Talk:Nationalism

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This article is written in British English with Oxford spelling (colour, realize, organization, analyse; note that -ize is used instead of -ise) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

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Post-Communism

This section is very specific to Yugoslavia and "Balkanization" and doesn't really speak to the rest of the former USSR, so should perhaps be renamed "Yugoslavia" or "Former Yugoslavia" or even "The Balkans".

This section oversimplifies ethnic divisions in the former Yugoslavia as some points speaking about the main three as "Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes", which leaves out Ethnic Albanians and/or Bosniaks. Even the discussion of how to delineate ethnic groups as they pertain to Nationalisms and how groups define themselves vs how they are defined by their Balkan Neighbors vs how they are defined by the US would be interesting.

This section sounds to me a little biased against Yugoslav Nationalism as an idea as though it were destined to fail because of some basic (Nationalistic) truth:

Within Yugoslavia, separating Croatia and Slovenia from the rest of Yugoslavia is an invisible line of previous conquers of the region. Croatia and Slovenia to the northwest were conquered by Catholics or Protestants, and benefited from European history; the Renaissance, French Revolution, Industrial Revolution and are more inclined towards democracy.[64] The remaining Yugoslavian territory was conquered by the Ottoman or Tsarists empires; are Orthodox or Muslims, are less economically advanced and are less inclined toward democracy.

I think saying an entire ethnic group is prone or not prone to democracy is overly simplistic, even jingoistic and those types of statements result from Nationalism.

This section needs to be written better. It's too conversational. Probably there's somewhere better to link to, like the Balkan Wars to explain the conflict:

In the 1980s Yugoslavia began to break into fragments.[63] The economic conditions within Yugoslavia were deteriorating. Conflict in the disputed territories was stimulated by the rise in mass nationalism and inter-ethnic hostilities.[65] The per-capita income of people in the northwest territory, encompassing Croatia and Slovenia, in contrast to the southern territory were several times higher. This combined with escalating violence from ethnic Albanians and Serbs within Kosovo intensified economic conditions.[65] This violence greatly contributed to the rise of extreme nationalism of Serbs in Serbia and within Yugoslavia. The ongoing conflict in Kosovo was propagandized by Communist Serbian Slobodan Milosevic to further increase Serb nationalism. As mentioned, this nationalism did give rise to powerful emotions which grew the force of Serbian nationalism through highly nationalist demonstrations in Vojvodina, Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo. Serbian nationalism was so high, Slobodan Milosevic was able to oust leaders in Vojvodina and Montenegro, further repressed Albanians within Kosovo and eventually controlled four of the eight regions/territories.[65] Slovenia, one of the four regions not under Communist control, favoring a democratic state.

Latin America

This version isn't correct regarding LA.

1. Great Britain didn't openly promote the independence of the Sp. colonies in 1810. At that time, Spain was in fact an allied of Great Britain against Napoleon.
2. At least the Chilean Junta in September 1810 decided to swear fidelity to Ferdinand VII. The act of independence was that they decided to do so and they didn't accept to be part of the Spanish Juntas.
3. The Chilean Junta, initially, wasn't republican, wasn't nationalist, they didn't see themselves as Spaniards but as subjects of Ferdinand VII. They were royalist, at least at the beginning.
4. There were no strong national feeling in LA. They were all subjects of Ferdinand VII. The name "Argentina" or "Bolivia" didn't exist, the name was "Río de la Plata", resp. "Alto Perú".

New section on ancient precursors

Hi @Mariamnei, would your recent edits [1] not be better suited for Nation where there are already subsections devoted to scholars arguing in favour of pre-modern nations and nationalism?

Fine if you think it belongs here too, but I’m thinking that the section is a bit messy where it’s been placed right before the criticism bit. It would make more sense to have it chronologically somewhere up in the history section if we can get in there. I’ll have a think. Unless, actually, it could be incorporated into the Israel subsection? Yr Enw (talk) 10:03, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Great points, thanks for the input! I think this content is most relevant under Nationalism, as it focuses on the possibility of nationalism in antiquity, rather than the existence of nations. Regarding its placement on the page, I don’t think it should be under (modern) Jewish nationalism/Israel for two reasons: first, I can see this section expanding to include views on ancient Celtic, Greek, and Roman civilizations (as the quote from Tom Garvin starts to explore) and second, since its not a modern phenomenon. So, the options I see are: a) leave it as it is now, as its own chapter before the criticism section, or b) include it as its own sub-section under the history part, maybe between 'Dating the emergence of nationalism' and '19th century.' What do you think? Mariamnei (talk) 18:56, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I take your points, so there should be a place for it here. I think putting it in the "Dating the emergence of nationalism" might even work? What do you think? We could maybe rework the opening paragraph to break off after the first sentence, incorporate your parts, and then begin a second paragraph with "The consensus is that nationalism as a concept..."

Incidentally, do you have a link to the Garvin article? I think the citation is unintentionally truncated at present. I'm also interested to read it anyway, coz although Ancient Israel makes some sense - for me - to equate British Celts with anything remotely close to nationalism is extremely strange, but without reading it I don't know his reasons for doing so.

Thanks for your response and additions! Yr Enw (talk) 19:51, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, would you have any pointers / objections to me maybe making an edit in accord with my comment? Yr Enw (talk) 17:55, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

pandemic

"pandemic nationalism" seems to be an obscure concept. Thinking of cutting this section. Uhoj (talk) 03:07, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

recent edit

Recent Major rewrite There has been a recent major rewrite of this article signed by a name not listed as a current Wikipedia editor. The rewrite seems ok, but it is so long that I hope some independent source will check it. Also, I would like to thank the editor who reverted my error in posting this originally in the page instead of here in talk. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:47, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

I thought the same and was going to take a more in-depth look at it when I had the time, trimming it a bit (the amount of unsourced info in it is troublesome) and lifting citations where appropriate from other articles (eg. Nation#Use of term nationes by medieval universities and other medieval institutions). It's only one section, though that last sentence is pretty disgraceful.Yr Enw (talk) 18:38, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Rick Norwood, having now had a bit of time to properly assess the new edits, I'm less satisfied that they have improved the article as I first thought. As such, I'd be grateful for your input on proceeding as follows:

1. Reverting the changes

2a. But retaining these paragraphs in their respective places:

By the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the language surrounding nations and sovereignty became increasingly prominent in public discourse, legal documents, and popular mobilization. The expansion of mass literacy, print culture, and civic participation strengthened the perception that political authority derived from a people conscious of its shared destiny. This period also saw the spread of movements asserting that legitimate government must reflect the historical, cultural, and social character of the population it governs, rather than being imposed by dynastic accident or external force.^[1]

The twentieth century profoundly tested these assumptions. While the language of popular sovereignty was widely invoked, it was also systematically distorted by regimes that claimed to act in the name of “the people” while abolishing political pluralism, suppressing civil society, and subordinating national traditions to rigid, centralized doctrines. In several cases, historical identities were re-engineered or erased altogether, replaced by abstract social categories enforced through state coercion. The catastrophic human cost of such experiments—marked by mass repression, forced collectivization, and the elimination of independent institutions—contributed to growing skepticism toward any political model that dissolves national communities into ideological abstractions.^[2]

2b. The first quote can be bulked out with references in the relevant places from Anderson, Gellner, Mann etc. on print culture and civic participation.

3.Some of the other stuff, like:

Contemporary scholarship often describes the core political principle underlying these developments as the alignment between a political community and the authority that governs it. In this view, a stable state rests on the consent of a population that recognizes itself as a distinct collective with a legitimate claim to self-rule. This does not imply uniformity of opinion or culture, but rather a shared framework of belonging that enables democratic participation, defense of sovereignty, and resistance to both external domination and internal authoritarianism.^[3]

doesn't belong in the "Terminology" section, but maybe has a place under "Political science".

Personally, I think a revert with these exceptions is going to be easier than slogging through the section in its current form. There is too much that needs to be sourced properly, while the Wedeen quote now fails verification (I just looked at the source itself) because the text before it has been changed.Yr Enw (talk) 08:48, 9 January 2026 (UTC) Yr Enw (talk) 08:48, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Great work! Rick Norwood (talk) 14:40, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

1. Hobsbawm, Eric (1990). Nations and National Identity since 1780. Cambridge University Press.
2. Judt, Tony (2005). Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. Penguin.
3. Gorski, Philip S. (2000). "The Mosaic Moment: An Early Modernist Critique of Modernist Theories of Political Identity". American Journal of Sociology. 105 (5): 1428–1468.