpose and meaning in the context of globalization, which is one of the reasons behind the “surprising” nationalist revival taking place around the world.

4 The basic question that has guided this work is whether the presumed clash between forces of globalization and nationalism is the only type of relationship that exists today and defines contemporary political life. Does it present a complete picture of the existing links and interconnections between globalization and nationalism or does a different relationship exist that can be uncovered through critical analysis and empirical research? The reasons for trying to identify different aspects of the relationship that could connect globalization and nationalism are both analytical and practical. Analytically, understanding the links between these two tendencies can help us better comprehend the nature of contemporary globalization and nationalism separately. It can tell us how different, if at all, contemporary nationalism is from nationalist movements of previous epochs. The different links and attitudes to globalization developed by different forms of contemporary nationalism can tell us what distinguishes different national doctrines and movements and what they have in common. By identifying the way nationalist actors perceive and engage with globalization, we may better understand how much of a challenge contemporary globalization is to the core values of nationalism and to the international system of sovereign states that nationalism underpins and upholds.

5 In practical terms, it will help to know what the sources of nationalist conflicts in the era of globalization are and what leverages are available for better addressing and preventing them. If globalization itself is the underlying cause of nationalist upheavals, discontent and ethnonational confrontations, then what policy choices are available for dealing with globalization-induced tensions and challenges? If, however, the relationship between globalization and nationalism is not exclusively that of backlash and confrontation, then globalization may present new opportunities and instruments for global actors to positively influence local conflicts and even effectively contain and de-radicalize nationalist politics. In this context, global actors such as international organizations may be tasked with effective conflict prevention and conflict resolution activities. Treating globalization as an ungovernable, impersonal force that is ever-present and ever so powerful makes it an easy scapegoat and a convenient cause of all current problems for which nobody in particular could be blamed. All the above shows that there is much at stake in trying to better understand both globalization and nationalism separately and in connection with each other in order to make adequate normative judgments and policy decisions.

6 This book critically examines existing literature on globalization and nationalism and puts to empirical test some of the main claims and assumptions that underpin the conventional wisdom on the subject. It then develops an alternative narrative on the relationship between globalization and contemporary nationalism and argues that forces of nationalism tend to develop pragmatic relationship with globalization that serves political and security interests of a national community. In this view, globalization and nationalism are not contradictory but complementary processes and their coexistence is neither surprising nor necessarily confrontational. This—at first sight counterintuitive—view is based on two main assumptions: the first has to do with the nature of contemporary nationalism and the second with the impact of globalization on the system of nation-states to which nationalism is inextricably connected. I argue that nationalism is neither cultural nor exclusively defensive and isolationist force. Its relevance is specific to the modern, pluralistic system of sovereign states where it has fulfilled the function of a founding ideology or a kind of “master doctrine.” 6 It provides reasons and means for any community to survive and achieve political power and recognition in the existing system. Because nationalism is deeply connected to the specific international environment it has an inherently outward-looking, internationalist dimension, which precludes it from becoming a force of isolation and closure. The interests of security and political competition explain why forces of nationalism engage and often promote globalization, which they see not as threatening but rather as furthering their objectives. Such relationship between globalization and nationalism in turn points to the fact that globalization is not such a threat to the nation-state as it is often presumed and neither does it amount to the fundamental transformation of the international system which these states constitute. The rest of this introductory chapter further outlines the structure and central arguments put forward in this book. It also looks at its theoretical and methodological underpinnings and introduces the two case studies that have formed an important part of the research.

1.1 Central Arguments

7 The first part of the book is concerned with putting together the socalled globalization hypothesis on the basis of the reviewed literature. As mentioned above, much has been written on how globalization is involved in generating various types of nationalistic responses but the arguments that constitute this hypothesis are spread throughout the literature on both globalization and nationalism and tend to have a variety of different authors. Chapter 2 reviews most of these arguments identifying what the main causal mechanisms are that link globalization and nationalism in this particular way and what they tell us about the nature of contemporary nationalism. Chapter 3 takes issue with some of the main assumptions of the globalization hypothesis as it emerges from the literature and engages in the critique of both its causal links to nationalism and to the understanding and interpretation of contemporary nationalism that it offers. Main tenants of the globalization hypothesis are then further tested on the cases of Georgian and Basque nationalisms.

8 Chapters 4 and 5 represent case studies of two “really existing” nationalisms from both Eastern and Western Europe. The first is the case of Georgian nationalism, which is taken as an example of resurgent, post-communist nationalisms that have arguably resurfaced with great vigor in the post-Cold War era. The second is the case of Basque nationalism, which represents nationalism of Europe’s stateless nations that have long historic roots but have arguably been experiencing a particular revival in the context of globalization. The main reason behind selecting these two different types of nationalism is to have wideranging material for observation and analysis, and for exploring links between globalization and nationalism under two very different sets of circumstances. This chapter returns to a more detailed discussion of the selection of cases and methodology used in the case studies later.

9 In both Georgian and Basque cases, the causes of nationalism were largely linked to historic and endogenous processes and less to globalization and its influences. At the same time, the two coexist simultaneously not in contradiction to each other but rather in a mutually beneficial and complementary manner. In both Georgia and the Basque Country, nationalism emerges as a force promoting and reinforcing rather than resisting globalization. Engaging with globalization forms an integral part of the very nationalist action and discourse. Contrary to the popular globalization hypothesis, therefore, this book argues that contemporary nationalism can serve as one of the major globalizing forces. Chapter 6 reflects findings of the case studies and explains why such a relationship is possible and what its practical and normative implications are.

10 Exploring the links between globalization and nationalism also points to the diversity of contemporary nationalism—different manifestations of nationalism engage in different relationships with forces of globalization. This study highlights how firmly nationalism is entrenched in the existing international system and argues that on the mere example of its radical varieties, nationalism cannot be discarded as a generally anti-system phenomenon which mainly aims at fragmentation, isolation and disintegration of states. In the context of the current international system, nationalism enjoys unrivalled relevance because it is linked to the very set up and nature of its constituent political communities, i.e. states. It is important to not only constitute oneself as a nation to have a legitimate claim on statehood but also to be recognized as such by other nations—members of the international community. Nationalism, therefore, is not simply about the preservation of national culture and identity but it is equally about seeking recognition for this very culture and identity by others, a process that requires interaction, not isolation. In this sense, relevance of nationalism is contingent on the specific international context and a degree of internationalism is inherent to its nature.

11 Such an interpretation of nationalism also makes its coexistence with globalization less puzzling. The “paradox” of nationalism in the era of globalization is based on the assumption that nationalism is, by definition, a force of isolation and protection that is incompatible with globalization and its integrationist tendencies. However, if we are to accept the existence of more political, pragmatic, outward looking, and internationalist elements of nationalism, then there is no reason to present them in binary contradiction whereby one is expected to prevail over the other. This is the picture of the world struggling between the forces of Jihad and McWorld, but there also exists a different picture in which forces of nationalism and globalization engage in an alliance which is mutually advantageous and is largely overlooked against the prevailing view of the two axial forces clashing with each other at every point. 7

1.2 Theoretical Underpinnings and Methodology

12 The theoretical framework used in this book represents a combination of positivism and constructivism. It implies belief that causal relationships exist and uncovering them has a significant explanatory value. At the same time, however, it admits discourse as a variable and acknowledges social constructions of non-observable, underlying structures. This broadly constructivist approach reflects a number of theoretical commitments. First, it does not take existing international structures as given or “natural” but sees them as defined by specific social practices and embedded in specific knowledge and intersubjective meanings shared by social actors. Second, in explaining certain political actions, policy choices and calculations, it pays attention to an actor’s identity, values and ideological commitments. Concepts such as prestige, legiti macy, dignity, recognition and respect are taken as significant in understanding the “rationality” of nationalist actors or leaders of revisionist states (“value rational” behavior in Weber’s terms). Third, it follows that this theoretical approach accepts the role of ideas in explaining and understanding political action. For instance, this work shows how ideational and discursive aspects of globalization have come to play an important role in generating reactions and responses. As Andrew Hurrell points out “even if we suspect that appeals to political ideas, to legal principles, and to moral purposes are no more than rationalizations of self-interest, they may still affect political behavior because of the powerful need to legitimate action.” 8

13 In light of the above, this work relies on an in-depth, qualitative analysis, using the case study method. Such an approach is particularly well suited for exploring links between globalization and nationalism that are hard to measure and quantify. It also allows for the combined use of solid, “scientific” data such as statistical indicators, election results and polling figures with impressions from the field created through field visits, open-ended interviews, media reports, discourse and content analysis.

14 The selection of Georgian and Basque cases responds to the two different streams in the globalization literature: One that argues for post-communist nationalism as the main evidence for the resurgence of nationalism in the context of globalization; and the other, which suggests the reinvigoration of traditional nationalist movements such as the Basque, Catalan and Québecois through the processes of globalization. In addition, both Georgia and the Basque Country can be treated as the “most likely cases” for those who argue for the growing strength and power of nationalism under the influences of globalization. 9 The Georgian case exemplifies post-communist nationalism that experienced a dramatic upsurge with violent consequences following the downfall of the Soviet Union and accompanying slow integration into global processes. Georgia’s transition to the market economy and in corporation into global economic and political processes has been both dramatic and painful; its state-building project is still underway and the country faces the threat of further fragmentation under both external pressures and internal ones from competing minority nationalisms. In addition, Georgia is a good example of a fluctuating nationalist mobilization before and after the Soviet collapse, which could shed some light on how the popular support and political importance of nationalism can vary in relation to globalization.

15 The Basque case responds to another claim that globalization is involved not only in the production of new cradles of nationalism such as those of Eastern Europe, but also in the reinvigoration of old, minority nationalisms in the developed, Western world. As Philip Spencer and Howard Wollman observed, francophones in Québec, Basques and Catalans, Scots and Welsh, as well as many ethnic and national movements in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union provide just some of the examples of groups asserting their national rights or demanding independence in the global era. 10 The origins and root causes of Basque nationalism date back to the end of the 19 th century and long predate globalization. However, its intensification and militarization occurred after Spain embarked on the process of democratization, opening up to foreign influences and engaging in global integrative processes. The Basque case, therefore, also appears to confirm the globalists’ main assumption that with increasing globalization nationalism tends to intensify, assuming a more virulent and uncompromising character. In general, the Basque case represents a fascinating case for uncovering the sources of continuous nationalist appeal in the contemporary world. Basque nationalism has shown a remarkable vitality. It lived through the years of repression and democratization, poverty and prosperity, underdevelopment and rapid industrialization, isolation and European integration, and not once has it demonstrated any signs of abating.

16 The two cases, therefore, are both relevant for this study but in two different ways. The main problem with this selection is its European bias that warrants further justification. This work started out by questioning some of the commonly held views on the relationship of globalization and nationalism which I have described as globalization hypothesis and which explains arguably “paradoxical” persistence of nationalism in today’s world with globalization and its influences. The perception of paradox was further intensified by its European context as it was going against the expectation that Europe was moving beyond supposedly passé tendencies of parochial nationalism and towards frontier-free, integrated space. As Rogers Brubaker pointed out, “Europe was the birthplace of the nation-state and modern nationalism at the end of the eighteenth century, and it was supposed to be their grave-yard at the end of the twentieth.” 11 In addition, many proponents of the globalization hypothesis argue that nationalist resurgence is a European phenomenon. Thus according to Mary Kaldor, in other parts of the world, forms of particularism may vary and take the form of religious communalism, tribalism, clanism and so forth. 12 Similarly, Kevin Robins stressed the resurgence of national, ethnic, and territorial attachments both in Eastern and Western Europe. He noted that, “in Eastern Europe we have witnessed the growth of neo-nationalism in its most militant forms, but it has also been a feature of Western Europe, with the assertion of Basque, Breton or Scottish identities.” 13 In other words, the European bias is to a certain extent an integral part of the globalization thesis, which this book takes as a starting point for its exploration of the relationship between globalization and nationalism.

1.3 Different Approaches to Contemporary Nationalism

17 A globalization-based explanation of contemporary nationalism is one among various approaches elaborated in response to an ongoing revival of nationalism and its increasing relevance in the post-Cold War international order. As Rogers Brubaker has observed, the resurgence of nationalism in Eastern Europe and elsewhere in the last decade has sparked an equally strong resurgence in the study of nationalism. 14 A number of theories have been elaborated, aimed at explaining and understanding the origins, causes, and attractions of nationalism to both the public and elites.

18 We may single out five main approaches among the latest attempts at theorizing nationalism. In the beginning of the 1990s, it was common to speak about the return of ancient hatreds and deep-seated animosities in explaining the eruption of ethnic conflicts following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the speed with which ethnocentric nationalism became a dominant political force among the former communist countries. 15 Later the focus shifted on the process of democratic transition as a possible explanation for the rise of nationalism. In this view the crucial role was played by interested political entrepreneurs and national elites who take advantage of the window of opportunity created by the early stages of democratization rather than ancient animosities, deep-rooted rivalries and historical legacies. 16 Similar emphasis on elite manipulation has been placed by followers of the realist school in explaining the rise of contemporary nationalism. In contrast, however, realists have focused specifically on conditions of uncertainty and insecurity accompanying state failure and anarchy. In this view, nationalism thrives under conditions of fear and insecurity, mobilizing and fracturing groups along ethnic fault lines. 17 Instrumentalist approaches to nationalism have come under criticism from an ethnosymbolist school of thought, proponents of which argued that theories of elite manipulation fail to explain why people follow nationalist leaders and respond positively to their manipulations. Ethnosymbolists believe that political resilience, popular appeal, and the power of nationalism derive from their connection to ethnic heritage and its constituent myths, symbols, rituals, and collective memories. It is premodern ethnic ties and cultural roots that sustain nationalist politics and explain its appeal for ordinary citizens. 18 Such an approach also explains why nationalism has been displaying surprising vitality in the context of globalization.

19 The globalization approach to nationalism, however, shifts focus from intrinsic, self-perpetuating elements of nationalism onto globalization and its influences in explaining the strength and continuous appeal of nationalism in the global era. Nationalism, in this view, appears as a reaction and a response to the economic, political, cultural and psychological effects of globalization on contemporary societies. These effects include the reduction of state power and its allegedly declining capacity to provide social and economic security for its citizens and generate an overarching sense of loyalty and belonging; structural adjustments, changes in the traditional economies and rising volatility of employment accompanied by diminishing social provisions from the state; increasing cultural interchanges and exposure to foreign cultures; as well as an intensified psychological need to belong to a greater and tangible community in a world of increasingly atomized individuals. As summarized by Spencer and Wollman, “it has become a widely held view that the insecurities attached to globalizing processes have engendered a variety of essentialist and fundamentalist reactions.” 19

20 It is the globalization approach that is the main focus of this book. Its significance lies not in the fact that it is a new and well-developed theory, which it is not, but rather in its attempt to bring together nationalism and globalization and explain how the two can be interconnected. It builds on the existing nationalism theories, borrowing elements such as consequences of the weakening of the state and an emotional appeal of cultural ties and ethnic roots, while at the same time emphasizing the role of globalization in reactivating and reinvigorating powers of nationalism and identity politics. In addition, the globalization approach has gained significant popularity among both academics and practitioners with some of its underlying assumptions acquiring almost a status of conventional wisdom. Even proponents of alternative theories of nationalism agree on the revitalizing influences which globalization has been exercising on contemporary nationalism. Thus, Anthony Smith, while maintaining his allegiance to ethnosymbolism, accepts the globalization thesis and suggests that global processes if anything strengthen national consciousness and further intensify nationalist tendencies. 20 Similarly, Delanty and O’Mahony, while not denying the validity of other approaches to nationalism, point out that the globalization approach is the most favorable since there can be little doubt that contemporary nationalism has assumed the powers it has because of globalization, “which has opened up many spaces for ethnicization, indigenization and localization.” 21

21 It should be noted that the globalization approach to nationalism represents a dramatic shift in the debate on globalization and nationalism that took place throughout the 1990s. Immediately after the end of the Cold War, it used to be popular to speak about the imminent demise of nationalism as a political force in the context of growing globalization. It was expected that technological advances, the expansion of the capitalist system, democratization and socioeconomic development would encourage liberal universalism to triumph over traditional attachments of ethnicity and nationality. 22 Expanding economic relations promote greater worldwide integration and a breakdown of national barriers, rendering the politics of nationalism increasingly outmoded and irrelevant. For some scholars, this has meant the final universalization of liberal, Western values, bringing about the “end of history” as an endpoint of human ideological evolution. 23 For others, the demise of nationalism was simply associated with the loss of its functional importance in the era of globalization. Thus, according to Eric Hobsbawm, globalization and the international division of labor deprived nationalism of its traditional functions of building states and establishing territorially bounded “national economies.” In addition, technological advances in the field of communication and increasing international migration have further undermined the possibility of territorially homogenous nation states. Nationalism, therefore, was becoming irrelevant to most contemporary economic and social developments. Recalling Hegel’s owl of Minerva, Hobsbawm concluded: “The owl of Minerva which brings wisdom, said Hegel, flies out at dusk. It is a good sign that it is now circling around nations and nationalism.” 24

22 Since expectations about the onset of the postnational era failed to materialize with growing evidence pointing to the opposite, it became common to argue that nationalism and identity politics not only were not disappearing but on the contrary, were revitalized by the very processes of globalization that were presumed to be rendering them obsolete. 25 The picture of universal, postnational peace has been replaced by that of the clash between tribal and primordial loyalties and forces of globalization, generating conflicts that appear to be particularly destructive and difficult to settle. This shift in the debate from one polar opposite to another seemed to have been provoked by the apparent resurgence of nationalism in post-communist Eastern Europe and other parts of the world alongside the intensification of global processes. Now that enough time has passed since the dramatic changes of the past decade, it is a good opportunity to once again reevaluate some of the commonly held views and question their underlying assumptions. Understanding the nature of contemporary nationalism and its relationship with globalization is essential for grasping ongoing political processes in all their complexity and for making adequate policy choices.

Notes de bas de page

1 Ian Clark (1997) Globalization and Fragmentation , Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 4.

2 Michael Ignatieff (1994) Blood and Belonging , London: Vintage, p. 2.

3 Stuart Hall (1992) “The Question of Cultural Identity” in Modernity and Its Futures , Stuart Hall, David Held and Anthony McGrew (eds.), Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 314.

4 Anthony Smith (1995) Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era, Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 116.

5 Malcolm Anderson (2000) States and Nationalism in Europe since 1945 , London: Routledge, p. 64. Anderson also suggested that in the past decades, nationalism has been revived in the so-called “advanced” parts of Europe manifesting itself in two main ways: first, through the increasing assertiveness of stateless nations such as the Scots, Catalans and others; and second, through the growing hostility to “supranational Europe.” He concluded that it was “no longer possible to dismiss nationalism as an aberration of backward societies.” Ibid., p. 8.

6 Erica Benner (2001) “Is There A Core National Doctrine?” Nations and Nationalisms , 7:2, pp. 155–174.

7 See Benjamin Barber (1996) Jihad vs. McWorld , New York: Ballentine Books.

8 Andrew Hurrell (2007) On Global Order , Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 19.

9 For the discussion of “most likely” and “least likely” cases, see Harry Eck stein (1975) “Case Study and Theory in Political Science” in Handbook of Political Science (Vol. 1.) Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby (eds.), Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.

10 Philip Spencer and Howard Wollman (2002) Nationalism: A Critical Introduction , London: SAGE, p. 157.

11 Rogers Brubaker (1996) Nationalism Reframed , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 1.

12 Mary Kaldor (1996) “Cosmopolitanism vs. Nationalism” in Europe’s New Nationalism , Richard Caplan and John Feffer (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 43.

13 Kevin Robins (2000) “Encountering Globalization” in Global Transformations Reader , David Held and Anthony McGrew (eds.), Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 200.

14 Rogers Brubaker (1998) “Myths and Misconceptions in the Study of Nationalism” in National Self-Determination and Secession, Margaret Moore (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 233.

15 For a classical exposition of the above argument see Richard Kaplan (1992) Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History , New York: St. Martin’s Press.

16 See Jack Snyder (2000) From Voting to Violence , New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Snyder argues that democratization gives rise to nationalism because it serves the interests of national elites and powerful groups who seek to strengthen their hold on political authorities. For a more nuanced exposition of the correlation between democratization and rise of nationalism, see Neil MacFarlane (1997) “Democratization, Nationalism and Regional Security in the Southern Caucasus,” Government and Opposition , 32:3. MacFarlane argues that democratization creates permissive conditions for nationalist conflicts to emerge and escalate.

17 See Barry Posen (1993) “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict,” Survival , 35:1. Also see David Lake and Donald Rothchild (1998) The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict , Princeton: Princeton University Press.

18 See Anthony Smith (1998) Nationalism and Modernism , London: Rout ledge. Also Anthony Smith (1995) Nations and Nationalism in the Global Era , Cambridge: Polity Press.

19 Philip Spencer and Howard Wollman (2002) Nationalism: A Critical Introduction , London: SAGE, p. 170.

20 Smith, Nationalism in a Global Era ; see also Smith, Nationalism and Modernism .

21 Gerard Delanty and Patrick O’Mahony (2002) Nationalism and Social Theory , London: SAGE, p. 158.

22 This view represented the reinstatement of modernization theories of the 1950s, which argued that technological advances and increasing world wide communication would reduce national differences and divisions along the lines of parochial loyalties and attachments. See the discussion of modernization theory in Chapter Five.

23 See Francis Fukuyama (1992) The End of History and the Last Man , London: Hamish Hamilton.

24 Eric Hobsbawm (1990) Nations and Nationalisms since 1780 , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 183. 25 Smith, Nationalism and Modernism , p. 215.

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Academy of Institutions and Cultures Society

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia came into existence in 1991. This newly emerging state was not a country that was recreated after centuries, nor one which, having been destroyed or absorbed by others over the years, was once again restructured and reappeared, as was the case with Chechoslovakia, Israel or Palestine. As a matter of fact, there was never a country or a state bearing the name “Macedonia”, only the geographic region of ancient Macedonia, a region affiliated and interconnected with the history, language, civilization, culture and religion of Ancient Hellas. In 146 BC, the Romans, wishing to eradicate the Hellenic identity of the Macedonians, created a large dominion extending the ancient borders of Macedonia (see relevant paper in this edition of the MSJ), and calling the new territory Macedonia Prima (Provincia Macedoniae). When Roman General Quintus Caecilius Metellus defeated Andriscus of Macedon, Rome established a new province incorporating ancient Macedonia, which also included Epirus, Thessaly, and parts of Illyria, Paionia and Thrace. This created a much larger administrative area, to which the name of Macedonia was still applied. Hence, any sort or type of national irredentism regarding the name “Macedonia” as an ethnic or national nomenclature is anthropologically pseudonymous and politically irrational. Irredentism is the nationalist belief that a territory belonging to another country should be annexed for ethnic or historical reasons. Irredentist claims are usually justified on the basis that the irredentists' ethnic group, now or historically, formed the majority in that territory or that the territory was part of the irredentists' nation-state at some point in the past. In the case of the people of FYROM, the Macedoslavs, who try to emerge unilaterally as the “Macedonians”, nothing of the above is validated. The constitutional name of “Macedonia” that they were inspired to use for their country was never a territory exclusively or primarily or historically occupied by “Macedonians”; “Macedonians” never formed the majority in this territory and most importantly this region was never the nation-state of the “Macedonians.” Furthermore, irredentism is to be distinguished from territorial expansionism, in that irredentism claims to advocate taking back land that is "rightfully ours," while expan-sionism advocates annexation regardless of whether the territory was "ours" in the first place. Hence, the actual mode of irrational behaviour of the Macedoslavs should be called expansionism and not just irredentism in the Balkans; a tendency which inflames ethnic and national unrest and creates instability to the wider European community. The name of the hypothetical country resulting from successful annexation frequently contains the word "Greater", such as, for example, in Greater Serbia, Greater Albania, or Greater Russia, as we have recently experienced with the annexation of Crimea. Then there comes the third means of nationalism: secessionism. The scholarship on irredentism and secessionism suggests that the former is more likely to become violent and result in war than the latter. Irredentist conflicts are often instigated by sovereign states, whereas, secessionist conflicts are usually initiated by minority groups. Since sovereign states have military capability to fight full-scale wars, irredentist conflicts tend to be more violent and/or turn international. Given that minority groups lack military resources to fight for their causes, secessionist conflicts on the other hand normally do not escalate to interstate war. However, what happens if a sovereign state with a full-fledged army decides to support a secessionist cause? We refer our readers to the Ukraine experience and the prolonged civil war there. Since 2006, the Macedoslavs of FYROM, via their ultra-nationalist government of Nicola Gruevski and its agencies have attempted to implement within their new national borders and in the Macedoslavic Diaspora all three expressions of nationalism, namely irredentism, expansionism and secessionism, thus acting as a serious source of instability in the Balkans and the greater European community. They preach irredentism by posing as “Macedonians” when they never historically formed the majority in Macedonia or Macedonia Prima. In their delirious nationalism they masquerade their Macedoslavic identity and adulterate their culture with Hellenic statues and Greek cultural monuments belonging to another nation-country, namely Hellas, simply to pose as ancient Macedonians. Hence, they demonstrate disrespect and betray their own renowned Slavic culture and civilization. They preach expansionism infiltrating the conscience of the few thousands of Greek bilingual citizens in Ancient Macedonia, the birthplace of Alexander the Great and Aristotle, a region in which they desire to find their “enslaved compatriots”, the Egejski Makedonci. Finally they preach secessionism both within their national borders as well as in the Diaspora via their propaganda machine, their consular staff and their publications producing maps of the Greater Macedonia. Historically, there have been many territories that have changed hands very often, and territories in which the ethnic composition has changed over time. This means the claims of different irredentist movements of what is "rightfully theirs" very often overlap. Since the borders of nearly all nations have changed over time, irredentist attitudes can be found in most parts of the world. Usually, they are part of nationalist ideologies, though by far not all nationalist ideologies and groups include them. Fortunately, irredentism usually does not receive the official support it once did. The Gruevski government constitutes an extreme form of irredentism, expansion-ism and secessionism, seeking to expand its newly emerged country to a maximum extent, regardless of whether the Macedoslavs ever actually formed the majority in the territory in question. The government of FYROM should be reminded that similar expressions of nationalism, expansionism and secessionism are also displayed by other ethnicities within its national borders. According to the Gallup Balkan Monitor 2010 report, the idea of a Greater Albania is supported by the majority of Albanians in Albania (63%), Kosovo (81%) and the Republic of “Macedonia” (53%). This clearly demonstrates that it would be more prudent to safeguard the welfare of the Macedoslav people, build constructive relations with neighbouring countries, reinforce the social cohesion of citizens rather than waste the country’s human and material resources to chase ghosts and imagined enemies in the south.

Naoum Kaytchev

The article reviews different forms of ethnic Macedonian (Macedonist) identities in the contemporary Republic of Macedonia. The classic model elaborated in the post‑war Yugoslavia – postulating that Macedonians are a separate Slav nationality forged in the medieval period and marked in its genesis by the influence of Sts. Cyril and Methodius and their pupils – after 2006 was substituted by a different paradigm making the nationality a thousand years older and deriving it from ancient Makedones and the state of Alexander the Great. The focus of the contribution is on a third little known variety of ethnic Macedonian identity that claims that the distinct Macedonian nation is a comparatively recent phenomenon forged in the years around the Second World War. Such views are spread among two wider groups: firstly, those of the elder Macedonians, contemporaries of 1940s that personally experienced the national transformation at the time, and, secondly, that of the younger educated citizens that respect the imperatives of reason and search for the rational resolution of different societal problems including the nation‑related ones. Since the current environment in the Republic of Macedonia strongly discourages the articulation of such viewpoints they have a semi‑dissident statute. Nevertheless, some prominent members of the intellectual elite have the courage to disclose their views, most consistent among them being Prof. Denko Maleski, former foreign minister and permanent representative to the UN and the son of the creator of the text of the Macedonian national anthem, as well as the journalist Branko Trichkovski. Both stem from the old left‑wing Yugoslav‑Macedonian elite. On the other hand, figures from the right‑wing political spectre, including the former prime minister Lyubcho Georgievski, though departing from a different starting point, are coming to similar conclusions on the recent naissance of the Macedonian nation. These identifications are in harmony with the dominating concepts in the European historiography affirmed and developed in the later decades by authors such as Hugh Poulton, Jan Rychlík and Ulf Brunbauer. The contribution limits its scope to the three different types of identifications within the Macedonist framework and does not study the Macedonian Slav identities that remain beyond its range – those of Macedonian Bulgarians and of Macedonian Serbs.

Balkan studies

Basil Gounaris

Phoebus Tsoumbos

Slavic languages have been spoken in the region of Macedonia alongside Greek and others since the invasions of the Slavs in the 6th and 7th centuries AD. Since then lot of things changed, given that people were moving freely to the Balkan Peninsula. In Greece, the question about a Slavic minority in the country and especially in western Macedonia is an issue that has sparked a great controversy. It is also the name dispute with the F.Y.R.O.M and the usual nationalism which is always present to the Balkan countries. In this essay, we will examine the historical background of the Slavic spoken people in Greece, their legal framework and the current political situation of them.

Victor Roudometof

The dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) is a symbolic struggle concerning legitimate rights over " Macedonia " —the name, the territory, and the loyalty of its inhabitants. The dispute was created by two conflicting national narratives. In the Balkans, nation-building has emphasized particularistic over universalistic criteria. Local national narratives were instrumental in establishing the legitimate possession of a territory by a particular ethnic group. Historically, these narratives are tied to local nationalisms since their function is to designate a territory as the exclusive homeland of a particular nation. The Macedonian narrative views Macedonia as occupied by the Macedonian nation and suggests the existence of national minorities in Bulgaria and Greece. The Greek narrative does not acknowledge the existence of a Macedonian nation and considers the existence of a Macedonian minority within Greece to be a manifestation of Macedonian irredentism. The Macedonian narrative directly questions the Greek narrative's assumption of historical continuity. The strong Greek reaction against FYROM's declaration of independence is a response to this implicit threat to modern Greek identity. In the following discussion, I attempt to analyze the controversy between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). My specific intention is to explicate the origins and character of the Greek response to FYROM's declaration of independence. However, the Macedonian Question is a complex political issue, and discussion of the origins and social construction of the Macedonian nation as such falls outside the scope of this essay. 1 Theoretically speaking, this political controversy is seen as a manifestation of Balkan nationalisms' elevation of the concept of nationhood as the essential element for nation-building, and their concomitant subordination of citizenship. In this context, I attempt to illustrate the importance of nationhood for modern Greek identity by [End Page 253] connecting the Greek popular response to FYROM's declaration of independence to Greek historiography's interpretation of the Macedonian Question. I should point out that most of the scholarship surrounding the Macedonian Question is strongly partisan, with opposing sides attempting to prove the righteousness of their own beliefs. The following discussion is an attempt to move beyond the partisanship of this debate in order to explicate why the interpretation of the historical record regarding Macedonia has become an issue of great political importance. Nationhood and citizenship in the Balkans The theoretical issue underlying this political controversy concerns the usage and construction of national narratives as a way of developing the " imagined community " of a nation. In turn, these national narratives must be interpreted in the context of the competing Greek and Macedonian nationalisms. Most scholars of nationalism consider this phenomenon to be a product of the last 200–500 years, although national narratives usually trace the history of a nation back many hundreds of years. 2 Since the issue addressed is that of nationalism as an ideology that facilitates the growth of a political movement, the rise of subjective national identification is seen as the outcome of a variety of social processes— economic, political, and ideological. The solidity of the concepts of " nation " and " national identity " is rendered problematic and the conceptual ground shifts from issues regarding a population's " nationality " to issues concerning the creation of a " nation " as a category that

Georgios Limantzakis, PhD

During the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) -and largely as a result of it- some 70,000 Greek and Slavomacedonian political refugees left or were forced to leave Greece, seeking refuge in neighboring Yugoslavia and other People’s Republics in Eastern Europe. This paper aims to explain the military necessities behind this decision and the way this primarily humanitarian issue evolved into a political one, as these children -soon accompanied by thousands of other political refugees from Greece- were usually treated in Yugoslavia not as Greeks, but as “Aegean Macedonian” refugees (also known as Egejci) who fled persecution for their identity and not for their ideology. This misinterpretation often threatened to evolve into a major issue in bilateral relations, as many among this disputed refugee population pursued a privileged relationship with the centers of power in Belgrade and Skopje by promoting their exodus from Greece as a central element of the new national Macedonian narrative. In this context, the present paper will attempt to explore the relationship between refugees, historians and Slavomacedonian Diaspora organizations in Australia, Canada and elsewhere, as well as the way they interacted and influenced public discourse in Yugoslav Macedonia before independence (1991).

Makedonas Akritas

History and Anthropology

Vasiliki Neofotistos

Daniel M. Knight

Everyday Life in the Balkans gathers the work of leading scholars across disciplines to provide a broad overview of the countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Turkey. This region has long been characterized as a place of instability and political turmoil, from World War I, through the Yugoslav Wars, and even today as debate continues over issues such as the influx of refugees or the expansion of the European Union. However, the work gathered here moves beyond the images of war and post-socialist stagnation which dominate Western media coverage of the region to instead focus on the lived experiences of the people in these countries. Contributors consider a wide range of issues including family dynamics, gay rights, war memory, religion, cinema, fashion, and politics. Using clear language and engaging examples, Everyday Life in the Balkans provides the background context necessary for an enlightened conversation about the policies, economics, and culture of the region.

Political Preferences 2018, vol. 19

Zuzanna Sielska

In the article I tried to select the most important issues and events related to the Albanian minority question in Macedonia. In the very beginning I explain the origin of the name Macedonia, the location of Macedonia and roughly summarize its way to independence in the 90's. Then I elucidate where the Albanian minority in Macedonia came from and why the conflict in Tetovo broke out. At the and I try to chronologically describe the events from 2001 that had impact on today's political situation in the state with special regard to the political crisis that lasted from 2014 to the implementation of the law guaranteeing Albanian as the second official language in Macedonia.

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Nationalism Essay for Students and Children

400 words essay on nationalism.

First of all, Nationalism is the concept of loyalty towards a nation. In Nationalism, this sentiment of loyalty must be present in every citizen. This ideology certainly has been present in humanity since time immemorial. Above all, it’s a concept that unites the people of a nation. It is also characterized by love for one’s nation. Nationalism is probably the most important factor in international politics.

Why Nationalism Is Important?

Nationalism happens because of common factors. The people of a nation share these common factors. These common factors are common language, history , culture, traditions, mentality, and territory. Thus a sense of belonging would certainly come in people. It would inevitably happen, whether you like it or not. Therefore, a feeling of unity and love would happen among national citizens. In this way, Nationalism gives strength to the people of the nation.

Nationalism has an inverse relationship with crime. It seems like crime rates are significantly lower in countries with strong Nationalism. This happens because Nationalism puts feelings of love towards fellow countrymen. Therefore, many people avoid committing a crime against their own countrymen. Similarly, corruption is also low in such countries. Individuals in whose heart is Nationalism, avoid corruption . This is because they feel guilty to harm their country.

Nationalism certainly increases the resolve of a nation to defend itself. There probably is a huge support for strengthening the military among nationalistic people. A strong military is certainly the best way of defending against foreign enemies. Countries with low Nationalism, probably don’t invest heavily in the military. This is because people with low Nationalism don’t favor strong militaries . Hence, these countries which don’t take Nationalism seriously are vulnerable.

Nationalism encourages environmental protection as well. People with high national pride would feel ashamed to pollute their nation. Therefore, such people would intentionally work for environment protection even without rules. In contrast, an individual with low Nationalism would throw garbage carelessly.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Contemporary Nationalism

Nationalism took an ugly turn in the 20th century with the emergence of Fascism and Nazism. However, that was a negative side of Nationalism. Since then, many nations gave up the idea of aggressive Nationalism. This certainly did not mean that Nationalism in contemporary times got weak. People saw strong Nationalism in the United States and former USSR. There was a merger of Nationalism with economic ideologies like Capitalism and Socialism.

In the 21st century, there has been no shortage of Nationalism. The popular election of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin is proof. Both these leaders strongly propagate Nationalism. Similarly, the election victory of other nationalistic leaders is more evidence.

Nationalism is a strong force in the world that is here to say. Nationalism has a negative side. However, this negative side certainly cannot undermine the significance of Nationalism. Without Nationalism, there would have been no advancement of Human Civilization.

500 Words Essay on Nationalism

Nationalism is an ideology which shows an individual’s love & devotion towards his nation.  It is actually people’s feelings for their nation as superior to all other nations. The concept of nationalism in India developed at the time of the Independence movement. This was the phase when people from all the areas/caste/religion etc collectively fought against British Raj for independence. Hence nationalism can be called as collective devotion of all the nationals towards their country.

Introduction of Nationalism in India:

The first world war (1919) had far-reaching consequences on the entire world. After the first world war, some major movements broke out in India like Satyagrah & Non-co-operation movement. This has sown the seeds of nationalism in Indians.  This era developed new social groups along with new modes of struggle. The major events like Jalianwala Bagh massacre & Khilafat movement had a strong impact on the people of India.

Thus, their collective struggle against colonialism brought them together and they have collectively developed a strong feeling of responsibility, accountability, love, and devotion for their country. This collective feeling of the Indian people was the start of the development of Nationalism.  Foundation of Indian National Congress in 1885 was the first organized expression of nationalism in India.

Basis of Rising of Nationalism in India

There could be several basis of rising of nationalism in India:

• The Britishers came to India as traders but slowly became rulers and started neglecting the interests of the Indians. This led to the feeling of oneness amongst Indians and hence slowly led to nationalism.
• India developed as a unified country in the 19 th & 20 th century due to well-structured governance system of Britishers. This has led to interlinking of the economic life of people, and hence nationalism.
• The spread of western education, especially the English language amongst educated Indians have helped the knowledgeable population of different linguistic origin to interact on a common platform and hence share their nationalist opinions.
• The researches by Indian and European scholars led to the rediscovery of the Indian past. The Indian scholars like Swami Vivekanand & European scholars like Max Mueller had done historical researched & had glorified India’s past in such a manner that Indian peoples developed a strong sense of nationalism & patriotism.
• The emergence of the press in the 19 th century has helped in the mobilization of people’s opinion thereby giving them a common platform to interact for independence motion and also to promote nationalism.
• Various reforms and social movements had helped Indian society to remove the social evils which were withholding the societal development and hence led to rejoining of society.
• The development of well-led railway network in India was a major boost in the transportation sector. Hence making it easy for the Indian population to connect with each other.
• The international events like the French revolution, Unification of Italy & Germany, etc.have  awakened the feelings of national consciousness amongst Indian people.

Though a lot of factors had led to rising of nationalism in India, the major role was played by First world war, Rowlatt act and Jaliawala bagh massacre. These major incidences have had a deep-down impact on the mind of Indians. These motivated them to fight against Britishers with a  strong feeling of Nationalism.  This feeling of nationalism was the main driving force for the independence struggle in India.

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Nationalism rightly understood means that no nation is an island, and that in the long run the wellbeing of one’s nation cannot be decoupled from the fate of others.

Editor’s Note: This is the first essay in a multi-author series on “Our Nationalist Moment.” Coming later this week: Aaron Sibarium.

B y the end of World War Two, nationalism had been thoroughly discredited. Critics charged that national self-interest had prevented democratic governments from cooperating to end the Great Depression, and that nationalist passions had led not just to war, but also to some of the worst crimes groups of human beings had ever perpetrated on others. The construction of international institutions and norms—in economics, politics, and human rights—as antidotes to nationalist excesses dominated Western diplomacy for decades after 1945, and the global struggle between liberal democracy and communism muted the expression of nationalist sentiments on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The peace and economic growth that characterized this period built public support for this strategy.

As decades passed and new generations emerged, memories of the Great Depression and World War Two lost their hold on the Western imagination. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the postwar era began giving way to new forces. The European Union, its boosters convinced that their enlightened post-national project represented the future of politics for mankind, sought to move from economic integration to political integration. But public opposition swelled in many member-states. The “captive nations” of eastern and central Europe reemerged as independent actors, and long-submerged nationalist feelings resurfaced. But the feelings were not limited to the east: Growing regional inequalities within countries drove a wedge between left-behind populations and the international elites many citizens held responsible for their plight. The Great Recession of 2008 undermined public confidence in expert managers of the economy, and in the internationalist outlook that had long dominated their thinking. In Europe, concerns over immigration grew as people from lower-wage countries in the EU moved freely to wealthy member-states. These concerns exploded in 2015 after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to admit more than 1 million refugees from Syria and other countries wracked by conflict and economic stagnation.

All these trends, and others, were at work in the United States. The consequences of China’s entry into the WTO, especially for U.S. manufacturing, stoked concerns about international trade. Five decades of robust immigration transformed America’s demography, a shift celebrated by some but deplored by others. In the wake of the Great Recession and the Iraq war, the costs of America’s global leadership became increasingly controversial, and the belief that other nations were taking advantage of the United States intensified. Postwar internationalism became a new front in the decades-old culture war. In retrospect, it was only a matter of time until someone mounted a frontal challenge to the consensus of elites in both major political parties. When it did, “America First” hit the established order with the force and subtlety of a wrecking-ball.

The growth of nationalism as a political phenomenon encouraged the emergence of nationalist theoreticians and ideologues. In the United States, a July 2019 conference on “National Conservatism” brought together thinkers who argued—in direct opposition to the leaders of the postwar era—that nationalism offers a more secure and morally preferable basis for both domestic and international policy. Similar convenings have occurred in Europe. Critics of the new nationalism have been quick to weigh in. 

As the battle has been joined, the ratio of heat to light has been high. And yet so are the stakes. Our democratic future depends on whether publics come to see nationalism as the solution, the problem, or something in-between. As a contribution to clarifying the debate, I offer twelve theses on nationalism.

Thesis One: Nationalism and patriotism are not the same. Patriotism is love of country—as George Orwell puts it, “devotion to a particular place and way of life.” Nationalism means giving pride of place, culturally and politically, to a distinctive ensemble of individuals—the nation.

Thesis Two: A nation is a community, united by sentiments of loyalty and mutual concern, that shares a cultural heritage and belief in a common destiny. Some nations additionally invoke common descent, which in nearly all cases is mythical, as it was when John Jay posited it for the nascent United States in Federalist 2. As political theorist Bernard Yack observes in Nationalism and the Moral Psychology of Community , not all nationalist claims are based on ethnicity. Ethno-nations are distinct, he observes, in that they make descent from previous members “a necessary, rather than merely sufficient, condition of membership.”

Thesis Three: An individual need not be born into a cultural heritage to (come to) share it. Entrants into the national community commit themselves not only to learn their nation’s history and customs but also to take on their benefits and burdens as their own, as Ruth did when she pledged to Naomi that “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

Thesis Four: Nationalism and patriotism can yield conflicting imperatives. Many Zionists felt patriotic connections to the states in which they lived, even as they labored to create a nation-state of their own. Although many of today’s Kurds in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey harbor patriotic sentiments, their primary loyalty is to the Kurdish nation, and their ultimate aim is national self-determination in their own state.

Thesis Five: Nationalism poses a challenge to the modern state system. The familiar term “nation-state” implicitly assumes that the geographical locations of distinct nations coincide with state boundaries. Occasionally this is true (Japan comes close), but mostly it isn’t. Nations can be spread across multiple states (as the Kurds are), and states can contain multiple nations (as Spain does). What some regard as the ideal arrangement—a sovereign state for each nation and only this nation—is still exceedingly rare despite the convulsions of the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, and still could not be realized without further massive, bloody disruptions of existing arrangements. Hitler’s determination to unify all ethno-cultural Germans into a single nation would have been a disaster, even if he had harbored no further ambitions. Today’s Hungarians have grounds for objecting to the Treaty of Trianon, which left millions of their co-nationals outside the borders of their shrunken state. Nevertheless, any effort to reunite them under a single flag would mean war in the heart of Europe. 

Today’s state system includes international organizations, which many nationalists oppose as abrogating their states’ sovereignty. This stance rests on a failure to distinguish between revocable agreements, which are compatible with maintaining sovereignty, and irrevocable agreements, which are not. In leaving the European Union, Britain is exercising its sovereign rights, which it did not surrender when it entered the EU. By contrast, the states that banded together into the United States of America agreed to replace their several sovereignties into a single sovereign power, with no legal right under the Constitution to reverse this decision. When the southern states tried to secede, a civil war ensued, and its outcome ratified the permanent nature of the Union.  

Thesis Six: It is possible to be a nationalist without believing that every nation has a right to political independence, but it isn’t easy. The U.S. Declaration of Independence speaks of “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.” Similarly, Israel’s Declaration of Independence invokes the “self-evident right of the Jewish people to be a nation, as all other nations, in its own sovereign state.” 

There are often practical reasons to deny some nations political self-determination (see Thesis Five). But doing so in principle rests on the belief that some nations are superior to others and deserve to rule over them. The claimed superiority can be cultural, hence mutable and temporary, or ethno-racial, essentialist, and immutable. The former often includes the responsibility of dominant nations to prepare subordinated nations for independence, as John Stuart Mill’s defense of tutelary colonialism did. The latter implies that subordinate nations are at best means to the well-being of dominant nations; at worst, lesser forms of humanity who exist at the sufferance of superior nations. 

There is no logical connection between the undeniable premise that each nation is distinctive and the conclusion that mine is better than yours. But the psychology of pride in one’s nation can lead even decent, well-meaning people from the former to the latter.  

Some contemporary defenders of nationalism claim that it is inherently opposed to imperialism. Nation-states want only to be left alone, they say, to govern themselves in accordance with their own traditions. As Rebecca West once put it, there is not “the smallest reason for confounding nationalism, which is the desire of a people to be itself, with imperialism, which is the desire of a people to prevent other peoples from being themselves.” 

She would be right if all nationalism were inwardly focused and guided by the maxim of live and let live. But the history of the 20 th century shows that some forms of nationalism are compatible with imperialism and worse. It depends on what a nation thinks that “being itself” entails. The proposition that nationalism and imperialism always stand opposed rests not on historical evidence, but rather on a definition of nationalism at odds with its real-world manifestations.

Thesis Seven: It is possible to be a nationalist without believing that the interests of one’s nation always trump competing considerations. Writing in the shadow of World War Two, George Orwell declared that nationalism was “the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.” Although this is an unmatched description of Nazism, it conflates an extreme instance of nationalism with the totality. 

In fact, nationalism is compatible with a wide range of ideologies and political programs. It motivated not only Nazi Germany but also Britain’s heroic resistance to fascism. (Churchill’s wartime speeches rallied his countrymen with stirring invocations of British nationalism against its foe.) And because the nation need not be understood as the supreme good, “liberal nationalism” is not an oxymoron.

Giving priority to the interests of one’s nation does not mean ignoring the interests of others, any more than caring most about one’s own children implies indifference to the fate of others’ children. Nations are sometimes called upon to risk their blood and treasure to respond to or prevent harm in other nations. At some point, the imbalance between modest costs to one’s nation and grievous damage to others should compel action. Even though some Americans would have risked their lives to prevent the Rwandan genocide, America’s failure to intervene was a mistake, a proposition that nationalists can accept without contradicting their beliefs.  

Thesis Eight: It is a mistake to finger nationalism as the principal source of oppression and aggression in modern politics. As we have seen repeatedly, creedal and religion-based states and movements can be just as brutal, and they can pose, in their own way, equally fundamental challenges to the state system. The Reformation triggered a full century of astonishingly bloody strife. More recently, for those who took class identity to be more fundamental than civic identity, “socialist internationalism” became the organizing principle of politics, and similarly if membership in the Muslim umma is thought to erase the significance of state boundaries. Those outside the favored class or creed became enemies with whom no permanent peace is possible, and the consequences are as negative for decent politics as any of the evils perpetrated in the name of nationalism.

Thesis Nine: As a key source of social solidarity, nationalism can support higher-order political goods such as democracy and the welfare state. Democracy rests on mutual trust, without which the peaceful transfer of power comes to be regarded as risky. The welfare state rests on sympathy and concern for others who are vulnerable, whether or not the more fortunate members of the community see themselves as equally vulnerable. Shared nationality promotes these sentiments, while in the short-to-medium term (at least), increasing national diversity within states weakens them. 

This helps explain why many nationalists who are not driven by racial or ethnic bias nonetheless are ambivalent about high numbers of immigrants and refugees. It also points to the most important domestic challenge contemporary nationalists face—reconciling their attachment to their co-nationals with fair treatment for other groups with whom they share a common civic space. 

Thesis Ten: Although we typically think of nations as driving the creation of nation-states, the reverse is also possible. A generation ago, Eugen Weber showed how, over the decades before World War One, the French state deployed a program of linguistic, cultural, and educational unification to turn “peasants into Frenchmen.” During the past half-century, post-colonial governments have sought, with varying degrees of success, to weaken tribal and sectarian ties in favor of overarching national attachments. 

Many historians have discerned similar processes at work in the United States. Prior to the Civil War, lexicographers such as Noah Webster crystallized a non-regional American English, distinct from British English, while historians such as George Bancroft told the story of America’s creation and growth as a narrative that all could share. After the Civil War, as flows of immigrants from Central and Southern Europe accelerated, programs of civic education proliferated—with the aim, one might say, of turning peasants into Americans. Because it was no longer possible to say, as John Jay did in 1787, that Americans were “descended from the same ancestors,” let alone “professing the same religion,” it became all the more important to create a common cultural heritage into which millions of new immigrants could be initiated. The process may have been rough and ready, even coercive, but in the main it succeeded. And today, after a half century of cultural strife and large flows of immigrants from an unprecedented diversity of countries, it may be necessary to recommit ourselves to this task, albeit in less favorable circumstances.

Thesis Eleven: Although scholars distinguish between creedal nationalism and ethnic or cultural nationalism as ideal types, there are no examples of purely creedal nations. In the United States, abstract principles and concrete identities have been braided together since the Founding. Our greatest President, who famously described the United States as a nation dedicated to a proposition, also invoked (unsuccessfully) the “mystic chords of memory” and our “bonds of affection” as antidotes for civil strife and advocated transmuting our Constitution and laws into objects of reverence—a “political religion.”

Thesis Twelve: Although nationalism is a distinctively modern ideology, national identity has pervaded much of human history and is unlikely to disappear as a prominent feature of politics. As Bernard Yack has persuasively argued, nationalism is unthinkable without the emergence of the principle of popular sovereignty as the source of legitimate political power. Because this theory characterizes the “people” who constitute the sovereign in abstract terms, it does not answer the key practical question: Who or what is the people?

The U.S. Declaration of Independence exemplifies this hiatus. Before we reach its much-quoted second paragraph on the rights of individuals, we encounter the assertion that Americans constitute “one people” asserting its right to “dissolve the political bands that have connected them with another.” Americans are one people, the British another. The governing class of Great Britain had a different view: Americans were subjects of the king, just as residents of the British Isles were, distinguished from them only by location. Even to assert their Lockean right of revolution, of which George III was no great fan, Americans had to make the case that they were a separate and distinct people. It turns out that in the case of the United States and many that followed, national identity offered the most plausible way to meet this challenge, which is why John Jay resorted to it. 19 th century nationalists had richer intellectual resources on which to draw, including Herder’s account of distinct cultures, but their strategy was much the same.

In short, national identity is transmuted into nationalism through its encounter with the doctrine of popular sovereignty. When the people are understood as the nation, popular sovereignty becomes national sovereignty. 

Because pre-modern politics lacked the theory of popular sovereignty, it could not develop a doctrine of nationalism. Nonetheless, national identity has pervaded human history, for the simple reason that we are finite beings shaped by unchosen contingencies. Although we are social, cultural, and political beings, we are born helpless and unformed. We are formed first by the ministration of parents and kin or their equivalents, then by the experiences of neighborhood and local community, and eventually by the wider circle of those with whom we share a cultural heritage. To be sure, the encounter with those whose formative influences were different will not leave us untouched. No matter how much our horizons are broadened, we never set aside our origin. We may leave home, but home never quite leaves us, a reality reflected in our language. “Mother tongue,” “fatherland”—the age-old metaphor of our place of origin as nurturing, shaping parent will never lose its power.

N ational identity is an aspect of human experience that no measure of education should seek to expunge—nor could it if it tried. But as we have seen, the modern political expression of national identity is multi-valent. Nationalism can be a force for great evil or great good. It can motivate collective nobility and collective brutality. It can bring us together and drive us apart.

In the face of these realities, the way forward is clear, at least in principle. Acknowledging the permanence of nationalism and its capacity for good, we must do our best to mitigate its negative effects. Nationalism need not mean that a country’s cultural majority oppresses others with whom it shares a state; putting one’s country first need not mean ignoring the interests and concerns of others. On the contrary: To adapt a Tocquevillian locution, nationalism rightly understood means that no nation is an island, that in the long run the wellbeing of one’s nation cannot be decoupled from the fate of others. The American leaders who rebuilt Europe understood that theirs was not an act of charity but rather a means to the long-time best interest of their country. The leaders of the civil rights movement knew that they promoted not only the cause of justice, but also the strength of their country, at home and abroad.  

The details may have changed since the days of George Marshall and Martin Luther King, Jr., but the essentials remain the same.

• Undergraduate Honors Thesis

Partitioning India: Indian Muslim Nationalism and the Origin of the Muslim State (1800-1947) Public Deposited

• This thesis explores the partition of British India into India and Pakistan. While focusing on the politics behind the partition, it also looks at the development of Indian nationalisms under British rule, as Indians began to form their own political movements and to demand independence. To cover the full scope of this cataclysmic event, this thesis looks at the conditions that led to the split starting in the nineteenth century through the partition itself in the first half of the twentieth century. Topics such as British imperialism, the communal problem, relations between the Muslim and Hindu communities in India, and the politics behind the partition of India are highlighted in this project. By covering this breadth of topics as well as time, this thesis narrates the waves of division and unity between the two communities, in connection with the evolution of British imperialism, as India moved towards independence. At this time in India, religion and politics were very much intertwined, so by discussing the development of Indian nationalism in response to British imperialism, this paper looks to separate the two by providing the scope and context necessary to see the politicization of religion in the subcontinent, and argue that in the end the partition was motivated by politics rather than religion. Through the use of a variety of speeches and letters and other primary sources, as well as an assortment of work written by other scholars, this thesis demonstrates both the complexity of the issue and the many factors and events that influenced the final shape of Indian independence. By doing so, this thesis looks to contribute to the debate over the factors most significant to the partition of India.
• Buur, Sophie
• Chester, Dr. Lucy
• Brown, Dr. David
• Gerber, Dr. Matthew
• University of Colorado Boulder
• British Imperialism
• Indian Muslim Nationalism
• Indian Partition
• the Muslim League
• Muhammad Ali Jinnah
• In Copyright
• English [eng]

Relationships

• Arts and Sciences Honors Program

Charlie Kirk once pushed a 'secular worldview.' Now he's fighting to make America Christian again.

Six years ago, Charlie Kirk, a right-wing provocateur who founded the conservative activist group Turning Point USA, strongly criticized the evangelical political movement he now helps lead.

Kirk, known then primarily for his work mobilizing college-age Republicans, described Jesus as welcoming and tolerant and denounced Christians’ “sanctimonious approach” to homosexuality and other issues. He argued politics should be advanced through a “secular worldview” and slammed attempts by the evangelical right, beginning in the 1970s, to “impose” their version of morality “through government policy.”

“We do have a separation of church and state,” Kirk told the conservative commentator Dave Rubin in 2018 , “and we should support that.”

Kirk, now 30, has since reversed his position. It’s a transformation that, according to political and religious scholars, embodies and reinforces a growing embrace of Christian nationalist thinking within the Republican Party in the era of Donald Trump.

“There is no separation of church and state,” Kirk said on his podcast in 2022. “It’s a fabrication. It’s a fiction. It’s not in the Constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists .”

Today, Kirk and Turning Point are dominant forces in the Republican Party and MAGA movement, working directly with the Trump campaign on voter outreach while reaching millions of listeners through Kirk’s daily radio show and podcast. Along the way, Kirk has become one of the nation’s most prominent voices calling on Christians to view conservative political activism as central to Jesus’ calling for their lives.

Kirk routinely rails against what he calls the “ LGBTQ agenda ,” which he claims is harming children. He has invoked the Seven Mountains Mandate, a philosophy increasingly popular among Trump supporters that calls on conservative Christians to claim positions of power in seven key mountains of society, including government, media, business and education. And he promotes Trump as crucial to restoring Christian morality in America.

“I worship a God that defeats evil,” Kirk said last week while introducing the former president at a rally hosted by Turning Point and the Trump campaign at an Arizona megachurch. “And we worship a God that wins in the end.”

By appealing to conservative Christians’ fears of shifting cultural norms around LGBTQ acceptance, and by portraying the election as part of a spiritual struggle, Kirk and Turning Point are banking that they can drive evangelical turnout to secure Trump victories in key swing states. But extremism experts warn that this framing — the idea Trump is on a mission from God to restore Christian righteousness in America — could lead followers to take radical action if he doesn’t prevail in November.

“There’s this growing sense that American politics are so broken,” said Paul Matzko, a historian of American conservatism, “that there’s a decreasing willingness to imagine the other side being allowed to exercise power without doing it in apocalyptic terms, which fuels things like the insurrection on Jan. 6.”

Kirk, whose organization bused supporters to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, to rally Congress to reject the presidential election outcome, declined to be interviewed. Andrew Kolvet, a Turning Point USA spokesperson, said Kirk has never advocated for violence.

“Charlie wants to save America with words, persuasion, courage and common sense,” Kolvet said. “The left is desperate to conjure up some Christian boogeyman that simply doesn’t exist. We’re telling churches: Either get involved and have a say in the direction of your country or you’ll leave a void that someone else who doesn’t share your values will fill.”

Kirk grew up attending church in the Chicago suburbs and identified as an evangelical when he founded Turning Point at the age of 18 in 2012 to promote the libertarian values of “free markets and limited government.” Kirk referred to the Bible in his 2016 manifesto , “Time for a Turning Point,” but argued publicly that — much like a plumber or an electrician — it was not his job as a political activist to proselytize his faith.

“You don’t want to be too offsetting and off-putting,” he said in 2018.

Kolvet said Kirk started to become more serious about his faith six years ago, after traveling to Israel to witness the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem during the Trump administration. But Kirk’s views on the role of religion in politics really began to shift in 2020 , Kolvet said, after churches were forced to close to slow the spread of Covid, which Kirk and others depicted as an attempt by a tyrannical government to control Christians.

A year earlier, Kirk says he’d begun meeting with California megachurch pastor Rob McCoy , who helped convince him that America was a Christian nation whose founding documents were derived from the Bible. (Although some Founding Fathers wrote of the importance of religion in maintaining a virtuous society, historians dispute the notion that America was established as an explicitly Christian nation.)

In 2021, Kirk and McCoy created TPUSA Faith, a division of Turning Point USA, to mobilize conservative Christians to advance their vision.

“Charlie was just like, ‘Listen, we’re going to rally the churches and tell them that it’s OK to have political opinions about transgender surgeries for minors, about keeping your churches open during Covid and registering voters,’” Kolvet said.

Kirk’s political and spiritual metamorphosis was followed by a surge in donations and media attention that helped turn him into a leading GOP power broker — credited in February with helping push out Ronna McDaniel as Republican National Committee chairwoman, which further tightened Trump’s grip on the party.

Matzko, a recent fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said Kirk has aligned himself with a once-fringe strand of apocalyptic political theology popularized by a network of Pentecostal and charismatic Christian influencers in recent decades. With the Seven Mountains Mandate as a key organizing principle, ambassadors of this movement — sometimes referred to as the New Apostolic Reformation — present politics as a spiritual clash between good and evil and Trump as a generational leader ordained by God to save America from the forces of darkness.

“He’s pitching his message to people who do believe that we’re in the end-times, and that if we don’t seize the Seven Mountains of cultural influence, then the other side, the satanic side, will,” Matzko said. “That sense of threat, that sense of anxiety, it just drips from his comments.”

In 2021, soon after launching TPUSA Faith, Kirk told a church congregation in Washington state that it was time for Christians “to rise and stand.” He then quoted a Bible passage from the book of Luke often cited by Seven Mountains adherents to make the case that Christians are meant to rule over society until Jesus returns: “The Bible says very clearly,” Kirk said, “to ‘Occupy until I come.’”

After this article was published, Turning Point issued a statement to NBC News distancing Kirk from the worldview.

“Charlie probably couldn’t tell you what the seven mountains are,” Kolvet said. “Charlie speaks at churches that are focused on those ideas, and others that wouldn’t even know what you are talking about. Charlie loves the Lord and scripture, and he wants to play a small role in saving America.”

Nevertheless, Kirk has closely aligned himself with leading figures promoting the Seven Mountains worldview, including Lance Wallnau, a self-identified prophet who coined and popularized the concept two decades ago. Kirk has appeared on “ FlashPoint ,” a national TV program that’s won viewers with a blend of pro-Trump political commentary and prophetic messages about God’s divine plans for America. And he has partnered with Sean Feucht, a Christian musician who’s been hosting political worship rallies at all 50 state Capitols to promote the idea of a Christian America.

“We want God writing the laws of the land,” Feucht said at a TPUSA Faith-sponsored event outside the Wisconsin statehouse last year. “Guilty as charged.”

This mindset, which can be traced to the Moral Majority movement of the 1970s and ’80s that Kirk once condemned , has helped fuel recent GOP initiatives chipping away at church-state separation. That includes the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision imperiling women’s access to in vitro fertilization, and a wave of state bills to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, place religious chaplains in public schools and require students to learn from the Bible. Trump has also sought to court pastors and voters who believe America was meant for Christian rule, promising if elected to restore evangelical power in government and to begin screening immigrants based on their faith and rejecting any who “don’t like our religion.”

With more than 30 full-time staff members, according to the group’s website, TPUSA Faith has worked to create a nationwide network of churches to wage political and spiritual warfare against Democrats by mobilizing pastors and registering Christian conservative voters to restore “traditional biblical values in our nation.” 

Kirk often paints political opponents as evil. The “woke” left, he told an estimated 1,100 church leaders gathered last year for the TPUSA Faith Pastors’ Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, has tried to silence conservative Christians.

“They want a passive church,” Kirk warned , before alluding to the passivity of churches in Nazi Germany. “They want an obedient church.”

Matthew Boedy, a rhetoric professor at the University of North Georgia and a Turning Point USA critic who’s writing a book about Kirk’s adoption of the Seven Mountains Mandate, said he views Kirk’s political and religious transformation as more of a symptom, rather than a cause, of the Republican Party’s embrace of these ideas.

“What Charlie’s doing is not new,” Boedy said. “He’s repeating phrases and lines and themes that have been around for a long time, but he’s telling it to groups of people that either have not heard it before or are not as familiar with it, and he’s translating it into more populistic language that a new generation can understand.”

Kirk’s message is resonating with voters who believe Christian values are under attack and that Trump will protect them.

Dana Morrison-Miller, 62, a two-time Trump voter from Phoenix, was in the audience at the Trump rally hosted by Kirk and Turning Point last week in Arizona. She told NBC News she believes unsubstantiated claims the 2020 election was stolen. Among her sources of information, Morrison-Miller said, are Kirk’s podcast and Elijah Streams , an online program where self-identified prophets and apostles preach about the Seven Mountains and the spiritual struggle to put Trump back in the White House.

Asked if she has confidence in the 2024 vote, Morrison-Miller said: “The only confidence I have is in God and then all of these people that are rising up and just saying enough.”

“It’s in God’s hands,” she added, “and America, if we will humble ourselves and pray and seek God’s face and turn from our selfish, wicked ways, I believe God will hear and heal this land.” 

Miles Smith IV, a history professor at the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan, described the undercurrent of Kirk’s effort as an attempt to reach “folk Christians” — those who may not be deeply religious, but identify as Christian culturally and feel under attack in a secular society. These voters, Smith said, are more motivated by right-wing populism’s nationalist and anti-elitist framing than strict adherence to religious doctrine.

“I think that maybe someone like Charlie Kirk has kind of decided that Christianity is the best way” to advance a populist agenda, Smith said. “I don’t think that people wake up and say, ‘Oh, well, [I’m] Christian now, that’s why I’m going to be populist.’ I think they are populist, and maybe they use Christianity as a buttress for it.”

Unlike Trump, however, who has promised to empower evangelicals but isn’t particularly steeped in their culture — having famously mispronounced a book of the Bible as “ Two Corinthians ” — Matzko said Kirk speaks the language. When Kirk talks about the need for Christians to view the presidential election as part of a spiritual struggle to save “Western civilization,” he often cites scripture to support his argument.

“He really understands these things,” Matzko said. “His rhetoric reminds me of someone who buys it.”

In a February interview with Wallnau, the Seven Mountains evangelist, Kirk announced what he called “Project 81,” an initiative to rally church leaders in swing states to push evangelical support for Trump above 81% — the key, Kirk said, to GOP victory in November.

Speaking at an Arizona megachurch in March, Kirk primed his followers for the possibility their efforts could fall short. If that happens, Kirk told them they needed to be ready to continue the fight, which he described later in his remarks as “a spiritual war first and foremost.”

“There are demons that are at work,” Kirk said. “The mantra for all of us should be … ‘Lord use me. How can you use me for your purpose to advance the kingdom of God here on Earth.’ And so it’s a full-court press now until November.”

During his conversation with Rubin back in 2018, Kirk warned that the approach to politics and religion he now embraces increased the odds of Republican defeat.

Regular voters, Kirk said, “don’t want to have to live the way some Christian in Alabama” wants them to live.

“When we start to say we should support this law because it’s the Christian thing to do,” he said, “that has turned people off for the last 30 years.”

Mike Hixenbaugh is a senior investigative reporter for NBC News, based in Maryland, and author of "They Came for the Schools." 

Allan Smith is a political reporter for NBC News.

“War on white America”: Influential Texas group hosting pro-Christian nationalism conference

True Texas Project has for years worked with Attorney General Ken Paxton, Sen. Ted Cruz and other prominent Republicans.

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An influential grassroots group with close ties to Texas Republican lawmakers is hosting a conference next month that encourages its attendees to embrace Christian nationalism and resist a Democratic campaign “to rid the earth of the white race.”

Billed as the 15th anniversary celebration for True Texas Project, a far-right activist group that got its start as a North Texas tea party organization, the agenda claims there is a “war on white America,” and elevates theories that white Americans are being intentionally replaced through immigration — a common belief among far-right extremists, including many mass shooters.

“It’s absolutely vital we remember that when they say ‘white supremacy’ or ‘white nationalism’ or whatever the most recent scare phrase is, they literally just mean your heritage and historical way of life,” reads the description for a session on “Multiculturalism & The War on White America.” “It’s a culture war, simple as that. Stop apologizing. Stop backing down. Start fighting back.”

The agenda for the event claims that “forced multiculturalism” and immigration are part of a global plot that has undermined American Christianity, and that xenophobia is “an imaginary social pathology” and term that has been used to discourage “love of one’s own people.” It also features a session that seeks to downplay the antisemitism and racism at the core of Great Replacement Theory, a once-fringe claim that there is an intentional, often Jewish-driven , effort to destroy white people through immigration, interracial marriage or the LGBTQ+ community.

The two-day event includes a birthday party for the organization complete with cake, a toast, music and a “meet-n-greet with some of our new, allied State Reps and elected officials.” It does not list which officials are scheduled to attend. A ticketing site for the event said it is being held at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, though the Botanic Garden denied that on Tuesday, adding that it "rejects all forms of hate speech, discrimination, or bigotry."

Speakers include retired U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, two prominent Christian nationalist authors, and Paul Gottfried, a far-right writer who has for years collaborated with white supremacists and mentored neo-Nazis such as Richard Spencer . Don Huffines, a former state senator and prominent GOP donor, is also briefly mentioned on the lineup, but said Tuesday that he was unaware who else was involved until after the publication of this story, and condemned the event and antisemitism.

"This group booked me several months ago to speak at their birthday party about my usual topics (property taxes, border security, and education reform)," Huffines told The Texas Tribune through a spokesperson. "I will no longer have anything to do with this event. This is a dumb and inaccurate way to promote the Republican agenda. My mission is to keep Texas red and advance liberty and prosperity for all Texans. I was never given a lineup of speakers or topics, and will certainly do a better job of vetting speaking engagements."

Experts on terrorism and extremism said the lineup is particularly concerning because it brings together more mainstream conservative speakers with fringe figures who have close links to neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists.

“These are the type of people that I’m most concerned about from an extremism standpoint,” said Elizabeth Neumann, who served as a senior Department of Homeland Security official for three years under former President Donald Trump. “A number of them have been making arguments — some of them supposedly Biblical — that violence is okay, and that violence is justified by Scripture for the purposes of establishing a Christian nation.”

True Texas Project has for years been a key part of a powerful political network that two West Texas oil tycoons, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks , have used to push the state GOP and Legislature to adopt their hardline opposition to immigration, LGBTQ+ rights and public education. Dunn and Wilks are by far the biggest donors to the Republican Party of Texas, and have used their influence to purge the party of more moderate lawmakers and survive a high-profile scandal last year over racists and antisemites employed by groups they fund.

Formerly known as the NE Tarrant Tea Party, True Texas Project was integral to the rise of the state’s ultraconservative movement throughout the 2010s, but rebranded after its founder, Julie McCarty, wrote on social media that she sympathized with the gunman who murdered 23 Hispanic people at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 — one of many mass shooters who have been motivated by a belief in Great Replacement Theory.

“I don’t condone the actions, but I certainly understand where they came from,” she wrote.

“You’re not going to demographically replace a once proud, strong people without getting blow-back," responded her husband, Fred McCarty, who is also a True Texas Project leader.

Despite the McCartys’ well-publicized comments, True Texas Project continues to work with prominent elected officials, including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Attorney General Ken Paxton, now-former Texas GOP chair Matt Rinaldi and U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Irving. Last week, the group also released a 90-minute podcast with a group of current and presumptive state lawmakers who are primarily funded by Dunn and Wilks, including Rep. Nate Schatzline, R-Fort Worth, and Mitch Little and Shelley Luther.

True Texas Project did not respond to a request for comment about the conference or some of the speakers' collaboration with far-right extremists. But in an email sent to supporters last week, Julie McCarty wrote that she was excited to talk about “edgy, controversial” subjects such as “white America and the Great Replacement Theory.”

“If you grew up in that wonderful America that you are now lamenting losing, what are YOU doing to curb the tide and bestow that blessing on others?” she wrote. “Much IS expected. Rise up.”

The conference was announced as Republicans continue to embrace once-fringe ideologies such as Great Replacement Theory and Christian nationalism, which claims that America’s founding was God-ordained and that its laws and institutions should therefore be dictated by their fundamentalist religious views.

Recent polling from the Public Religion Research Institute found that more than half of Republicans adhere to or sympathize with pillars of Christian nationalism, including beliefs that the U.S. should be a strictly Christian nation. Of those respondents, PRRI found, roughly half supported having an authoritarian leader who maintains Christian dominance in society.

Neumann, the former DHS official and terrorism expert, said she was disturbed by the stated goals of some of the speakers listed for next month’s conference.

“This is not the version of Christian nationalism that wants to make change through votes and prayer,” she said of the conference lineup . “This is the version of Christian nationalism that wants to do it by force. … I don't see anything on [the schedule] about a legislative solution or a political solution. Everything is, ‘America is being invaded , and now what?”

She and other extremism experts noted that the conference schedule incorporates a variety of separate but overlapping ideologies that have been pushed by the far right, but are rarely packaged together in one conference — let alone one that includes more establishment figures, and is being held by a group with direct ties to elected officials and influential donors. (True Texas Project is billing the event as “the first conference of this kind in America.”)

One of the sessions claims that there is a “war on white America” and that Democrats are trying to “rid the earth of the white race,” mirroring claims of a “white genocide” that have been cited for decades by overt neo-Nazis .

That session is followed by a discussion on immigration and questions such as: “Is the immigrant of today still arriving to tame the land and create something better, or are they just sucking off America’s teat?” The immigration session will be led by Todd Bensman, a Center for Immigration Studies fellow who was crucial to amplifying attention around Colony Ridge, the neighborhood outside of Houston that Texas lawmakers have argued is a hotbed for cartel and immigrant violence, despite pushback from local law enforcement. (The Center for Immigration Studies is designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center because of its amplification of white nationalists, though the group disputes that label).

Another session will focus entirely on Great Replacement Theory, and claim that critiques of it as racist are part of an effort by “the progressive Left” to deny that American birth rates are declining at the same time that the foreign-born population increases.

“By tying the Great Replacement Theory to white-nationalist and anti-Semetic violence, the establishment condemns any recognition of ongoing demographic transformation as racist,” the session's description reads. The theory has been cited by a litany of far-right terrorists, including the El Paso WalMart shooter; the gunman who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo, New York grocery store in 2022; the New Zealand man who killed 51 Muslims at two mosques in 2019; the man who killed 11 Jews at a Pennsylvania synagogue in 2018; and Anders Brevik, a Norwegian man who killed eight people with a car bomb in 2011 before fatally shooting 69 people at a youth camp.

In an email exchange this week, the speaker for that session, Wade Miller, pushed back against claims that Great Replacement Theory is inherently antisemitic or racist, and said that he is “pretty vocal” in his “support for Israel and the right of Jews to defend themselves from terrorists and violent hate.”

Miller, a former chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, also provided a link to a paper he recently wrote for the Center For Renewing America, a group with close ties to former President Donald Trump where Miller is vice president. In it, Miller acknowledges and opposes the use of Great Replacement Theory as a tool for far-right extremists, but argues that liberals have linked the term to racism in order to distract from their attempts to “secure millions of new voters without any ties to the American constitutional order.”

Another session features the authors of two recent pro-Christian nationalism books, Stephen Wolfe and Andrew Isker. In Wolfe’s book — which has become a staple in Christian nationalist circles — he calls for America to have a " Christian prince " and laws that punish blasphemy and false religions, and claims that God is punishing the nation because of feminism — a “gynocracy,” as he calls it, that has destroyed traditional family values. He has previously written that Black people "are reliable sources for criminality” who need more "constraint" through policing, and that interracial marriage is sinful because "groups have a collective duty to be separate and marry among themselves.”

Isker, meanwhile, has for years maintained ties to antisemites . He co-authored his book on Christian nationalism with Andrew Torba , who founded the far-right social media platform Gab and has often collaborated with white supremacists such as Nick Fuentes. (Fuentes, an avowed Adolf Hitler fan who has called for a “holy war” and “ total Aryan victory ” against Jews, was at the center of a political maelstrom in Texas last year, after The Texas Tribune reported that he was hosted by the then-leader of Dunn and Wilks’ political action committee).

“Something changed after [World War II] where the love of home, hearth, and kin began to be denigrated and replaced with globalism,” reads the description of Isker's session at next month's conference. “This exchange has occurred in the context of mass immigration and forced multiculturalism. Now, love of one’s own people is regarded as xenophobia — an imaginary social pathology.”

In True Texas Project’s upcoming event, extremism experts see the culmination of a decadeslong push by fringe figures to mainstream their views by moving away from the overt racism and extremism that were espoused by their predecessors.

“They play a very long game, and we should not dismiss these groups because they are energetic and they are persistent, and that’s what’s required to move the narrative,” said Wendy Via of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “Some of these guys used to be fringe. But right now, what used to be fringe is about to run the country.”

Few people have been more instrumental in that push than Gottfried, a former humanities professor who has written dozens of books on political history. Gottfried is credited with coining the term “Alt-Right,” which describes a movement of far-right reactionaries, white nationalists and race scientists that sought to intellectualize their fringe views. Led by Spencer, the neo-Nazi who was mentored by Gottfried, the Alt-Right was crucial in mainstreaming extreme views in right-wing circles, but flamed out after its members played key roles in 2017’s “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where tiki-torch wielding neo-Nazis and fascists marched before killing one counterprotester and maiming countless others.

Gottfried is also the founder of the H.L. Mencken Club, which holds an annual conference that has included some of the world’s most prominent extremists, including Jared Taylor , a eugenicist who claims it is unnatural for white people to live alongside non-whites; and Peter Brimelow, whose group VDARE has been crucial to spreading white nationalist writings and propaganda.

In an email to the Tribune this week, Gottfried downplayed concerns about the conference, its embrace of Great Replacement Theory and the comments by True Texas Project’s leaders in the wake of the El Paso WalMart massacre.

“I am going because I was invited to speak, as an octogenarian scholar who has published multiple books on political movements and European and American intellectual history,” he wrote. “If opposing our wide-open borders and the influx of eleven million illegals, including drug dealers and violent criminals, makes me an advocate of the Great Replacement, then I shall have to plead guilty.”

Disclosure: Southern Poverty Law Center has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here .

Just in: Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney , R-Wyoming; U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania ; and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival , Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!

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Information about the authors

Robert Downen

Democracy reporter.

[email protected]

@RobertDownen_

Juan Salinas II

Reporting fellow.

[email protected]

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