Anthony D. Smith, in one of his earlier, less debated, works – Nationalism in the 20th Century (1979) – examines phases of nationalism in the modern era, suggesting that nationalism has taken various forms before and during the 20th century. He argues that nationalism’s adaptability is at the core of its persistence, adapting to changing situations such as fascism and communism. As a result of this adaptability, nationalism still flourishes today. This article applies Smith’s theory to explore the interplay between cultural and material factors in the evolution of nationalism in Ireland. It identifies five ideological phases – revolutionary nationalist, protectionist, liberalising, neoliberal, and ecological – to which nationalism has adapted, and within which nationalism has influenced various aspects of Irish society. These phases are situated within a broader ideological and material context, analysing obliquely the Irish language (a core element of Irish nationalism), and related to changing processes of individualization.

Previous studies show how religious affiliation and activity often facilitate the integration of migrants and their descendants, strengthens their sense of belonging, and increases their acceptance in the host society. However, the characteristics of immigrants who benefit from the church’s help in the integration process remain largely unknown. This article addresses this gap in the literature and analyzes the ways in which the Neo-Protestant Church supports Romanian migrants in their integration in the US. We use primary data from an online survey conducted in September-November 2021 and semi-structured interviews conducted in 2022 with Romanian immigrants in the US. The results indicate that the church provides extensive help to people who are involved in religious organizations or associations, and to those who frequently attend religious services.

Why could politicians of religious minority backgrounds become national leaders in some countries soon after modern representative institutions were adopted, whereas in some other countries, almost all the national leaders have been from the religious majority background for decades if not centuries? I argue that the most important factor explaining the incidence of national leaders of a religious minority background or lack thereof is whether the main adversary in the constitutive conflict that established the nation-state was of the same religious sectarian background or not. Nations established in a constitutive conflict against an adversary of the same religion are much more likely to have national leaders of a religious minority background. Furthermore, political leaders of religious minority backgrounds have three “secular” paths out of their marginality, which is also determined by the combination and nature of the primary external and internal conflict of the nation. I examine these paths through the cases of Britain (liberalism), France (socialism), and Hungary and Italy (nationalism). Finally, I examine a world-historical example of pattern change, the rise of Catholic-origin national leaders in previously Protestant-led Germany, which was due to a new constitutive conflict (World War II and the Holocaust) that altered the national-religious configuration.

The securitization of Russian-speakers has been central to nation-building in Estonia and Latvia since they regained their independence in 1991. Securitization at the levels of discourse and policy varies over time as a result of historical legacies, Russia’s kin state activism, and the minority protection requirements of European institutions. This article introduces a typology that links discursive frames with policies to map securitizing trends in Estonia and Latvia after the Soviet collapse: securitizing exclusion — less accommodating policies are justified by presenting the minority as a threat to the state or core nation; securitizing inclusion — more accommodating policies are justified to “win over” the minority in order to decrease the threat; and desecuritizing inclusion — more accommodating policies are justified on grounds of fairness or appropriateness without reference to security. The utility of the typology is demonstrated by analyzing frames in the public broadcast media and recent policy developments in Estonia and Latvia immediately following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The analysis points to increasing convergence across countries in favor of securitizing exclusion. The analysis points to increasing convergence across countries in favor of securitizing exclusion. We conclude by evaluating these trends in light of minority mobilization and recent data on support for the active defense of the state among Russian-speakers and titulars.

This article examines the writings of late 19th and early 20th-century Marxist theorists and political leaders from the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires and their influence on the chief Bolshevik theorist of Soviet nationality policies, Joseph Stalin. It argues that although many early Marxist theorists held divergent views on managing nationalism, they uniformly rejected biological or romantic spiritual conceptions of the nation and instead posited that nationalism and contemporary nations are relatively new, socially constructed phenomena arising from processes linked to economic and political modernization. These perspectives align with what contemporary academia labels as “modernist” theories of nationality and this analysis therefore challenges prevailing views on the genesis of these theories, tracing them back to early Marxist thinkers rather than late 20th-century Western European theorists such as Benedict Anderson and Ernest Gellner. This modernist understanding of nations as products of material forces and processes enabled socialists to envision steering nation formation. For the Bolsheviks and some of the later international revolutionaries they inspired, this meant that just as they believed they could accelerate the transition to a socialist future through active class management, so too they believed they could control and expedite the construction of national identities through carefully designed policies.

In the former districts of Eupen and Malmedy, present-day East-Belgians, in particular academic and socio-political elites, draw their collective identity, amongst others, from the historical injustices inflicted upon them ever since the adoption of the Treaty of Versailles. The transfer of sovereignty from Germany to Belgium was then the subject of a popular consultation organised by the transitional Belgian authorities in those territories. Favouring national over popular sovereignty, those authorities de facto undermined the freedom of choice and imposed their annexation to Belgium which the League of Nations, despite criticisms, consecutively endorsed. Much has been said about this petite farce belge yet not from a legal point of view. Thus, this article sheds a different light on the historical accounts of those events which are instrumentalised to construct the contemporary collective identity of the German-speaking Community of Belgium.

European countries have been important supporters of Ukraine since the 2022 invasion by Russia. Responding to the invasion, however, was not the only challenge facing these countries in 2022. A tough domestic economic situation caused by high inflation and skyrocketing energy prices gave rise to public resentment accusing governments of favoring Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees over their own citizens. Yet, communicating governments’ policies on Ukraine efficiently and having the public on board matters because lack of public support may endanger the countries’ ability to help Ukraine in the war. Given the importance of political communication, we use the case of Czechia to explore the role of empathy in political communication between Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees. We build on existing studies which suggest that empathy in communication has the potential to decrease polarization of public opinion and that candidates using empathetic communication are viewed more positively. First, in a rhetorical analysis, we demonstrate that empathy with citizens’ concerns is not a part of the government’s defense of its refugee policy. Then, in an original survey experiment, we show that contrary to expectations, expressing empathy with citizens’ concerns does not significantly increase public support for help to refugees.

This article examines the discursive contestation of Alash movement narratives in post-1991 Kazakhstan by studying overlapping and diverse official and non-official narratives. By surveying textual content and conducting interviews with those who carry these narratives, including textbook authors, the article reveals that while both official and unofficial narratives converge on the subject of statehood for the Alash movement, the non-official narratives and textbook authors use its legacy to express dissatisfaction with post-1991 developments in Kazakhstan. This study sheds light on the differing perspectives and debates surrounding the Alash movement’s legacy in shaping post–1991 Kazakhstani society and politics.

This article demonstrates how Crimean Tatars use memories of past displacements in their narratives of contemporary emigration and coping strategies in occupied Crimea. First, I present the significance of the first annexation of Crimea in 1783 by the Russian Empire and the 1944 deportation in the collective memory of Crimean Tatars. Second, I discuss the main motives for the displacement of internally displaced persons of Crimean Tatar origin in 2014 based on interviews conducted in L’viv. Drawing from interviews and focus groups that were conducted in Crimea between 2017 and 2019, I describe the influence of the memory of forced displacements on contemporary discourse and how it has evolved since Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine. Finally, I focus on how Crimean Solidarity activists employ memories of the first annexation and deportation to legitimize their resistance against Russia’s repressive policy in occupied Crimea. I argue that the 2014 annexation of Crimea was a retraumatizing event for many Crimean Tatars and that it has become an integral part of the grand narrative of their forced displacement from the late eighteenth century to the present.

This article reviews the literature on nationalism and ethnic mobilization. I first discuss the different strands of research in the field, highlighting three key sources of division that characterize existing literature: geography, ethnic cleavage type, and strategy of mobilization. Arguing that the lack of dialogue between different niches of research can undermine the accumulation of general knowledge, I propose an integrated perspective on nationalism and ethnic mobilization that serves to assimilate findings from these separate niches. I conclude by discussing how such an integrated perspective can enhance our knowledge of the causes, dynamics, and consequences of ethnic mobilization.

Drawing from the experiences of thirty-two refugee women who fled with their children from Ukraine to two German cities, Berlin and Frankfurt Oder, this article explores how being a refugee and a mother affects the anchoring, along with the un-anchoring and embedding of Ukrainian refugees in their new environment. It illustrates that solidarity practices and (inter)actions play a crucial role in mobility considerations, as the interlocutors engaging in solidarity work find meaning in building lives in their new environment. The identities of the interlocutors as refugees and mothers play an important role in shaping the solidarity they articulate as they work to support others in a similar situation in cultivating agency, which, at the same time, gives the interlocutors comfort in their own struggles. This article also makes a valuable contribution to the scholarly literature on transnational family ties through the case of Ukrainian refugee women in Germany, who often have family members remaining in/returning to Ukraine. The interlocutors positioning as mothers and refugees means that they engage in negotiating mobility considerations with these positions in hindsight — providing new avenues of enquiry into the agency of refugee-mothers, reflecting on life aspirations, and considering their specific positionalities and forced migration context.

In the last quarter of the 19th century, Austrian schools effectively developed a robust system of civic education that attempted to cultivate the patriotism of all students, regardless of their nationality. While the ultimate goal of Habsburg civic education was loyalty to the imperial state, officials realized that this loyalty would not be able to supplant regional or national identities. Instead, officials designed a curriculum that would enhance these other identities hoping they would contribute to imperial patriotism. Students learned they shared their home with different national groups and that they belonged to a larger family of nations. While this concept was earnestly supported by the school curriculum, the way in which this material was taught may have impacted its effectiveness. For example, when discussing national groups, educators often drew from prevailing ethnographic theories that relied on stereotypical assessments. Moreover, compromises made in the early 20th century complicated these efforts. As nationalists gained increased control over school administration, the emphasis on shared local identity weakened. These factors did not necessarily alter Austrian civic education, but they do point to the ways in which it would have needed to adapt to the Monarchy’s changing political circumstances.

This article analyzes Vladimir Putin’s 2021 essay “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” as an example of political rhetoric invoking the language/dialect dichotomy. Curiously, Putin argued both that Ukrainian is a “dialect” of a greater Russian language and that Ukrainian is a distinct “language” different from Russian. As a form of political rhetoric, the language/dialect dichotomy draws its power from normative isomorphism, the idea that languages, nations, and states ought to coincide. According to the logic of normative isomorphism, claiming that Russian and Ukrainian are separate “languages” gives the Russian Federation a claim to annex the Russian-speaking south-east of Ukraine, while claiming that Ukrainian is a “dialect” of Russian would justify the Russian Federation’s annexation of Ukraine in its entirety. By endorsing both positions, Putin’s speech provided pre-emptively justifications for different policies, giving him room to maneuver. All that said, neither the language/dialect dichotomy nor normative isomorphism offers a solid basis for political legitimacy.

Egor Lazarev has given his readers more of an epic story than a grand theory, and everyone who reads State Building as Lawfare will be the richer for it. The setting for this riveting tale is the war-torn Russian province of Chechnya. We quickly learn from Lazarev’s mise-en-scene that Chechnya’s famously mountainous terrain is as choppy and uneven legally as it is topographically. Three separate legal systems coexist and commingle in this single subnational domain: 1) customary law, or adat; 2) Islamic law, or Sharia; and almost as an afterthought, 3) state law, “courtesy” of Russian central authorities in Moscow.

This article examines the unexpected revival of Rodina (Motherland), a nationalist party that had been suppressed in 2006 for its embrace of “orangist,” anti-Putin politics. Five years later, Rodina was relaunched in response to the crisis of the Medvedev–Putin “tandemocracy.” This article shows that Rodina played a central role in the Kremlin’s “managed nationalism,” which sought to direct the energies of Russian nationalists into loyalist channels. In particular, it illuminates three ways that Rodina facilitated collaboration between nationalists and the regime. First, it helped to integrate nationalists into the All-Russia Popular Front, the umbrella structure that was created as a vehicle for Putin’s return to the presidency. Second, it served as a counterrevolutionary force by drawing nationalists from the “white ribbon” protest movement into two Kremlin-supported initiatives: the “conservative turn” and a media campaign against non-Slavic immigration. And third, it acted as a proxy for the Russian state during the annexation of Crimea and the conflict in southeast Ukraine, recruiting nationalists to serve as separatists and cultivating the support of European radical nationalists. In these three ways, Rodina contributed both to Russia’s autocratization and to the growing influence of nationalist ideas in public discourse.

Although the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC, also known as Taiwan) and their ruling parties have altered over time, there are quite a few similarities between their models of nation-building, more than is commonly acknowledged. The guofu (father) of the modern Chinese state, Sun Yat-sen, one of the few political leaders who is still honored on both sides of the Taiwan Straits, claimed all the peoples and territories of the former Qing empire comprised a single national community, the so-called Zhonghua minzu. Yet a Han super-majority has long sat at the center of this national imaginary. In this article, we ask what has happened to Sun’s imagined community across the last century, and how it has evolved in the two competing Chinese states the PRC and the ROC. We seek to demonstrate the enduring challenge of Han-centrism for multiethnic nation-building in both countries, while illustrating how shifts in domestic and international politics are altering this national imaginary and the place of ethnocultural diversity within it.

In the Spanish region of Galicia, immediately north of Portugal, the Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG) has achieved unprecedented electoral success, emerging as a prominent nationalist force within the Spanish political landscape. This study analyzes the discursive and performative repertoires employed by Galician nationalism and explores how the prevalent dual national identity in the region shapes these strategies. Reversing Brubaker’s theoretical framework and using framing and visual analysis, we compare the BNG’s strategies during two different institutional settings: its time in government (2005–2009) and its role leading the opposition (2020–2023). The findings reveal the failure of Galician nationalism to nationalize identity when in power, as policies aimed at promoting Galician identity generated a backlash and, ultimately, produced frame dealignment between the nationalists and the Galician people. The new BNG presents a social project based on the defense of Galician interests and the moderation of the nationalist discourse. It successfully accomplishes frame alignment by adapting to the non-conflictive, dual national identity shared by most Galicians while proposing an inclusive political style.

The aim of the article is to analyse, in a diachronic perspective, the street names in today’s Berlin whose bases are geographical names referring to places in contemporary Poland. The analysis reveals a purposeful city-text that supports the nation-building narrative: either by mapping the state’s actual geography at the moment of the name’s bestowal, or by including the territories claimed (literally or metaphorically), beyond the current borders at the time of the naming. However, the degree to which these street names and the intention behind them are decipherable today remains questionable. Once meaningful for their original creators, today they are partly or completely semantically oblique to the general public, as evidenced by their contemporary reception.