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The major approaches to the study of nations and national identity are represented by “modernist” and “primordial” traditions in the West, and by “socio-spherical” and “bio-spherical” traditions in the Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine. However, there are similar trends in the study of nationalism generally.

In the West following the Second World War, Hugh Seton-Watson (1977) drew a distinction between “old” and “new” nations, replacing the nineteenth-century distinction between “historic” and “non-historic” nations of mostly Western and Eastern European origin respectively. In the 1960s, Miroslav Hroch (1985) defined three major periods of national revival in Europe concerning, largely, the category of “new” nations. Two major trends in the studies of nationalism developed, since then, in order to explain the origin of nations—primordialism and modernism. Clifford Geertz (1962) and later Anthony Smith (1983) argued that there were primordial or perennial elements in the history of nations that link them with their particular ethnic and religious past, while modernists like Ernest Gellner (1983), Eric Hobsbawm (1990) and Benedict Anderson (1991) insisted that nations are a purely modern phenomenon, “imagined” to a large extent with the spread of mass communication and literacy. Both trends continue their existence in the present and more or less dominate the study of nations and nationality in Europe.

In the Soviet Union, a separate school of thought developed that combined elements of both modernist and primordialist perspectives. A “Marxist-Leninist” dogma on nations and nationalism was postulated by Joseph Stalin (1947), and developed subsequently by several generations of Soviet ethnographers. Whatever the merits of this perspective, the Soviet state was committed to implementing a nationality policy that was consistent with it, and in so doing, it created a national hierarchy which continued to affect social processes, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and to this day.

Although the large amount of literature produced on nations and nationalism is said to have resulted in an “overproduction of theories,” in fact neither of the two dominant currents of thought on the subject has succeeded in producing a definitive breakthrough. Rogers Brubaker has concluded that perhaps there is no possibility of creating a valid comprehensive theory:

The search for “a” or “the” theory of nationalism—like the search for “a” or “the” solution to nationalist conflicts—is in my view misguided: for the theoretical problems associated with nationhood and nationalism, like the practical political problems, are multiform and varied, and not susceptible of resolution through a single theoretical (or practical) approach. (Brubaker 1998, 301)

Ironically, Brubaker arrived at this conclusion at the end of a collection of articles reflecting on Ernest Gellner’s philosophical heritage, and Gellner is generally credited with producing a theory of nationalism that is, as yet, unmatched. Gellner’s theory (Gellner 1983), which defines the causes of nationalism within the framework of a modernization paradigm, has been criticized for its functionalism and reductionism. Gellner believed that nations and nationalism are related to the transition from agrarian to scientific-industrial society, the latter requiring a homogeneous society based on one high culture. Single high cultures within single states that are reproduced by a centralized education system require a common language. The necessity, for a modern industrial economy, of a common language, education and high culture within the boundaries of a single political unit, was the basis for the creation of the “nation.”

For Gellner, the principle of one culture, one state is the essence of nationalism. However, he distinguished four basic forms of nationalism (1983, 1997):

1 Early Industrialism Nationalism without an ethnic catalyst within strong Dynastic states such as those based in Lisbon, Madrid, Paris and London. Power-holders in these states on the Atlantic coast of Europe shared the same culture as their subjects long before the age of nationalism arrived, so when it did arrive the State and culture already constituted one unit.

2 Classical Unification (Western) Nationalism, which was the model of national unification in nineteenth-century Germany and Italy, when already existing high cultures needed to acquire a political roof that would correspond to those culture states.

3 Classical Habsburg-East-and-South Nationalism, which arose when power-holders who shared a single high culture with their subjects sank into local folk and ethnically marked cultures, which might be turned into high cultures by the nationalist agitation of small groups of intelligentsia belonging to the same ethnic groups. If the efforts of intellectuals-awakeners succeeded, then such a group would create a state of its own that would reproduce a newly established or re-established high culture.

4 Diaspora Nationalism, or the nationalism of predominantly ethnically marked groups who served during the transition from Agraria to Industria as a “middle-man” between power-holders and the ruled. Being ethnically distinct from both the rulers and the ruled such historically dispersed groups as Jews, Greeks, Armenians and Parsis are good examples of Diaspora nationalism.

Gellner’s delineation of historical forms of nationalism sought also to reject at least four false theories of nationalism shared, at times, by nationalists, and at other times by scholars of nationalism, and sometimes by both. These are that nationalism is

1 Natural, self-evident and self-generating unless forcefully repressed;

2 A consequence of ideas that emerged as a result of a regrettable accident;

3 An awakening message that was intended for classes but that, by some error, was delivered to nations ( “the Wrong Address theory” favored by Marxism);

4 The re-emergence of atavistic notions of blood or territory (the “Dark Gods theory”).

Although most contemporary scholars agree that nationalism is a modern phenomenon, there is no consensus as to its causes or how it is related to processes of socio-economic modernization. Typologies of different forms of nationalism and their historical phases also vary widely. Scholars distinguish between Eastern and Western cultural and political, ethnic and civic, totalitarian and democratic, illiberal and liberal; aristocratic, bureaucratic, revolutionary, “actually existing” and even banal versions of nationalism. All of these and many other definitions use different criteria and approaches. The most important distinctions are discussed below.

Among the most “popular” distinctions of nationalism is that between Eastern and Western nationalism. After the Second World War, Hans Kohn (1944), and later John Plamenatz (1973), developed a set of criteria that defined Eastern nationalism as ethnocentric and irrational and Western nationalism as rational and liberal. Hans Kohn argued that the Renaissance and the Reformation in the West had produced a conception of nationality that related it to individual liberty and even rational cosmopolitanism. Nationalism in Germany, Central and Eastern Europe, and Asia, on the other hand, emerged without the “enlightenment” of a Renaissance and Reformation and on the basis of ethnographic demands. These later nationalisms “lacked self-assurance” and their “inferiority complex was often compensated by over-emphasis and overconfidence” (Kohn 1944, 330). In a similar vein, Plamenatz characterized Western nationalism as civilized and liberal, and the Eastern nationalism adopted by more primitive nations to the “East of Trieste,” as “nasty.” This distinction, however, included German and Italian nationalism in the Western model (Plamenatz 1973).

Anthony Smith defined a distinction between the civic and political nationalism of the West and an ethnic and genealogical Eastern variant. Smith, however, argued in his later works that these historical distinctions did not imply that one was necessarily better than the other. According to Smith, civic nations, which are more typical in the West

may demand eradication of minority cultures on the common assumption, shared by Marxists and liberals, not just of equality through uniformity, but also of the belief that the “high cultures” and “great nations” are necessarily of greater value than “low” cultures and small nations or ethnies.

In support of his arguments concerning the ethnic origin of nations, Smith further maintained that the “pedagogical narrative of Western democracies turns out to be every bit as demanding and rigorous—and in practice ethnically one-sided—as are those of non-Western authoritarian state-nations, since it assumes the assimilation of ethnic minorities within the borders of the national state through acculturation to a hegemonic majority ethnic culture” (Smith 1995: 101). In other words, Western civic nationalism is not necessarily as tolerant and ethnically unbiased as its self-image suggests. The distinctions defined between Eastern and Western, ethnic and civic nationalism, however, are widespread and difficult to avoid, as all scholars agree that there are differences in how nationalism evolved in various parts of Europe and in the world in general. The notion of “good” civic Western nationalism in relation to “bad” ethnic Eastern nationalism is especially widespread in the media, and in political rhetoric (and therefore in public discourse). However, this distinction is rather more deceiving than revealing.

So, is there a theoretical justification for distinguishing between Eastern and Western, Ethnic and Civic nationalism? Do these distinctions point to important and inherent characteristics of nationalism?

In fact, the cultural and political dimensions of nationalism have not been clearly and persuasively elaborated. An attempt by Michael Ignatieff (1993) to equate “ethnic” and “cultural” nationalisms in order to explain why such nationalisms tend to be exclusive, as opposed to civic inclusive nationalism, has been criticized as short-sighted. Will Kymlicka has argued that Ignatieff and others have defined a false distinction, since both ethnic and civic nationalisms have a cultural component. As he points out:

Membership in the American nation, just as in the Quebecois nation, involves participation in a common culture. It is a legal requirement for children to learn the English language and American history in schools, and all levels of American government had insisted that there is a legitimate governmental interest in promoting a common culture (Kymlicka 1999, 133).

Rogers Brubaker (1998) argued that the distinction between civic and ethnic nationhood and nationalism is both normatively and analytically problematic. His view is similar to Kymlicka’s: he argues that, if we consider what is cultural in ethnic nationalism, virtually all nationalisms would be coded as ethnic or ethnocultural. In this sense, even the “paradigmatic cases of civic nationalism—France and America—cease to be counted as civic nationalism, since they have a crucial cultural or ethnocultural component” (Brubaker 1998, 299).

An enquiry into the history of the American nation and nationalism brings yet another dimension to the discussion. Not all authors agree that the American nation is similar in nature to European ones such as, for instance, the German or French nations. It is argued that this nation of immigrants from Europe is inclusive, democratic and liberal in its nature and therefore is not a nation with an ethnic, “bad” nationalism (See Yack 1999). On the other hand, as Kymlicka argues, America’s civic nationalism has historically justified the conquering and colonizing of national minorities and the coercive imposition of English-language courts and schools. The experience of the United States, and of other American nations, namely those in Latin America, illustrates that civic nations can be military dictatorships as easily as liberal democracies (e.g., Peru and Brazil, which are multiethnic societies, granting equal citizenship to whites, blacks, Indians and Asians). According to Kymlicka, North Americans often overlook this fact, because they fail to distinguish immigrants from national minorities. In fact, nationalist policies of the U.S. government led to the forced incorporation of Indian tribes, native Hawaiians, and Puerto Ricans into the American state and their coerced assimilation into American culture. This is, according to Kymlicka, only one example of the link between aggressive expansionism and civic American nationalism.

However, other scholars have pointed out that there is a cultural aspect of American nationalism that has been evident in attempts to define an ideological norm for the American nation as a whole. As Anthony Richmond pointed out, the McCarthy era in the United States was an attempt to impose a single nationalistic ideology and to regard any non-conformity as “un-American” (Richmond 1984, 11). The British social psychologist Michel Billig, however, pointed out that such “philosophical” American nationalism is just as easily adaptable to the post-communist world. Since 1991, the old Soviet demons were quickly replaced in the nationalism of Pax Americana with new enemies: the religious fundamentalists and misguided extremists. He describes this as follows:

This philosophical nationalism, unlike some other forms, does not speak with narrow ferocity. Instead, it draws its moral force to lead the nations from its own proclaimed reasonableness. The global ambitions are to be presented as the voice of tolerance (‘our’ tolerance), even doubt (‘our’ doubt, ‘our’ modesty). All the while, ‘we’ are to keep a sense of ‘ourselves’. And a sense of ‘others’: the mad and the bad, who cling to dangerous absolutes, opposing ‘our’ pragmatic, non-ideological politics (Billig 1995, 172).

Billig calls this sort of nationalism “banal nationalism,” because it denies its own nationalism while arguing at the same time for loyalty to the nation-state, to “our” nation. Such banal nationalism is, in his opinion, typical for all Western democracies that deny that “their” nationalism is nationalist, because “it is a part of common-sense imaging of ‘us’, the democratic, tolerant and reasonable nation, rightfully inhabiting ‘our’ homeland” (Billig 1995, 161).

If, in fact, Western democracies are not less nationalist when it comes to “their” homeland, even though they repress and deny this fact, can nationalism be democratic and liberal? As Erica Benner (1995) discovered (in the writings of Marx and Engels), in the mid-nineteenth century nationalist movements in Europe were in fact either politically conservative or indeed democratic. In fact, this was, according to Benner, the main contribution of Marxism—to distinguish democratic and non-democratic nationalism and, thereby, to bring politics back into the study of nationalism. The founders of Marxism believed that both within oppressed nations and within their oppressor states, there were despotic as well as democratic nationalists, chauvinists and internationalists. Benner reflects on how Marx viewed the political nature of different nationalisms:

To be eligible for support, he argued a nationalist movement should demonstrate that it is authentically ‘national’ in his democratic sense: it should, that is, positively address the concerns of a broad section of a nation’s people by improving social conditions and expanding the bases of political participation. He cited the Krakow insurrection of 1846 as an example of such a movement, applauding not only the political reforms advanced by the nationalist rebels but also their social and economic programme which represented, as Marx declared, Poland’s attempt to ‘break the chains of feudalism’ (Benner 1995, 155).

If it was possible to distinguish democratic forms of nationalism among the nineteenth century nationalist movements struggling for the right of self-determination, is it possible to apply the same principles to contemporary Europe with mostly established frontiers? Is it possible to do so outside a Marxist paradigm that, in fact, proved ineffective in handling nationalism?

There is a growing school of thought suggesting that liberal nationalism is not only possible, but also the only acceptable future for nationalism, if it is to have any future at all. The Israeli scholar Yael Tamir (1993) proposed combining the liberal admiration of personal freedom and individual rights with the nationalist emphasis on belonging, loyalty and solidarity. Tamir believes that people have the right to their own culture, and that it is possible to provide them with this right within the framework of a liberal society, if equal opportunities are provided for all members of that society. A similar approach was suggested by Will Kymlicka. Kymlicka’s liberal theory of minority rights argues for “freedom within minority groups and equality between minority and majority groups” (Kymlicka 1995, 152). However, as Judith Lichtenberg argued, this poses the difficult question of whether the state may or must privilege certain cultural practices, and disadvantage others, in the interests of social unity. Indeed, how liberal can nationalism be within or beyond state borders? And if it can provide cultural equality within a state and internationally, which is a moral prerequisite of liberal nationalism, then how different would such nationalism be from a cosmopolitan perspective? If the answer to the latter question proves difficult, Lichtenberg believes that liberal nationalism might be hard to distinguish from cosmopolitan-ism (Lichtenberg 19991, 167-88). In fact, it is difficult to disagree with such an argument precisely because nationalism is understood as relating to a single culture in a single state. So, is there any “good” nationalism that is possible or necessary? In order to address this question, it is useful to consider the relationship between democracy and nationalism on the one hand, and patriotism and nationalism on the other hand.

It is easy to observe that both contemporary democracy and nationalism became potent movements at approximately the same time, after the French Revolution, when a new concept of nation was born, within which it was people who possessed the right of sovereignty, and not the rulers as before. So, despite the popular, but mistaken, belief that democracy has nothing in common with nationalism or at least with “bad” nationalism—scholars cannot ignore the fact that, in one way or another, there must be an important correlation between the two.

Jürgen Habermas has argued that the modern state solved two important problems by its unique fusion of state institutions and the homogenizing idea of the nation. The national state established a democratic mode of legitimation, and it provided a new and more abstract form of social integration. This, however, caused an uneasy tension between a nationalist and a republican self-understanding of national society. According to Habermas, the fate of democracy depends on which of these self-understandings dominates (1996, 281-294). The normative conclusion drawn from the European history of nation-states should therefore be simple: to get rid of that ambivalent potential of nationalism, which was originally the vehicle for its success, and to replace it with constitutional patriotism. Habermas admits, however, that in comparison with nationalism, constitutional patriotism appears too thin to hold societies together. He uses, as an example, the United States which, in his view, is the prototype of a country which is united by a civic patriotism that is ultimately self-defeating: for, as he argues, “surging fundamentalism and terrorism (such as in Oklahoma [the 1995 bombing]) are alarming signs that the safety curtain of a civil religion, interpreting a constitutional history of two hundred years, may be about to break” (Habermas 1996, 290).

Jack Snyder proposed an “elite-persuasion” theory of nationalism to explain the relationship between democratization and nationalist conflict. Snyder argues that democratization produces nationalism in the early stages of democracy building, when national elites use nationalism for their own self-interests in order to organize masses behind them for the tasks of war and economic development. Snyder explains the use of nationalism by national elites, historically first in Western Europe and later in Eastern Europe, as related, not to the logic of industrialization as Gellner argued, but to the weakness of political institutions at the time. Therefore, his elite-persuasion theory rests on the assumption that nationalism is an expression of weak developing democracies, “a disease of the transition” and that “proper” political institutions solve this problem of democratic growth (Snyder 2000, 352).

David Held argued in favor of cosmopolitan democracy, but he admits that nationalism was a critical force in the development of the democratic nation-state. According to Held, nationalism has been closely linked to the administrative unification of the state because the conditions involved in the creation of nationalism were often also the conditions that generated the modern state. Contrary to Snyder, who argues that mature democracies overcome the problem of nationalism, Held notes that “the importance of nation-state and nationalism, territorial independence, and the desire to establish or regain or maintain ‘sovereignty’ does not seem to have diminished in recent times” (Held 1995, 94). This is, in his view, connected to the fact that even liberal democracies, or perhaps liberal democracies most of all, need to maintain a common national identity in order to ensure the coordination of policy, mass mobilization and state legitimacy.

Two other important questions should be discussed here: is national consciousness a derivative of nationalism, or is the reverse the case? The “modernist” claim that nations were invented to meet the need of industrial society for a culturally homogeneous and literate environment logically implies that national identity is a consequence of this invention. However, as Philip Schlesinger notes, “Nationalism ... tends to carry the sense of a community mobilized in the pursuit of a collective interest.” However, national identity “may be invoked as a point of reference without necessarily being nationalistic” (Schlesinger 1987, 253).

There are, of course, historical periods when the construction of a national identity may be part of a nationalist program; however, national identity is not necessarily identical to nationalism as such. In other words, national identity and nationalism are different aspects of a more general phenomenon. It would be logical to assume that nationalism is only a part of national identity and that the latter does not have to be nationalistic. Just as national identity may contain other beliefs and myths, it can contain nationalism as a political principle or, as “modernists” would insist, nationalism as a myth. For instance, Gellner claims that:

Nationalism—the principle of homogeneous cultural units as the foundations of political life, and the obligatory cultural unity of rulers and ruled—is indeed inscribed neither in the nature of things, nor in the hearts of men, nor in the preconditions of social life in general, and the contention that it is so inscribed is a falsehood which nationalist doctrine has succeeded in presenting as self-evident. (Gellner 1983, 125)

Primordialists would argue, however, that the basis of nationalism is much more deeply rooted in the human belief of common ancestry (territorially defined) and destiny. For instance, Smith argues that: “Though nationalism as theory and ideology is quite modern (dating from the late eighteenth century in Europe), the identities on which it feeds and builds are either ancient and persistent, or preserved in memories and symbols that, given the right conditions, can serve as models for nation-creating nationalism” (Smith 1984, 289). In some sense, the set of these identities, memories and symbols can correspond to the belief system that we call patriotism. Gellner recognized nationalism as a species of patriotism distinguished by a few very important features: homogeneity, literacy, and anonymity (Gellner 1983, 138). However, as Morris Janovitz has pointed out, patriotism is as old as settled communities (Janovitz 1983).

It is also the case that nationalism as an ideology and doctrine habitually employs various myths as a means of subjugating the masses. As Hobsbawm notes: “Nationalism requires too much belief in what is patently not so. ‘Getting its history wrong is part of being a nation (Renan)’” (Hobsbawm 1990, 12).

Nationalists themselves are conscious of their usage of myths. For instance, Benito Mussolini argued that “Our myth is the greatness of the nation.”1 The same idea was expressed by the founder of Ukrainian integral nationalism, Dmytro Dontzov, who wrote in 1923 that each nation has and needs a myth for its own reinforcement (Dontzov 1966). We can conclude therefore that myth in nationalist ideology is required as a tool of mass mobilization. This function is not consistent with either modernist or primordialist conceptions of the transition to the era of nations and nationalism. As Anthony Smith has argued:

There can be no real ‘nation’ without its tacit myth of origins and descent, which defines the fictive kinship basis of the nation and explains the network of affective ties and sentiments. Indeed, together with the historical memories of successive generations of members, myths of descent furnish the cognitive maps and mobilizing moralities of nations as they struggle to win and maintain recognition today (Smith 1988b, 14).

When Habermas argues in favor of constitutional patriotism as an alternative to nationalism, he does not develop the idea of American civic patriotism as a “civic religion.” However, it is revealing that he defines (American) patriotism in terms of religion. In fact, one might consider religion a myth or belief system. In arguing that nationalism does not have to be ethnic, many scholars equate the civic belief system of the United States with civic nationalism. Therefore, we can conclude that nationalism as a belief system can and usually does include a set of myths as an essential part of its doctrine. At the same time, the structural and functional difference between nationalism and myth should be stressed. Insofar as a myth is included in nationalism as an ideological doctrine, it can be adequately included in national identity. In national identity, however, not only nationalists` myths but also other kinds of myths concerning the nature of nationhood and national belonging can be represented, even a cosmopolitan one. However, a belief about a cosmopolitan unity, as opposed to a national one, would have to develop in the evolution of the individual worldview within his/her national identity until a break with national belonging takes place.

The possibility of creating a cosmopolitan, non-national or even global democracy poses a serious challenge to the existing world order of nation-states. If Held is right in arguing that the universal political unification of the world into a system of nation-states was a result of European expansion in order to further its commerce and trade, it suggests that if the European Union replaces the nation-state principle with a supra-national principle, this will eventually became a world-wide movement. In other words, the development of the EU could be a test case for the future of the nation-state precisely because its development is driven by the logic of post-industrial economic development, just as the creation of the nation-state was driven by the logic of industrialization and modernization. Those who discount this possibility argue that, in fact, the national principle of state building may not be displaced by the successful integration of Europe. The European Union might become a super-power-type nation-state similar to the United States. A “United States of Europe” might become another civic nation similar to the American one, but based on a single European culture. Liah Greenfeld argues that potentially even a “United States of the World” would not necessarily depart from the principle of nationalism if sovereignty were vested in the population of the world and its various segments were regarded as equals (Greenfeld 1992).

Although the potential transformation of the EU into a single political unit is not likely to happen in the near future, it is possible to predict that such a federal Europe of countries, but not nation-states, would encounter the problem of developing a common identity capable of mass mobilization to the extent that national identity is capable of this within nation-states. However, as Anthony Giddens asks, would not a globalized democracy, featuring representative assemblies, meet with the same problems of apathy or hostility encountered at the national level? According to Giddens, “cosmopolitan democracy is not only about the movement of governance towards a world level, but about diffusion downwards to local regions” (Giddens 1998, 146). Again, the main reason states might devolve power upwards to institutions of global governance is not idealism but, according to Giddens, because it is in their interest to have the global economy managed more effectively. The latter is equally one of the guiding principles of the emerging EU alternative in the East of Europe—The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

The economic necessity for states to form supra-national or cosmopolitan democratic governance does not, however, provide the answer to the question as to whether national identities will disappear completely, merge into a cosmopolitan identity, or become merely regional components of a supra-national identity. In fact, humans enjoy a multiplicity of identities and new ones do not have to replace the old ones. This, however, does not necessarily hold in the case of nationalism as a political principle, according to which a separate national state is essential for the development of a national culture. In fact, the end of the Cold War manifested newly emerging ethno-national revivals and social identities that rapidly challenged national borders on the continent. US president Donald Trump reflected similar rising sentiments in his electoral base when he used his address to the UN general assembly (2019) to deliver a nationalist manifesto, denouncing “globalism” and illegal immigration and promoting patriotism as a cure for the world’s ills:

“The free world must embrace its national foundations. It must not attempt to erase them, or replace them,” Trump said. “The true good of the nation, can only be pursued by those who love it, by citizens who are rooted in its history, who are nourished by its culture, committed to its values, attached to its people.”

(Quoted from the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/24/donald-trump-un-address-denounces-globalism)

Trump went on to underline the role of patriots, a self-selecting group of citizens uniquely able to interpret national interest in the globalized world: “Patriots see a nation and its destiny in ways no one else can. Liberty is only preserved, sovereignty is only secured, democracy is only sustained, greatness is only realized by the will and devotion of patriots,” the president said. It is these groups of patriots that were a matter of preoccupation for scholars of national revivals at least since the 1960s.