What is Nationalism?
Nationalists see the human race as made up of peoples, and say each people deserves its own political home, most often a sovereign state. What counts as a nation varies: some mix of language, history, culture, land and a shared will to live together. Nationalists say people do best under institutions that reflect who they are. The label stretches from independence fights against empires to campaigns to guard the cultural unity of old states. So you find nationalists on the left, in the center and on the right.
Core beliefs
- A nation is a real community and deserves respect as one.
- A people has the right to rule itself, ideally in a state of its own.
- Loyalty to the nation comes before loyalty to bodies above it.
- A common language, history and culture are worth keeping alive and handing down.
- Trade, defense and foreign relations should serve national interests.
- Fellow citizens owe each other more than they owe strangers.
History
Most historians date nationalism's rise as a political force to the late 1700s. The American and French revolutions made the nation, not the king, the source of authority. Johann Gottfried Herder claimed that each people has a language and culture of its own. Johann Gottlieb Fichte urged Germans to unite. Giuseppe Mazzini tied Italian unity to republican democracy. During the 1800s, nationalism helped create Italy and Germany and drove independence movements in Latin America and the Balkans. After 1918 it helped break up old empires, and from 1945 it powered the end of European colonies in Asia and Africa. Later scholars, including Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson, asked how mass schooling and print created national feeling in the first place.
Variants
Civic nationalism builds the nation on shared citizenship and values, while ethnic nationalism builds it on descent, language or culture. Liberal nationalism pairs national feeling with individual rights. The anticolonial kind seeks freedom from foreign rule. Economic nationalism backs tariffs, support for home industry and control of key resources. Religious nationalism ties the nation to a faith. Regional or separatist nationalism seeks independence or autonomy within a larger state.
Criticisms
Liberals and cosmopolitans say nationalism splits humanity, breeds hostility to outsiders and invites discrimination against minorities. Many historians count it among the causes of both world wars and of ethnic cleansing in later conflicts. Marxists say it papers over class divisions by putting bosses and workers under one flag. Some conservatives fear that fierce national feeling can swallow religion, local custom and limits on the state. Defenders answer that nations supply the trust that democracy and welfare need, and that self-determination freed many peoples from foreign rule.
In practice
The modern world map is largely a nationalist creation. The idea of self-determination shaped the peace treaties after 1918 and appears in the United Nations Charter. Almost every state teaches a national history and backs an official language. Nationalist ideas also feed into citizenship and immigration rules, tariffs, military budgets and heritage protection. On the 12 axes the profile is strongest on Culture, toward National identity, and clearly on the Protected and Strength sides of Trade and Foreign policy.