Nationalism and nationalist ideas are a major force in the contemporary world. This volume brings together original papers from a number of countries dealing both with theories and case studies of particular national contexts. Taken together, these papers shed light on the processes through which nationalist sentiments and ideas are articulated and given social and political meaning in specific situations. They cover a broad range of different kinds of nationalist movements and ideologies, using a variety of theoretical perspectives and based on varying empirical methodologies.
The cases covered include a comparison of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the North Caucasus, the role of religion in nationalist sentiment in Spain, ethnicity and nationalism in Turkey, Basque nationalism, the Basque diaspora across the Atlantic, the patrimonial state and inter-ethnic conflict in Nigeria, and nationalist movements in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Though this is the empirical focus, all chapters raise relevant theoretical questions and challenge differing approaches to the phenomenon of nationalism in the social sciences.
This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.