Civic Nationalism Versus Ethnic Nationalism
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Civic Nationalism Versus Ethnic Nationalism
Civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism are two influential ways of explaining how nations define membership, identity, and political belonging. Civic nationalism generally presents the nation as a community of citizens united by laws, institutions, political values, and participation in public life. Ethnic nationalism defines national membership more strongly through ancestry, inherited culture, language, religion, historical memory, or claims of common descent.
The distinction is often used to contrast inclusive and democratic forms of nationalism with exclusionary or authoritarian ones. Civic nationalism is commonly associated with equal citizenship, constitutional government, and voluntary political loyalty, while ethnic nationalism is associated with inherited identity and restrictions on who can fully belong. However, the historical and scholarly literature shows that the difference is rarely absolute. Most nations combine political institutions with cultural traditions, collective memories, territorial attachments, and ideas about a shared past.
The Meaning of Civic Nationalism
Civic nationalism defines the nation primarily as a political community. Membership is theoretically open to people who accept the country’s laws, institutions, constitutional principles, and responsibilities of citizenship. Under this model, ancestry is not supposed to determine whether someone can become a full member of the nation.
Important civic-nationalist ideas include equal citizenship, democratic participation, constitutional rights, loyalty to public institutions, and shared responsibility for the political community. Ernest Renan’s description of the nation as an ongoing act of consent helped establish the idea that nations could be based on a willingness to live together rather than race, religion, or language alone.
Later thinkers developed related concepts such as constitutional patriotism. This approach argues that citizens can form political solidarity around democratic institutions, civil rights, public debate, and constitutional principles without requiring a common ethnic origin.
Civic nationalism can support political equality and social cooperation. Shared national identity may encourage citizens to accept common obligations, contribute to public institutions, support social welfare, and participate in democratic government. Liberal nationalists therefore argue that democratic societies should not abandon national identity to authoritarian or xenophobic movements.
The Meaning of Ethnic Nationalism
Ethnic nationalism defines the nation through inherited characteristics such as ancestry, language, religion, culture, historical territory, or presumed common descent. Membership may be treated as something acquired by birth rather than political choice.
Ethnic nationalism often portrays the nation as an extended historical family. National identity is connected to myths of origin, collective memories, traditional customs, sacred places, and stories of survival or struggle. These cultural bonds can create strong solidarity, especially among communities seeking independence, recognition, or protection from foreign domination.
However, ethnic nationalism can also restrict belonging. Minorities, immigrants, religious communities, and people of mixed ancestry may be viewed as less authentic members of the nation even when they possess legal citizenship. Political leaders may use ethnic definitions of nationality to claim that one cultural or religious group is the permanent owner of the state.
When ethnic nationalism becomes politically dominant, it may contribute to discrimination, forced assimilation, population removal, territorial conflict, or political violence. It can also weaken democratic equality by separating formal citizenship from supposedly authentic national membership.
The Limits of the Civic–Ethnic Distinction
Many scholars criticize the idea that nations can be neatly divided into civic and ethnic categories. Nations commonly described as civic still depend on language, historical memory, national symbols, cultural practices, territorial myths, and inherited institutions. Likewise, movements described as ethnic may support citizenship, democratic participation, and inclusive political institutions.
The distinction has also been criticized for creating a misleading geographical contrast between a supposedly liberal and civic West and an ethnic and authoritarian East. Historical studies show that Western states were also shaped by colonialism, racial hierarchy, religious exclusion, forced assimilation, and restrictions on citizenship.
Scholars including Bernard Yack, Anthony D. Smith, Taras Kuzio, Stephen Shulman, and others argue that purely civic nations may be largely mythical. Political communities do not begin with neutral constitutional principles alone. They usually inherit languages, borders, institutions, historical narratives, and cultural expectations that influence who is recognized as belonging.
The civic–ethnic framework may still be useful when treated as a spectrum rather than a strict division. National identities may contain civic, cultural, territorial, religious, linguistic, and genealogical elements in different proportions.
Civic Nationalism and Democratic Government
Civic nationalism is often connected to constitutional democracy because it places citizenship above ancestry. In principle, every citizen has equal political status regardless of racial, ethnic, or religious background.
An inclusive national identity can help democratic institutions function by encouraging trust, participation, and acceptance of common rules. Citizens may be more willing to support public education, social welfare, taxation, and shared national responsibilities when they believe they belong to the same political community.
Research also suggests that national attachment does not automatically undermine democracy. Citizens may feel strong loyalty to their country while supporting democratic institutions and minority rights. The political consequences depend on how the nation is defined and how leaders mobilize national identity.
Problems arise when political elites claim that only one ethnic, religious, or cultural group represents the real nation. Majoritarian leaders may portray minorities as guests, outsiders, or threats even when those minorities possess full citizenship. This transforms democratic majority rule into ethnonational ownership of the state.
Immigration, Integration, and National Belonging
Immigration reveals many of the tensions within civic nationalism. A civic nation may formally welcome immigrants who accept its laws and political principles. Yet newcomers may still encounter cultural expectations concerning language, religion, behavior, history, and national values.
Some scholars argue that civic values can become informal tests of exclusion. Immigrants may be told that they can belong only if they demonstrate adherence to a dominant interpretation of secularism, liberalism, gender equality, or national culture. These demands may be applied more harshly to Muslim, African, Asian, or other minority populations than to members of the historic majority.
Studies of European countries show that civic nationalism is generally more inclusive than ancestry-based nationalism, but it is not automatically free from prejudice. Liberal values may be used to portray minority communities as culturally incompatible with the nation.
Successful civic integration therefore requires more than legal citizenship. It also depends on equal access to education, employment, political representation, language instruction, public institutions, and protection from discrimination.
Minority Rights and Multiethnic States
Multiethnic states face the challenge of building a common political identity without erasing cultural differences. Civic nationalism offers one possible framework by emphasizing shared citizenship while allowing communities to retain distinct languages, religions, and traditions.
The experience of countries such as Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia, South Korea, Kenya, and several European states shows that inclusive laws alone are insufficient. Language barriers, unequal political participation, regional inequality, discrimination, and distrust can prevent minorities from identifying with the state.
A stable civic nation must make citizenship meaningful in practice. Minority communities must be able to participate in government, receive equal treatment, preserve cultural institutions, and view the state as their own.
Attempts to create unity through forced cultural assimilation may undermine civic loyalty. When national unity is defined as conformity to the majority culture, the distinction between civic and ethnic nationalism becomes difficult to maintain.
Regional and Historical Examples
South Korea has historically emphasized ethnic homogeneity and common ancestry. Immigration, demographic change, democracy, technology, and popular culture are contributing to a broader understanding of Korean identity based increasingly on citizenship and social participation.
Taiwan provides another example of changing national identity. Political attachment to democratic institutions and Taiwanese citizenship has increasingly competed with older ethnic and historical identification with China. Political parties have adjusted their positions as public opinion has moved toward a distinct civic Taiwanese identity.
India was founded with a constitutionally pluralistic and civic conception of citizenship. The rise of Hindu nationalism has created tension between equal constitutional membership and the idea that Hindu culture forms the authentic core of the nation.
Russia has struggled to balance an ethnic Russian identity with the need to govern a multiethnic federation. Civic descriptions of Russian citizenship coexist with imperial history, Orthodox Christianity, Soviet memory, and ethnonationalist political movements.
Kenyan opposition movements have at times promoted civic nationalism based on constitutionalism, democracy, equality, and shared citizenship across ethnic lines. This demonstrates how civic national identity can be mobilized against ethnic political division.
Scottish nationalism is usually described as civic because it emphasizes residence, democratic participation, and political values rather than ancestry. Nevertheless, political ideology can itself become a boundary marker when Scotland is portrayed as socially democratic in contrast to a supposedly neoliberal England.
Nationalism, Conflict, and Political Violence
Both civic and ethnic nationalism establish boundaries between members and nonmembers. Even a civic nation defines a territory, political community, legal jurisdiction, and set of obligations. Those boundaries can become exclusionary when certain populations are denied citizenship or treated as security threats.
Ethnic nationalism carries an especially strong risk of conflict when political leaders connect national survival to demographic control, territorial ownership, or cultural purity. Minorities may be portrayed as disloyal populations, foreign agents, or obstacles to national unity.
Nationalist conflict is not caused by identity alone. Political institutions, elite strategies, economic insecurity, territorial disputes, historical grievances, and propaganda influence whether national identity becomes violent.
Wartime nationalism can also combine civic and ethnic elements. A population may unite around independence, democracy, and territorial defense while drawing upon inherited language, religion, culture, and historical memory.
Liberal Nationalism and Constitutional Patriotism
Liberal nationalism attempts to combine national solidarity with individual rights, democratic government, and cultural pluralism. Its supporters argue that democratic societies require a sense of common purpose and cannot rely solely on abstract legal rules.
An inclusive national narrative can recognize historical traditions while allowing newcomers and minorities to become full participants. Rather than defining the nation through blood or ancestry, liberal nationalism treats national culture as something that can change through political participation and social interaction.
Constitutional patriotism places greater emphasis on loyalty to democratic principles and institutions. Citizens are united through commitment to constitutional rights, public reasoning, and democratic participation rather than a single inherited culture.
Critics argue that constitutional principles alone may not create the emotional attachment necessary for lasting solidarity. Even constitutional patriotism operates within states shaped by particular languages, histories, borders, and political traditions.
The Continuing Debate
The debate between civic and ethnic nationalism remains important because it concerns who belongs, who governs, and how political communities justify their boundaries. It also shapes policies involving immigration, citizenship, minority rights, language, education, religion, and territorial sovereignty.
The strongest evidence suggests that civic and ethnic nationalism should not be viewed as entirely separate forms. National identities usually combine political membership with cultural attachment. The central question is not whether a nation possesses culture or history, but whether those features are used to include new members or permanently exclude them.
Nationalism becomes more compatible with democracy when citizenship is equal, membership is open, minorities are protected, and national identity can evolve. It becomes more dangerous when ancestry, religion, or culture are used to deny citizens equal standing or to portray minorities as enemies of the nation.
Conclusion
Civic nationalism offers a vision of national belonging based on citizenship, democratic institutions, political participation, and shared responsibility. Ethnic nationalism emphasizes ancestry, inherited culture, historical memory, religion, language, and common descent.
Neither model exists in a completely pure form. Civic nations retain cultural histories, while ethnic communities may develop democratic and inclusive political institutions. The distinction is therefore most useful as a way of examining competing tendencies within national movements rather than assigning every country to a fixed category.
The democratic value of nationalism depends on how national membership is defined and practiced. An inclusive national identity can support solidarity, equality, and participation. An exclusionary identity can transform cultural difference into political hierarchy, discrimination, and conflict. The continuing challenge is to build political communities that create meaningful solidarity without denying equal belonging to minorities, immigrants, or citizens with different cultural backgrounds.
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Foundations and General Theories of Nationalism
Why Nationalism Works
| Andreas Wimmer | Foreign Affairs | February 12, 2019
Wimmer argues that nationalism helped create political equality, mass participation, public education, and social welfare within nation-states. He cautions that separating nationalism into entirely good civic and entirely bad ethnic forms is misleading because virtually all nations combine political principles with cultural boundaries.
Development and the Crisis of Global Nationalism
| Prasenjit Duara | Brookings Institution | October 4, 2018
Duara contrasts ethnic nationalism based on race, religion, and language with civic nationalism that extends equal rights to citizens regardless of background. He examines how postcolonial states attempted inclusive nation-building and how economic instability has contributed to renewed ethnic exclusivism.
Civic and Ethnic Nations and Nationalism
| Stephen Shulman | Canadian Journal of Political Science | December 2002
Shulman challenges the conventional belief that Western nations are civic while Eastern nations are ethnic. Using survey evidence, he argues that countries in both regions combine civic, cultural, and ancestry-based understandings of national membership.
The Nation: Invented, Imagined, Reconstructed
| Anthony D. Smith | Millennium: Journal of International Studies | 1991
Smith reviews theories portraying nations as invented or imagined modern communities. He argues that modern civic nations usually depend on older ethnic memories, myths, symbols, traditions, and attachments that political institutions cannot simply manufacture from nothing.
National Identity
| Anthony D. Smith | University of Nevada Press | 1991
This foundational book distinguishes territorial-civic and ethnic-genealogical models of national identity. Smith explains that most actual nations combine legal institutions and territorial citizenship with shared myths, historical memories, cultural practices, and claims of common descent.
Nationality and Nationalism
| Hans Kohn | D. C. Heath and Company | 1965
This overview presents nationalism as a historical movement capable of supporting both political emancipation and ethnic domination. It provides a concise introduction to Kohn’s influential distinction between voluntary political nations and communities defined through inherited culture and descent.
The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in Its Origins and Background
| Hans Kohn | Macmillan | 1944
Kohn’s influential study established the classic distinction between Western civic nationalism, associated with political liberty and citizenship, and Eastern ethnic nationalism, associated with culture, ancestry, and organic community. Later scholars have extensively criticized this geographical and moral division.
What Is a Nation?
| Ernest Renan | Sorbonne Lecture | March 11, 1882
Renan rejects race, language, religion, geography, and dynastic rule as sufficient foundations of nationhood. He describes a nation as a continuing act of political consent grounded in shared memories, present solidarity, and the willingness of people to live together.
Critiques of the Civic–Ethnic Dichotomy
The Evolution of the Civic–Ethnic Distinction as a Partial Success Story
| Florian G. Kern | Nations and Nationalism | March 14, 2023
This scholarly article traces the development of the civic–ethnic distinction in nationalism research. It evaluates the usefulness of separating voluntary, citizenship-based membership from ancestry-based membership while explaining why real national identities rarely fit neatly into either category.
The Persistence of the Civic–Ethnic Binary
| Matthew Blackburn | National Identities | 2022
This article explains why scholars and political commentators continue to contrast progressive civic nationalism with reactionary ethnic nationalism despite sustained criticism of the distinction. It argues that the binary often conceals competing political understandings of Western national identity.
The History of the Dichotomy of Civic Western and Ethnic Eastern Nationalism
| André Liebich | National Identities | 2022
This article traces the intellectual history of the claim that Western nationalism is civic while Eastern nationalism is ethnic. It explains how the distinction became embedded in nationalism studies despite methodological criticism and evidence of ethnic exclusion within Western countries.
Decolonizing the Civic–Ethnic Binary
| Meghan Tinsley | Current Sociology | 2019
This article criticizes the civic–ethnic distinction from a postcolonial perspective. It argues that supposedly inclusive civic nations were historically constructed through colonialism and racial exclusion, making imperial relations central rather than incidental to modern national identity.
National Identity and the Kohn Dichotomy
| John Coakley | Nationalities Papers | 2018
This article reassesses Hans Kohn’s division between civic Western nationalism and ethnic Eastern nationalism. It explores whether survey evidence supports the distinction and concludes that national identities normally combine political, territorial, cultural, and descent-based criteria.
The Ethnic–Civic Dichotomy and the Explanation of National Self-Understanding
| Cyril Jayet | European Journal of Sociology | 2012
This article evaluates whether the civic–ethnic distinction adequately explains national self-understanding. It argues that national identities cannot be reduced to one dimension because political institutions, ancestry, religion, culture, language, and territory interact in different combinations.
Western Civic Versus Eastern Ethnic Nationalism: The Origins and Critique of the Dichotomy
| Krzysztof Jaskułowski | Polish Sociological Review | 2010
This article traces the influential theory that Western nationalism is civic and democratic while Eastern nationalism is ethnic and authoritarian. It argues that this geographical division reflects ideological assumptions and overlooks exclusion, coercion, and cultural nationalism in Western states.
The Myth of the Civic State: A Critical Survey of Hans Kohn’s Framework
| Taras Kuzio | Ethnic and Racial Studies | 2002
This influential critique argues that Hans Kohn’s portrayal of Western nationalism as liberal and civic and Eastern nationalism as authoritarian and ethnic does not reflect historical reality. It highlights cultural exclusion, assimilation, imperialism, and racial hierarchy within Western nation-states.
Questioning the Ethnic–Civic Dichotomy
| Michel Seymour | Canadian Journal of Philosophy | 1996
This introduction examines controversies surrounding Quebec nationalism and the tendency to classify it as either civic or ethnic. It argues that moral judgments about nationalist movements are often hidden within supposedly neutral academic categories.
The Myth of the Civic Nation
| Bernard Yack | Critical Review | 1996
Yack argues that the image of a purely voluntary civic nation is misleading because political communities are always shaped by inherited memories, traditions, myths, and cultural attachments. The article is a foundational critique of the sharp distinction between civic and ethnic nationalism.
Civic Nationalism: Oxymoron?
| Nicholas Xenos | Critical Review | 1996
Xenos argues that civic nationalism is internally contradictory because nation-states depend on myths of natural community even when they claim to rest entirely on political consent. He questions whether nationalism can ever be separated from inherited culture and imagined historical continuity.
Civic Nationalism, Democracy, and Liberal Patriotism
National Identity and Democratic Trajectories
| David Gabrielsson and Others | Ethnic and Racial Studies | 2025
This comparative study finds that countries whose citizens define national membership through involuntary characteristics such as ancestry tend to have weaker democratic outcomes. The danger becomes greater when political elites actively mobilize these exclusionary understandings of nationhood.
Nationalism and Political Support: Longitudinal Evidence from Germany
| Markus Mußotter | West European Politics | 2025
This study uses longitudinal evidence from Germany to investigate nationalism’s relationship with confidence in democratic institutions. It finds that national attachment can coexist with democratic satisfaction, complicating assumptions that all nationalism necessarily undermines liberal government.
Twelve Theses on Nationalism
| William A. Galston | Brookings Institution | August 12, 2019
This essay offers a framework for distinguishing nationalism from patriotism and defining the conditions of national membership. It explains that ethnic nations treat descent as necessary for belonging, while more civic conceptions allow newcomers to adopt a country’s institutions, history, responsibilities, and common future.
Why Nationalism
| G. John Ikenberry | Foreign Affairs | April 16, 2019
This review considers Yael Tamir’s argument that liberal political movements abandoned nationalism after its association with Nazism, ethnic cleansing, and war. It discusses whether an inclusive national community can sustain redistribution and democratic solidarity without becoming ethnically exclusionary.
The Power of Liberal Nationalism
| Yael Tamir | Journal of Democracy | 2019
This article argues that defenders of democracy should develop inclusive national narratives rather than surrender national identity to nativist movements. Tamir presents liberal nationalism as a possible source of solidarity, social responsibility, and democratic participation in ethnically diverse societies.
In Defense of a Reasonable Patriotism
| William A. Galston | Brookings Institution | August 23, 2018
This essay distinguishes attachment to a political community from nationalism based on the fusion of ethnicity and state sovereignty. It argues that democratic societies need shared loyalty but warns that purely civic principles may be insufficient unless connected to a meaningful history and political community.
Constitutional Democracy and Civic Nationalism
| Donald Ipperciel | Nations and Nationalism | 2007
This article examines the relationship between constitutional democracy and civic nationalism. It argues that shared constitutional principles can support national solidarity without requiring common ancestry, while recognizing that civic identities still depend on institutions, collective memories, and political education.
Does Liberal Democracy Presuppose a Cultural Nation? Four Arguments
| Arash Abizadeh | American Political Science Review | September 2002
This article evaluates claims that democratic institutions require a shared national culture. Abizadeh argues that liberal democracy does not necessarily depend on cultural or ethnic homogeneity and considers alternative foundations for political trust, communication, and social integration.
Citizenship and National Identity: Some Reflections on the Future of Europe
| Jürgen Habermas | Praxis International | 1992
Habermas develops the idea of constitutional patriotism as an alternative to ethnic nationalism. He argues that citizens can form political solidarity around democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and public participation rather than common ancestry or a homogeneous culture.
Citizenship, Immigration, and Minority Inclusion
Dutch National Identity in a Majority-Minority Context
| Mariska Lazëri and Others | Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies | 2023
This article explores how Dutch national identity is understood in urban settings where people of immigrant backgrounds form a large share of the population. It examines whether civic definitions of Dutchness genuinely promote inclusion or continue to contain unspoken ethnic and cultural boundaries.
Georgia’s Minorities: Breaking Down Barriers to Integration
| Thomas de Waal | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | June 9, 2021
This report examines Georgia’s attempts to build an inclusive civic nation while protecting Armenian, Azerbaijani, and other minority identities. It shows how language barriers, weak institutions, unequal political participation, and distrust can undermine civic integration even when inclusive laws formally exist.
Conceptions of National Identity and Ambivalence Towards Immigration
This study explores how people may hold civic and ethnocultural understandings of national identity simultaneously. It argues that these overlapping ideas can produce conflicting attitudes toward immigration rather than a simple division between inclusive civic nationalism and exclusionary ethnic nationalism.
Is Civic Nationalism Necessarily Inclusive? Conceptions of Nationhood and Anti-Muslim Attitudes in Europe
Using survey data from 41 European countries, this article tests whether civic definitions of nationhood consistently produce tolerant attitudes. It finds that civic nationalism is generally more inclusive but can become exclusionary when liberal values are used to portray Muslims as culturally incompatible with the nation.
Is It Really About Values? Civic Nationalism and Migrant Integration
| Stephen J. Larin | Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies | 2020
This article challenges the claim that immigrants become integrated simply by accepting a nation’s declared political values. It argues that appeals to civic values can function as symbolic tests controlling who is admitted while ignoring the economic and social relationships through which integration actually occurs.
South Korea’s Demographic Changes and Their Political Impact
| Katharine H.S. Moon | Brookings Institution | October 26, 2015
This paper examines how immigration and demographic change challenge South Korea’s longstanding image as an ethnically homogeneous nation. It discusses whether democratic citizenship and inclusive institutions can replace ancestry as the primary foundation of Korean national identity.
Nationalism, Exclusion, Conflict, and Mobilization
Nationalism, Conflict and Violence: A Comprehensive Approach
| Saša Božić | Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research | 2026
This article examines the complex relationships among nationalism, political conflict, and violence. It discusses how Ukraine’s wartime national identity increasingly combines civic commitments to freedom and independence with inherited cultural and ethnic traditions.
Majoritarianism Without Majorities
| Kanchan Chandra | Journal of Democracy | October 2024
This article examines how ethnonationalist leaders manufacture the idea of a permanent national majority even when the population contains multiple overlapping identities. It argues that democratic theory must address the exclusion that can occur when ethnic or religious majorities claim exclusive ownership of the nation.
Nationalism and Ethnic Mobilization: Toward an Integrated Perspective
| Manuel Vogt | Nationalities Papers | 2022
This article reviews research on nationalism and ethnic political mobilization. It develops an integrated approach for understanding how political movements activate ethnic identities through territorial claims, institutional competition, historical narratives, and strategies of inclusion or exclusion.
This Is Your Brain on Nationalism
| William J. Burns | Foreign Affairs | February 12, 2019
This article investigates the emotional and psychological power of national identity. It explains how ordinary civic attachment can create solidarity while also warning that nationalist narratives can escalate into dehumanization when political leaders portray minorities or foreigners as existential enemies.
Nationalism, Exclusion and Violence: A Territorial Approach
| John Etherington | Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism | 2007
Etherington challenges the assumption that civic nationalism is inherently nonviolent and inclusive. He argues that even citizenship-based nations define territorial boundaries and determine who belongs within them, creating potential mechanisms of exclusion.
Us and Them
| Jerry Z. Muller | Foreign Affairs | March 2, 2008
Muller examines the continuing political power of ethnic nationalism and argues that national states have often become stable only after populations were separated or homogenized. The article offers a controversial counterpoint to the belief that civic institutions alone can overcome ethnonational conflict.
Regional and National Case Studies
The Transformation of South Korean Progressive Foreign Policy
| Darcie Draudt-Véjares | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | May 29, 2025
This analysis examines how South Korean national identity is gradually shifting from an emphasis on common ancestry and ethnic homogeneity toward identification with democracy, technological achievement, and popular culture. It shows how younger generations are increasingly separating Korean citizenship from traditional ideas of shared bloodlines.
Forms of National and European Identity: A Research Note Reviewing Literature of Cross-National Studies
| Pascal König | Nationalities Papers | 2024
This research review examines civic, ethnic, cultural, and European identities across national surveys. It emphasizes that civic nationalism is rarely culturally neutral and that both civic and ethnic understandings usually contain overlapping historical and cultural elements.
From Dove to Hawk: KMT’s Transformation and the Quest for New Guardrails in Cross-Strait Relations
| Diana Fu and Ryan Hass | Brookings Institution | October 12, 2023
This article describes the Kuomintang’s movement away from traditional Chinese ethnic nationalism toward a Taiwanese civic nationalism based on democratic institutions, political autonomy, and shared citizenship. It demonstrates how national identity can change when political parties respond to democratic public opinion.
Nationalism and National Identity in North America
| Dustin P. Byrd | Nationalities Papers | 2023
This article surveys research on nationalism and national identity in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It explains how different definitions of national belonging influence attitudes toward immigration, minority rights, citizenship, foreign policy, and political participation.
Nationalism and Sport Intersection in Hungary
| Gyozo Molnár | National Identities | 2023
This study examines how sport is used to communicate competing versions of Hungarian identity. It contrasts formally inclusive civic nationalism with right-wing political narratives that connect authentic Hungarian belonging to ancestry, traditional culture, and historical territory.
Is India Becoming an Ethnic Democracy?
| Christophe Jaffrelot | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | November 21, 2022
This discussion considers whether India’s formally inclusive constitutional order is being transformed into a political system that privileges the Hindu majority. It illustrates the tension between civic citizenship and ethnoreligious definitions of national belonging.
The Civic Road to Secession: Political Ideology as an Ethnic Boundary Marker in Scottish Nationalism
| David E. Paul | Nationalism and Ethnic Politics | 2020
This article analyzes Scottish nationalism’s use of political ideology as a marker of national difference. It shows how an officially civic movement can distinguish an allegedly social-democratic Scotland from a neoliberal England, creating boundaries without relying primarily on ancestry.
The BJP in Power: Indian Democracy and Religious Nationalism
| Milan Vaishnav | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | April 4, 2019
This collection examines how Hindu nationalism has reshaped Indian politics, secularism, economic policy, and foreign relations. It provides a major case study of tension between India’s constitutionally civic and pluralistic identity and a majoritarian conception of the nation centered on Hindu culture.
The New Nationalism
| Various Authors | Foreign Affairs | February 12, 2019
This collection examines the worldwide resurgence of nationalism and debates its relationship to democracy, social solidarity, globalization, immigration, and ethnic exclusion. Several contributors question whether civic and ethnic nationalism can be cleanly separated in political practice.
Before There Is Power, There Is the Country: Civic Nationalism and Political Mobilisation Amongst Kenya’s Opposition Coalitions, 2013–2018
| Peter Lockwood | Journal of Modern African Studies | 2019
This ethnographic study examines civic nationalism among Kenyan opposition supporters. It finds that activists from different ethnic communities mobilized around democracy, constitutionalism, equality, due process, and shared citizenship rather than relying exclusively on ethnic political loyalties.
A Half-Wild Beast: A History of Nationalism and Its Many Discontents
| James Wolcott | Vanity Fair | March 2018
This historical overview explores the many competing meanings of nationalism, ranging from civic identification with institutions to doctrines of racial purity and national superiority. It shows why debates over nationalism and patriotism remain politically charged and conceptually difficult.
Putin’s Regime and the Ideological Market: A Difficult Balancing Game
| Andrei Kolesnikov | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | March 16, 2017
This analysis examines how the Russian government balances imperial, statist, Soviet, civic, and ethnic nationalist narratives. It shows how a regime can use broad patriotic language while tolerating or selectively suppressing more explicitly ethnonationalist movements.
The Determinants of Civic and Ethnic Nationalisms in Kazakhstan
| Dina Sharipova | Nationalism and Ethnic Politics | 2017
This study investigates the social and political factors that encourage civic or ethnic understandings of nationhood in Kazakhstan. It considers how language, ethnicity, education, region, Soviet history, and government policy affect identification with the multiethnic state.
Nationalism and Brexit
| John Breuilly | Oxford University Press Blog | December 18, 2016
Breuilly defines civic nationalism as an emphasis on shared beliefs and values and ethnic nationalism as an emphasis on common descent. He cautions against treating the former as automatically good and the latter as automatically bad because all national movements combine cultural, historical, political, and institutional elements.
Constitutional Visions of the Nation and Multi-Ethnic Societies in Europe
| András Jakab | Cambridge University Press | April 5, 2016
This chapter examines how European constitutions describe nations and political communities. It shows that constitutional language often blends civic membership based on citizenship with references to history, culture, language, homeland, or dominant ethnic communities.
The Legacies of 1989: The Moving Ruins
| Vladimir Tismaneanu | Journal of Democracy | October 2014
This essay reassesses civic society, national belonging, and political identity in post-communist Eastern Europe. It considers how the democratic civic ideals of 1989 competed with ethnic nationalism, historical grievances, authoritarian populism, and exclusionary definitions of the nation.
What Are Russians Celebrating on June 12?
| Alexey Levinson | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | June 10, 2013
This commentary argues that a durable political nation in multiethnic Russia must be civic rather than ethnically Russian. It defines civic nationhood through citizenship, solidarity, shared responsibility, and participation rather than ancestry or a single ethnic history.
Thoughts on the Republic of China and Its Significance
| Richard C. Bush | Brookings Institution | January 24, 2013
Bush contrasts ethnic identification with Chinese or Taiwanese ancestry and civic attachment to democratic institutions in Taiwan. He argues that the struggle between these forms of nationalism has important consequences for Taiwan’s sovereignty, political unity, and relationship with China.
Post-Imperium: A Eurasian Story
| Dmitri Trenin | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | February 2012
Trenin discusses Russia’s struggle to move beyond imperial identity and ethnic nationalism by constructing a nation of citizens. He argues that meaningful civic nationhood requires political participation and a shared sense of responsibility for public life.
Nationalism in Europe and America: Politics, Cultures, and Identities Since 1775
| Foreign Affairs Editors | Foreign Affairs | January 1, 2012
This review questions the familiar claim that American and Western European nationalism is primarily civic while Central and Eastern European nationalism is primarily ethnic. It emphasizes the cultural myths, historical memories, and exclusionary practices found within supposedly civic nations.
Russia: Will Ethnic Violence Ever End?
| Marzia Cimmino | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | May 5, 2011
This article examines racist violence and xenophobia in the Russian Federation. It argues that criminal penalties alone cannot resolve ethnic conflict and that Russia needs a civic identity capable of including its many ethnic, linguistic, and religious communities.
Nationalism and Ethnic and Civic Identities in Russia
| Valery Tishkov | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | September 19, 2007
Tishkov discusses efforts to consolidate Russia’s many ethnic and religious communities into a broad civic nation. The presentation addresses the relationship between majority ethnic identity, minority protections, citizenship, and the construction of a multiethnic Russian political community.
The East European Ethnic Nation—Myth or Reality?
| Fredrika Björklund | European Journal of Political Research | 2006
Using surveys from Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, this article tests the stereotype that East Europeans define their nations primarily through ethnicity. The findings challenge the sharp geographical division between civic Western nations and ethnic Eastern nations.
Contrasting Indonesia and Malay(si)a: National Identities
| Peter Kreuzer | National Identities | 2006
This comparative article challenges the expectation that civic nationalism is always more integrative than ethnocultural nationalism. It argues that Malaysia’s ethnocultural nation-building sometimes produced greater stability and integration than the formally civic nationalism promoted in Indonesia.
Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany
| Rogers Brubaker | Harvard University Press | 1992
Brubaker compares French and German traditions of citizenship, associating France with territorial and state-centered nationhood and Germany with ethnocultural nationhood. The book also demonstrates how institutions and political history shape apparently civic or ethnic definitions of membership.
