Christian Nationalism Compared With Religious Nationalism Abroad
Christian Nationalism Compared With Religious Nationalism Abroad
Religious Nationalism as a Comparative Phenomenon
Religious nationalism describes political and social projects in which religious identity becomes closely connected with national identity, political authority, territory, citizenship, or ideas about the proper character of the state. Comparative scholarship shows that this relationship can take many forms. Religion may define who belongs to the nation, provide historical or moral legitimacy for national institutions, influence laws and public policy, distinguish a majority population from minorities, or supply sacred narratives about national territory and political destiny.
Religious nationalism is therefore not a single ideology that appears identically across societies. Christian nationalism in the United States, Hindu nationalism in India, Jewish religious nationalism in Israel, Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, Muslim religious nationalism in Turkey or Indonesia, and Orthodox nationalism in Eastern Europe arose from different histories, religious traditions, institutions, and political conflicts.
Cross-national studies emphasize that majority religion alone does not determine the strength or character of religious nationalism. Countries with similar religious traditions can have very different relationships between religion and national identity. Historical state formation, colonialism, war, migration, secularization, religious institutions, political parties, minority relations, and constitutional arrangements can all shape the resulting form of nationalism.
Christian Nationalism in Comparative Perspective
Christian nationalism generally connects Christianity with national belonging and with ideas concerning the proper political, cultural, or moral character of a nation. The phenomenon has received extensive attention in the United States, but comparable ideas occur in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia.
Research outside the United States demonstrates that Christianity can function both as a religious commitment and as a marker of cultural or civilizational identity. In highly secular European societies, for example, people may identify Christianity with national history or cultural heritage without being especially religious in personal practice.
This distinction is important when making international comparisons. American Christian nationalism developed within a particular constitutional, denominational, racial, and political history. European Christian nationalism often emerges in societies with established churches, long histories of Catholic or Orthodox national identification, or comparatively low levels of personal religious observance.
African examples introduce still other configurations. Research on Ghana and broader Afrobarometer data examines relationships among Christian identity, political leadership, democracy, Pentecostal and charismatic movements, national development, and relations with religious minorities.
Brazil and other Latin American societies illustrate the political consequences of rapid evangelical growth within historically Catholic societies. Here Christian political mobilization interacts with populism, changing party systems, social conservatism, and longstanding relationships between religion and state institutions.
Hindu Nationalism in India
Hindu nationalism, commonly associated with the concept of Hindutva, is one of the most extensively studied forms of contemporary religious nationalism. It links ideas about Indian nationhood with Hindu civilization, culture, history, sacred geography, and political identity.
The development of Hindu nationalism predates contemporary electoral politics. Scholars trace its intellectual and territorial roots to the colonial period and examine the later development of organizations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Vishva Hindu Parishad, and political movements associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Contemporary research examines how Hindu nationalism operates through government institutions, political parties, civic organizations, religious networks, digital media, historical narratives, and diaspora communities. Studies also consider its relationship with Muslims, Christians, conversion, interreligious marriage, citizenship, minority rights, and competing definitions of Indian national identity.
Hindutva has also become increasingly transnational. Hindu nationalist organizations and ideas operate in Britain, the United States, and other diaspora communities, where they adapt to multicultural institutions, civil-rights language, and local political environments.
Comparisons between Hindu nationalism and American Christian nationalism identify some structural similarities, including attempts to connect majority religious traditions with national authenticity. At the same time, scholars and advocates disagree about how far the comparison should be taken because the movements arose from substantially different religious traditions, colonial histories, political systems, and conceptions of nationhood.
Jewish Religious Nationalism and Israel
Religion and nationalism have interacted in especially complex ways in Zionism and the development of the State of Israel. Zionism historically included secular as well as religious currents, while Jewish religious nationalism developed distinctive theological interpretations of Jewish nationhood, territory, sovereignty, and political authority.
Research on contemporary Israel examines relationships among Jewish identity, religious observance, nationalism, Zionism, sacred texts, territorial claims, democracy, political parties, and state institutions.
Some scholarship distinguishes conventional religious-nationalist organizations from broader forms of cultural or "soft" religious nationalism in which Jewish tradition, national identity, and religious symbolism become interconnected outside explicitly religious political movements.
Studies of religious Zionism also address questions involving settlement, territorial claims, military service, conversion, religious freedom, minority rights, and competing interpretations of Israel as both a Jewish and democratic state.
Comparative studies frequently place Jewish religious nationalism alongside Hindu nationalism because both involve debates over the relationship among religion, majority identity, territory, citizenship, and the character of the nation-state. These comparisons identify recurring structural questions while also emphasizing major differences in theology and historical development.
Buddhist Nationalism in Myanmar and Sri Lanka
Buddhist nationalism demonstrates that religious nationalism is not confined to monotheistic traditions. In Myanmar and Sri Lanka, Buddhist identity has at times become closely associated with national belonging, majority political identity, and narratives portraying Buddhism as requiring protection from perceived external or internal threats.
In Myanmar, research examines the political role of Buddhist monks, sermons, religious organizations, historical narratives, anti-Muslim mobilization, interreligious marriage, gender, and campaigns claiming to defend Buddhism and Buddhist women.
Buddhist monks can possess forms of moral and cultural authority that give them significant influence in political debates even when they do not exercise formal state power.
Sri Lankan Buddhist nationalism has developed through a different historical trajectory involving Sinhalese identity, colonialism, ethnic conflict, religious competition, and debates about the relationship between Buddhism and the state.
Both cases illustrate how religious nationalism may portray protection of the majority religion as inseparable from protection of the nation itself.
Muslim Religious Nationalism
The relationship between Islam and nationalism varies substantially across Muslim-majority societies. Some nationalist movements historically embraced secular state-building while still incorporating Islamic institutions, symbols, or assumptions into national identity.
Turkey provides an important example. Turkish republican nationalism was formally secular, yet Sunni Muslim identity remained closely connected with definitions of national culture and belonging. Later religious and political movements developed alternative ways of combining Turkish nationalism with Islamic identity.
Research comparing Turkey, Algeria, and Pakistan demonstrates that officially secular national projects can coexist with strong religious conceptions of national community.
Indonesia provides another model. Indonesian nationalism was historically constructed around religious diversity rather than a formally Islamic state. Contemporary research nevertheless documents growing political competition over Islamic identity, conservative religious mobilization, populism, and the place of Islam within national identity.
Iran illustrates still another configuration. The 1979 revolution transformed the relationship between religion and state authority while preserving important elements of Iranian nationalism. Contemporary Iranian political identity consequently combines Shi'a religious concepts with national history, territory, state institutions, and cultural identity.
These differences demonstrate why "Islamic nationalism," political Islam, religious nationalism, religious monarchy, and state-sponsored religion should not automatically be treated as identical phenomena.
Orthodox Christianity and Nationalism
Orthodox Christianity has historically played an important role in national identity across parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe.
In Russia, scholars distinguish between culturally inherited Orthodox national identity and more explicit ideological forms of Orthodox nationalism. The relationship among the Russian Orthodox Church, Russian state institutions, nationalism, and concepts such as the "Russian World" has received particular attention.
Russian and Ukrainian religious-national narratives have become increasingly important in debates surrounding Ukrainian Orthodox independence and the broader Russo-Ukrainian conflict.
Serbian nationalism has similarly incorporated Orthodox religious narratives, particularly in historical memory surrounding Kosovo, where territory can acquire both national and sacred significance.
Romania, Greece, and other Orthodox societies demonstrate additional ways that churches and religious traditions became involved in nineteenth- and twentieth-century nation-building.
Orthodox nationalism therefore illustrates how religious traditions that predate modern nationalism can later become powerful symbols through which modern nations interpret history, territory, collective suffering, and political sovereignty.
Poland, Hungary, and Christian National Identity in Europe
Catholic Christianity has been deeply connected with national identity in countries such as Poland, where religious institutions historically played important roles during foreign occupation, communism, and political resistance.
Recent scholarship examines the use of Catholic symbolism in discussions of national borders, immigration, sovereignty, and European identity.
Hungary and Poland have also been studied as examples of the contemporary "sacralization" of politics, in which political leaders and movements draw upon religious history and symbolism while governing societies undergoing substantial secularization.
Research in Sweden and Finland demonstrates a different pattern. Christianity can function as a marker of national heritage or civilizational identity even where church participation and conventional religious belief are relatively weak.
These cases suggest that Christian nationalism can survive or develop even in relatively secular societies because Christianity may operate as a cultural boundary as well as a theological commitment.
Religion, Minorities, and National Membership
One recurring feature across many forms of religious nationalism is debate over who fully belongs to the nation.
When majority religion becomes associated with national authenticity, religious minorities can face questions about loyalty, citizenship, conversion, immigration, marriage, language, or political participation.
Hindu nationalist debates frequently concern Muslims and Christians in India. Buddhist nationalist movements in Myanmar have focused particularly on Muslims. Christian nationalist movements in Europe frequently intersect with debates over Muslim immigration. Russian and Turkish national identities have historically affected minority religious communities differently depending on whether Orthodox Christianity or Sunni Islam was treated as part of the national core.
These patterns do not mean that all religious-nationalist movements produce identical policies toward minorities. Their consequences depend on political institutions, constitutional protections, party competition, courts, civil society, religious organizations, and historical relationships among communities.
Sacred Territory and National Identity
Territory is another recurring theme.
Religious traditions can transform national territory into sacred geography, making political disputes over borders or land simultaneously religious and national disputes.
Jewish religious nationalism has incorporated biblical interpretations of the Land of Israel. Hindu nationalism has developed ideas about India as a sacred civilizational homeland. Serbian Orthodox narratives have portrayed Kosovo as central to both national and religious history. Polish Catholic symbolism has been used in recent political debates about national borders.
Sacralized territory can strengthen emotional attachment to national space because land becomes connected not only with political sovereignty but also with religious history, divine purpose, collective memory, sacrifice, or sacred obligation.
Gender, Family, and Religious Nationalism
Comparative scholarship also identifies gender and family as important components of religious nationalism.
Religious-nationalist movements frequently describe the family as a foundation of both religious morality and national continuity. Women's roles, marriage, reproduction, sexuality, and interreligious relationships can consequently become politically significant.
Myanmar Buddhist nationalist campaigns concerning marriage between Buddhist women and Muslim men provide one clear example. Hindu nationalist narratives surrounding so-called "love jihad" similarly connect interreligious relationships with fears about religious and national boundaries.
Christian nationalist movements in several countries have also linked national identity with debates surrounding abortion, sexuality, marriage, gender roles, and family policy.
These examples demonstrate how religious nationalism can extend beyond formal constitutional questions into everyday social relationships.
Political Parties, Movements, and State Institutions
Religious nationalism can operate both inside and outside formal government.
Political parties may incorporate religious-nationalist themes into election campaigns, public policy, education, historical narratives, or state ceremonies. Religious organizations, clergy, activists, media networks, and civic associations can simultaneously promote similar ideas from outside government.
India demonstrates a particularly developed relationship among political parties, Hindu nationalist organizations, social movements, and cultural institutions.
Israel contains religious-nationalist parties as well as wider religious-nationalist networks.
Myanmar illustrates how religious figures may influence politics despite lacking formal governmental authority.
European cases demonstrate how established churches, cultural Christianity, populist parties, and national-conservative governments may interact without necessarily forming a unified religious-nationalist movement.
The institutional structure of religious nationalism therefore varies considerably from country to country.
Diasporas and Transnational Religious Nationalism
Religious nationalism is increasingly transnational.
Hindu nationalist ideas circulate among Indian diaspora communities in Britain and the United States. Christian nationalist symbolism moves between the United States, South Korea, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. Israeli symbols have appeared within some Christian nationalist movements even where participants are not Jewish.
Digital media further enables religious-nationalist organizations and activists to exchange rhetoric, strategies, symbols, conspiracy narratives, and political ideas across national borders.
Diaspora communities can also transform nationalist ideologies because they operate within different legal and cultural environments. Movements consequently adapt their language to concepts such as multiculturalism, minority rights, religious freedom, civil rights, or immigrant political participation.
Religious Nationalism, Populism, and Secularism
Religious nationalism frequently overlaps with populism, but the concepts are not identical.
Religious nationalism primarily concerns the relationship between religion and national identity. Populism generally constructs politics around a conflict between an allegedly authentic "people" and political, cultural, or economic elites.
A political movement can therefore be religious-nationalist without being strongly populist, populist without being religious-nationalist, or both at the same time.
Religious nationalism can also emerge under very different relationships with secularism. Some movements directly challenge secular government. Others operate within secular constitutional systems while arguing that the nation's culture or history remains fundamentally connected to a particular religion.
Still others inherit religious institutions from supposedly secular nation-building projects. Turkey and Israel illustrate how states founded partly through secular nationalist movements nevertheless institutionalized important relationships between religion and public authority.
Similarities Across Religious Nationalisms
Despite their differences, comparative research identifies recurring characteristics among many forms of religious nationalism.
These can include the fusion of religious and national identity; claims that the majority religion represents the authentic nation; sacred interpretations of territory and history; narratives of national exceptionalism; concern with religious or cultural decline; distinctions between national insiders and outsiders; appeals to traditional family structures; political use of religious symbols; and conflict over the relationship between religious authority and secular institutions.
Religious-nationalist movements may also portray national decline as the result of secularization, globalization, immigration, foreign influence, religious minorities, cultural change, or political elites who are accused of abandoning traditional national values.
These recurring patterns make international comparison useful.
Important Differences Between National Cases
Similarities should not obscure major differences.
Hindu nationalism emerged from India's colonial experience and distinctive Hindu concepts of civilization and sacred geography.
Jewish religious nationalism developed within Jewish history, Zionism, diaspora experience, the establishment of Israel, and religious interpretations of Jewish peoplehood and territory.
Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar and Sri Lanka reflects Theravada Buddhist institutions, monastic authority, colonial histories, and ethnic majority-minority conflicts.
Orthodox nationalism emerged through relationships among churches, empires, ethnic communities, communism, and modern state formation.
American Christian nationalism developed within a society shaped by Protestant pluralism, constitutional disestablishment, racial history, immigration, evangelical movements, and a highly competitive party system.
Religious nationalism should therefore be understood as a family of related political phenomena rather than as a single ideology reproduced unchanged across different religions and countries.
Conclusion
Comparing Christian nationalism with religious nationalism abroad reveals both recurring patterns and important national differences.
Across Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, and Orthodox contexts, religion can provide narratives through which nations define their history, territory, moral order, political legitimacy, and membership. Religious traditions can become intertwined with ideas about citizenship, majority identity, minorities, family, sovereignty, borders, law, and the proper relationship between religion and government.
At the same time, comparative scholarship cautions against assuming that all religious nationalisms are equivalent. Their goals, organizations, theological foundations, political institutions, historical origins, and relationships with democracy and minorities vary substantially.
The most useful comparative approach therefore examines both similarities and differences: how religion becomes connected with national identity, why that connection becomes politically powerful in particular historical settings, which institutions promote or restrain it, and how different societies negotiate the boundaries among religion, nation, citizenship, and state power.
Comparative Frameworks and Cross-National Studies
| Susanna Mancini and Michel Rosenfeld | Oxford University Press | April 1, 2026
"Religious Nationalism and Religious Populism" distinguishes efforts to religiously transform states from political movements that invoke religion primarily as culture or national heritage.
| Bill Drexel | Hudson Institute / The Dispatch | March 30, 2025
Argues that Hindu nationalism and American Christian nationalism should not simply be treated as interchangeable, emphasizing differences in historical origins, institutions, and political objectives.
| Harvard Divinity School | Harvard Divinity School | March 5, 2025
"Christian Nationalism in Global Perspective" explicitly places American Christian nationalism alongside religious-nationalist movements such as Hindutva in India.
| Joseph A. Wagoner and Moussa Diarra | Political Psychology | February 28, 2025
"Different Images of God Predict Religious Nationalism among Christians" investigates psychological and theological predictors of religious nationalism rather than treating religiosity and nationalism as interchangeable.
| Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | January 28, 2025
A major 36-country comparative study measuring religious nationalism across Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, and Shinto populations, providing one of the strongest empirical bases for comparing American Christian nationalism with religious-nationalist attitudes abroad.
| Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | January 28, 2025
Explains Pew's cross-national methodology for identifying religious nationalists through questions concerning national identity, leaders' religion, sacred texts, and national laws.
| Pew Research Center | JSTOR / Pew Research Center | January 28, 2025
Provides the overview section of Pew's multinational religious-nationalism study and offers data useful for comparing the United States with both wealthy democracies and developing countries.
| Stian Sørlie Eriksen Thorsen | The Ecumenical Review | 2025
"Interreligious Dialogue and Religious Nationalism" compares Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist nationalist settings and discusses how nationalism adapts to different religious and cultural environments.
| Joseph Harder | Theological Reflections | 2024
"The Appeal and Perils of Religious Nationalism: A Comparative Analysis" considers Christian nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe alongside parallel developments in the United States.
| Hindu American Foundation | Hindu American Foundation | 2024
Presents an advocacy perspective disputing comparisons between Hindutva and Christian nationalism; useful as a primary source showing how supporters of Hindu nationalism describe the movement themselves.
| Ali Munhanif and Yuli Yasin | Ilmu Ushuluddin | 2023
Compares Hindu nationalism in India with Muslim nationalism in Indonesia and emphasizes the interaction between religious movements, state institutions, and political crises.
| Tunahan Yıldız and Esra Çengel | Nationalities Papers | October 20, 2022
Develops six dimensions of religious nationalism—identity, exceptionalism, territoriality, civilizational othering, sectarianism, and anti-secularism—through the Turkish case.
| Şener Aktürk | APSA Preprints | September 1, 2022
Compares national-religious configurations in Britain, Japan, Israel, India, Ireland, Turkey, the United States, Lebanon, Mexico, and Ukraine using international survey data.
| Gilad Abiri | Asian Journal of Law and Society | August 6, 2021
"Intimate Rivals" directly compares Hindu nationalism in India with religious Zionism in Israel and examines their implications for liberal conceptions of religious freedom.
| Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian | Cambridge University Press | June 10, 2021
Introduces the concept of political sacralization and examines how religious claims can legitimize nationalist projects, state institutions, territorial claims, and political conflict.
| Şener Aktürk | Nationalities Papers | 2021
"Nationalism and Religion in Comparative Perspective" proposes six different configurations linking religion and nationalism and cautions against assuming one universal model.
| Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, eds. | Cambridge University Press | 2021
When Politics Are Sacralized provides a comparative framework for studying the fusion of nationalism and religious claims in Israel, India, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Northern Ireland, and Palestine.
| Anna Grzymala-Busse | Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics | March 26, 2019
"Religious Nationalism and Religious Influence" defines religious nationalism as a fusion of religious and national identities and examines its consequences for political institutions, public policy, and conflict.
| Mark Juergensmeyer | Religions | February 4, 2019
"Religious Nationalism in a Global World" surveys Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Sikh, and Islamic nationalisms and relates their contemporary resurgence to globalization and challenges to secular nationalism.
| Jocelyne Cesari | Religions | October 30, 2018
"Unexpected Convergences: Religious Nationalism in Israel and Turkey" compares the historical development of religion, territory, sovereignty, and national identity in the two states.
| Leora Batnitzky | Princeton University | 2017
Compares religious Zionist and Hindu nationalist concerns about conversion and examines how those concerns have influenced law and concepts of religious freedom in Israel and India.
| Şener Aktürk | Social Science Quarterly | August 19, 2015
Compares religion and secular nation-building in Turkey, Algeria, and Pakistan, illustrating how Islamic political identities interacted with ostensibly secular states.
| Laman Tasch | Politics and Religion | April 23, 2010
Compares Russia and Turkey to show how Orthodox Christianity and Sunni Islam became incorporated into national identity and affected the treatment of religious minorities.
| Neophytos G. Loizides | Nationalities Papers | March 2009
Examines the capacity of nationalism in southeastern Europe to incorporate Christianity and other religious traditions into changing political identities.
| Carrie Antal | Compare | January 11, 2008
Compares religious-nationalist citizenship narratives and schooling in India and Israel, linking education to wider disputes over national membership.
| James Chiriyankandath | Pan-European Conference on International Relations | September 14, 2007
"Religious Nationalism and Foreign Policy: India and Israel Compared" considers how Hindu nationalism and religious Zionism influence foreign-policy environments.
| Sabina Mihelj | Nations and Nationalism | March 21, 2007
"Faith in Nation Comes in Different Guises" demonstrates that religious nationalism can take modernist as well as anti-modern forms, drawing particularly on European cases.
| Barbara-Ann J. Rieffer | Nations and Nationalism | June 2003
"Religion and Nationalism: Understanding the Consequences of a Complex Relationship" develops a typology for understanding the different ways religion and nationalism interact.
| Roger Friedland | Annual Review of Sociology | August 2001
"Religious Nationalism and the Problem of Collective Representation" provides an influential theoretical account of how religious faith can become intertwined with conceptions of nation, sovereignty, family, and political authority.
Hindu Nationalism — India and the Diaspora
| Kavita Khory | Public Humanities | September 3, 2026
Examines Hindu nationalist organizations in the United States and their engagement with American civil-rights, multicultural, and political institutions.
| Andrew Wyatt | Commonwealth & Comparative Politics | July 28, 2026
"The BJP and India's Official Nationalism" examines the institutional and symbolic development of Hindu-centered nationalism under BJP governments.
| Manjari Katju | Politics, Religion & Ideology | December 1, 2025
Studies the Vishva Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal and their changing relationship with government following the BJP's national rise after 2014.
| Saarang Narayan | Globalizations | November 4, 2025
Studies Hindu nationalist ideologue Dattopant Thengadi and the development of a nationalist economic response to globalization.
| Kenneth Bo Nielsen | Commonwealth & Comparative Politics | June 15, 2025
Examines Hindu nationalist mobilization in Goa and shows how local Christian communities can become the primary religious "other" within regionally specific nationalist politics.
| Douglas M. McLeod | Religions | 2025
Analyzes Narendra Modi's 2019 victory speech as an example of religious-nationalist rhetoric employing Hindu imagery, mythology, and national narratives.
| Various authors | Third World Quarterly | 2025
Studies the construction of "love jihad" narratives within Hindu nationalist social-media discourse and their relationship to religious boundaries.
| Paul Hedges | Religions | October 24, 2024
"The Rising Tide of Hindu Nationalism" discusses Hindu nationalism, interreligious relations, political violence, and resources for religious peacebuilding.
| Various authors | Ethnopolitics | 2024
"India: The Making and Resisting of an Ethnocracy" examines the relationship between Hindutva, majoritarian nationalism, citizenship, and minority status.
| Ashutosh Varshney and Connor Staggs | Journal of Democracy | January 2024
Examines Hindu nationalism and the position of India's Muslim minority through a comparative framework centered on majoritarian institutions, segregation, law, and citizenship.
| Sitara Thobani | Social Identities | May 17, 2023
"Mapping Hindutva's Coordinates" analyzes the transnational geography of Hindu nationalism through temples, diaspora networks, and political symbolism.
| Aseema Sinha and Manisha Priyam | Modern Asian Studies | December 26, 2022
Uses ethnographic and survey evidence to examine different levels and forms of popular support for Hindu-centric nationalism.
| Eviane Leidig | Religions | 2022
"Fight, Die, and If Required Kill" examines Hindu nationalism, misinformation, Islamophobia, and the use of digital media in India.
| Peter van der Veer | Asian Journal of Law and Society | 2021
Examines religious minority rights, conversion, communal violence, and Hindu nationalist conceptions of national membership.
| Ihsan Yilmaz et al. | Religions | 2021
"Hinduism, Hindutva and Hindu Populism in India" analyzes Indian right-wing party manifestos and distinguishes Hindu nationalism from Hindu populism.
| Tanika Sarkar | Cambridge University Press | June 10, 2021
Examines Hindutva as the dominant contemporary form of religious nationalism in India and traces its political and ideological development.
| Priya Chacko | Modern Asian Studies | October 26, 2018
Shows how Hindu nationalist organizations incorporated market-oriented economic policies without necessarily abandoning their ideological goals.
| Edward Anderson and Arkotong Longkumer | Contemporary South Asia | December 25, 2018
Introduces "neo-Hindutva" as a framework for understanding newer and more diffuse forms of Hindu nationalist organization, rhetoric, diaspora activity, and digital politics.
| John Harriss | South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies | January 12, 2016
Reviews Hindu nationalism in the context of the BJP's emergence as India's dominant national political party.
| Edward Anderson | Contemporary South Asia | February 18, 2015
Examines the development and normalization of Hindu nationalist rhetoric in Britain through controversy surrounding the artist M. F. Husain.
| J. E. Llewellyn | Politics and Religion | November 2, 2010
Uses India's 2004 election to examine debates over whether electoral competition moderates or limits religious-nationalist movements.
| John Zavos | Commonwealth & Comparative Politics | January 29, 2010
Studies the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the role of Hindu nationalism in constructing British Hindu identity.
| Manu Bhagavan | Journal of Asian Studies | July 23, 2008
Traces territorial and historical concepts underlying Hindu nationalism during the colonial era.
Jewish Religious Nationalism — Israel
| Hannah M. Ridge | Palgrave Macmillan | 2026
"A Jewish State? Religious Nationalism in Israel" applies comparative religious-nationalism theory and public-opinion data to Israeli politics, identity, prejudice, democracy, and territory.
| Rachel Werczberger, Dana Kaplan and Nadia Beider | Sociology | 2025
Examines "soft" religious nationalism within Israeli Judaism and how national and religious identities can merge outside conventional religious-nationalist parties.
| Hannah M. Ridge | Religions | July 17, 2024
"Jewish Nationalism in Israel: A Measurement" develops a survey instrument for measuring the fusion of Jewish identity, national belonging, religion, and state.
| Nehemia Stern | Religions | June 5, 2023
"We Are the Homeowners" examines sacred texts and the social structure of Jewish religious nationalism in Israel and the West Bank.
| Amílcar A. Barreto and HyungJin Kim | Ethnicities | December 29, 2021
Examines Christian nationalists in the United States and South Korea displaying Israeli flags, illustrating transnational symbolic connections between Christian and Jewish national narratives.
| Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin | Cambridge University Press | June 10, 2021
Examines the historical relationship among Judaism, secularism, Zionism, national identity, and political theology.
| Nadim N. Rouhana | Cambridge University Press | June 10, 2021
Analyzes the relationship among religious claims, Jewish nationalism, territory, Zionism, and competing interpretations of Israeli statehood.
| Yagil Levy | Cambridge University Press | June 10, 2021
Traces the parallel growth of religious influence in Israeli politics and the Israeli military between 1948 and 2016.
| Guy Ben-Porat and Dani Filc | Politics and Religion | December 21, 2020
Explores how Jewish identity, religion, Zionism, and populist conceptions of "the people" interact in Israeli politics.
| Uriel Abulof | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion | September 5, 2014
"The Roles of Religion in National Legitimation" develops four models for understanding how Judaism and religion have been used to legitimate Zionist nationalism.
| Various authors | Oxford Handbook of Global Religions | September 2, 2009
Surveys Jewish religious communities in Israel, including the emergence and institutional development of religious nationalism.
Buddhist Nationalism — Myanmar and Sri Lanka
| Angela Lu Fulton | Christianity Today | October 29, 2024
Interview with Myanmar scholar David Moe examining how Buddhist nationalism is experienced by Christian ethnic minorities and how comparable nationalist ideas can migrate across borders.
| Niklas Foxeus | Journal of Contemporary Asia | 2022
Studies Buddhist nationalist sermons in Myanmar, anti-Muslim moral panic, conspiracy narratives, and the historical sources used to legitimize nationalist politics.
| Iselin Frydenlund | Religions | 2021
"Protecting Buddhist Women from Muslim Men" examines gender, Buddhist nationalism, Islamophobia, and "love jihad" narratives in Myanmar.
| Niklas Foxeus | Religion | May 20, 2019
"The Buddha Was a Devoted Nationalist" analyzes Buddhist nationalist sermons, historical narratives, and the fusion of Buddhism with Burmese national identity.
| International Crisis Group | International Crisis Group | 2017
"Buddhism and State Power in Myanmar" places Myanmar's Buddhist nationalist movement in a regional context that includes Sri Lanka and Thailand.
| Saittawut Yutthaworakool | Journal of Social Sciences | 2017
"The Politics of Buddhist Nationalism in Myanmar" examines its historical development, political legitimacy, state patronage, and relationship to democratization.
| Matthew J. Walton | Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism | December 5, 2016
"Buddhism, Nationalism, and Governance" provides broad historical and comparative context for Buddhist nationalist political thought.
| Matthew J. Walton and Michael Jerryson | Politics and Religion | July 27, 2016
Studies how Buddhist monks gain cultural authority to participate in nationalist and political debates in Myanmar.
| Stephen C. Berkwitz | Journal of Asian Studies | February 13, 2008
Studies Sri Lankan monk Gangodawila Soma and Buddhist nationalism as a response to globalization, religious competition, and perceived cultural decline.
Muslim Religious Nationalism — Turkey, Iran, Indonesia and Comparative Cases
| Yusuf Ziya Bölükbaşı and İlhan Bilici | İnsan ve Toplum | March 7, 2025
"Tradition, Secularization, and Religion" traces the reintegration of Islam into modern Turkish nationalist thought.
| Sofiandi Sofiandi | Asia-Pacific Journal on Religion and Society | 2025
Examines how Islamic narratives and symbols have been deployed within Indonesian populism and religious-nationalist mobilization.
| Various authors | Journal of Contemporary Asia | 2019
"Two Decades of Ideological Contestation in Indonesia" traces movement from post-Suharto democratic cosmopolitanism toward increasingly conservative religious nationalism.
| Ali Banuazizi | Cambridge University Press | June 10, 2021
Traces Iran's transition from Pahlavi-era secular nationalism toward a post-1979 political ideology combining Shi'a Islam with Iranian national symbols and identity.
| Berrin Koyuncu-Lorasdağı | Middle Eastern Studies | April 6, 2010
Examines religion and nationalism in Turkey through the Gülen movement and the concept of Turkish Muslimhood.
Christian and Orthodox Nationalism — Europe
| Marika Jeziorek | Democratic Theory | March 27, 2026
Examines Polish Catholic symbolism, migration politics, citizen activism, and the construction of national borders as morally and religiously significant.
| Zdenko Širka | Studies in East European Thought | March 16, 2026
"Role of Resilience in Development of Religious Nationalism in Serbia" analyzes the fusion of Orthodox religious and Serbian national narratives.
| Ilkka Koiranen, Tuomas Äystö, Jere Kyyrö, Talvikki Ahonen and Titus Hjelm | Social Compass | 2026
"Christian Nationalism Divided" tests whether the American Christian-nationalism concept transfers effectively to a secular Nordic multiparty democracy.
| Various authors | Religions | 2025
"Exploring the Christian Nationalism Within the Secularized Swedish Public Opinion" considers Christianity as both religious belief and civilizational heritage in Swedish national discourse.
| Various authors | Religions | 2023
"The Sacralization of Politics? A Case Study of Hungary and Poland" examines interaction between religion, national identity, political elites, and popular religious practice.
| Philip Barker | Politics and Religion Journal | 2022
"Immigration and Religious Nationalism in Europe" tests whether Muslim immigration is associated with stronger Christian national identification in European states.
| Lena Surzhko Harned | Religions | April 12, 2022
"Russian World and Ukrainian Autocephaly" compares Russian and Ukrainian religious-nationalist narratives in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.
| Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | October 29, 2018
Compares religion, national identity, minority attitudes, and social values across Western, Central, and Eastern Europe.
| Edwin Bacon | Politics and Religion | March 26, 2018
Distinguishes reflexive religious identity from ideologically reasoned nationalism through the case of Russian Orthodoxy and nationalism.
| Various authors | Religion, State & Society | 2018
Examines relationships among Orthodox Christianity, national identity, political authority, and contemporary post-communist state formation.
| Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | May 10, 2017
Surveys religion, national belonging, Orthodox identity, culture, and political attitudes across Central and Eastern Europe.
| Alexander Verkhovsky | Edinburgh University Press | 2016
Examines Russian ethnonationalism, Orthodox nationalism, neopaganism, and the complicated relationship between nationalist activists and the Russian Orthodox Church.
| Roland Clark | Nationalities Papers | 2012
Shows how Orthodox Christianity became incorporated into Romanian ultra-nationalism during interwar state-building.
| Nikos Chrysoloras | Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism | 2004
"Why Orthodoxy?" examines Helleno-Christian nationalism and the historical intertwining of Greek national identity with the Orthodox Church.
| Various authors | Religion, State & Society | Various
The journal contains extensive comparative scholarship on the Russian Orthodox Church, post-Soviet nationalism, religious policy, and church-state relations.
Christian Nationalism Beyond the United States
| John Ishiyama | Politics and Religion | September 15, 2025
Uses Afrobarometer data to examine Christian-nationalist attitudes and views of democracy across African countries.
| Jeffrey Haynes | Religions | September 20, 2023
"Christian Nationalism and Politics in Ghana" analyzes the national cathedral, Pentecostal and charismatic political influence, LGBTQ policy, and Christian-Muslim relations.
| Ricardo Barbosa Jr. and Guilherme Casarões | Millennium | January 4, 2023
"Statecraft under God" analyzes Christian nationalist narratives, radical-right populism, evangelical politics, and foreign policy during Jair Bolsonaro's presidency in Brazil.
| Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | October 5, 2006
Provides historical background on Christianity's role in Korean nationalism, including Protestant participation in anti-colonial independence politics.
Christian Nationalism — Africa
| Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | April 15, 2010
Provides background on religion, public life, Christian-Muslim relations, religious law, identity, and politics across sub-Saharan Africa.
Christian Nationalism — Latin America and Brazil
| Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | November 13, 2014
Provides extensive background on Catholic decline, evangelical growth, religious identity, politics, and social attitudes across Latin America.
| Various authors | Politics and Religion | Various
Contains comparative scholarship on evangelical political mobilization, religion and populism, nationalism, democracy, and Latin American politics.
Christian and Religious National Identity — East Asia
| Various author | International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church | 2023
"What Does It Mean to Be a Christian Nationalist in Meiji Japan?" explores Christian patriotism within a society whose dominant religious traditions were not Christian.
Northern Ireland and Comparative Ethno-Religious Nationalism
| Liam O'Dowd | Cambridge University Press | June 10, 2021
Examines nationalism, Protestant and Catholic identities, political violence, collective memory, sacred space, and territorial conflict in Northern Ireland.
