Nationalism is resurgent around the world, with far-ranging consequences. In Eastern Europe, this resurgence is exemplified by Vladimir Putin's characterization of Crimea as an "indivisible" part of Russia through ethnolinguistic ties, by Victor Orban's portrayal of Hungary as a victim of Western powers that divided "Hungarian lands", and Aleksandar Vucic's insistence that "Kosovo is a part of Serbia". However, extreme forms of nationalism have proliferated in diverse regions around the world, from the MAGA movement in the US, over Hindu nationalism in India, to Han chauvinism in China.
In this seminar, we make sense of this resurgence of nationalism by putting it in its wider context. For this purpose, we systematically discuss the causes and consequences of nationalism. In a first part, we discuss different conceptualizations of nationalism and its historical background. In a second part, we touch on key debates in the nationalism literature, including the degree to which nationalism has ancient "roots", potential differences between "ethnic" and "civic" types of nationalism, and its ambiguous relationship with democracy. In a third part, we discuss different violations of the nationalist "congruence principle" and how these can motivate armed conflict within and between states.
In each week, we discuss theoretical and cross-national articles that provide us with an overview on each given topic. We complement this with case-based illustrations from Eastern Europe, which allows us to critically discuss the applicability of these pieces' general arguments. In the final part of the semester, students hold presentations that critically discuss the applicability of a chosen theory of nationalism to a specific case of interest and obtain feedback from the lecturer and peers.
- Teacher: Andreas Juon