Constructions of Australia in pro‐ and anti‐asylum seeker political discourse

ABSTRACT. Whilst there has been a proliferation of research on the role of nationalism in the exclusion of asylum seekers, less attention has been paid to how nationalism can be mobilised in accounts opposing, rather than supporting, harsh anti‐asylum seeker regimes. This paper compares the ways in which ‘Australia’ is constructed and used in parliamentary speeches on asylum seekers by both refugee advocates and those seeking harsher asylum seeker laws in Australia. This dual focus is particularly important as it highlights the flexibility of nationalist discourse, in that the same constructions of the nation may be used for both exclusive and inclusive purposes. Whilst typologies of inclusive and exclusive nationalisms, such as Smith's (1991) ethnic/civic typology, focus on the content of nationalist ideologies, we argue that the inclusivity or exclusivity of nationalism can best be determined by examining the subject positions, political solutions and social realities they make possible, and who these discourses benefit and oppress.     

The lenses of nationhood: an optical model of identity

ABSTRACT. This paper tries to make the case for a model of political identity based on an optical metaphor, which is especially applicable to nations. Human vision can be separated into sentient object, lenses and inbuilt mental ideas. This corresponds well to identity processes in which ‘light’ from a bounded territorial referent is refracted through various lenses (ideological, material, psychological) to focus in certain ways on particular symbolic resources like genealogy, history, culture or political institutions. Distinguishing between referent, lenses and resources helps us more precisely situate many hitherto disparate problems of national identity. These include the ‘ethnic‐civic’ dilemma, the mystery of national identity before nationalism, and the relationship between local and national, and individual and collective, identities. The model also clarifies the place of universalist ideology, which currently fits poorly within the leading culturalist and materialist theories of nationalism.     

‘They have to abide by our laws … and stuff’: ethnonationalism masquerading as civic nationalism

The long established distinction between civic nationalism and ethnonationalism is useful heuristically to understand different dimensions of nationalism and perhaps track a movement from ethnic forms to civic allegiances, though some have challenged its empirical veracity and others question the normative implications of such a distinction. This paper demonstrates the ways in which the two are elided in everyday discourses about migrants in Australia. We argue suspicion of cultural difference, identified more than three decades ago as the new racism, has given way to talk of the need for migrants to ‘follow the law’. This serves rhetorically to reinforce the notion that migrants, often implied to overlap with the category ‘Muslims’, are insisting on breaking the law and/or changing it and are therefore culturally incompatible with a modern liberal democracy. We argue that since ethnic nationalism, like racism, is out of favour normatively, ethnic nationalist arguments are now superficially concealed beneath the acceptable language of civic nationalism. The manner in which this occurs is mapped discursively using data from a corpus of twenty seven focus groups conducted around Australia.     

To be a Bosniak or to be a citizen? Bosnia and Herzegovina's 2013 census as an election

Bosnia and Herzegovina's first post‐war population census, held in 2013, was accompanied by campaigns associated with each of the country's three main ethnic groups, which sought to maximise their share of the recorded population. These campaigns were challenged by a rival ‘civic’ campaign that instead stressed the right to freedom of self‐identification, however. This article compares the aims, methods and framings used by this civic campaign with those of the most prominent of the ‘ethnic’ campaigns – that of Bosniak ethnic entrepreneurs. It demonstrates that the two campaigns were each motivated by a combination of symbolic motives, centred on recognition and highlighting discrimination, and instrumental motives relating to the country's power‐sharing institutions. The limited success of the civic campaign in countering the messages of its rival ethnic campaigns demonstrates the difficulties that civic movements face in mobilising citizens in consociational democracies such as BiH.     

Giuseppe Mazzini and the democratic logic of nationalism

ABSTRACT. This article brings the thought of Giuseppe Mazzini back into the field of nationalism studies, from which it has been largely missing for a half century. It suggests the following: that Mazzini is much more modern and secular than he is usually portrayed; and that his commitment to liberal policies while rejecting liberal principles suggests that the distinction between civic and ethnic nationalism has been misconceived. Nationalism, to Mazzini, was not an end in itself but a means to an end – government of, by and for the people. The demand for such a government was manifested in three popular demands in nineteenth‐century Europe: in the West as democracy, in the East as national sovereignty (the precondition for democracy) and in both East and West as social democracy. Thus nationalism may be instrumental rather than an end in itself, and it may be attributable not to ethnic groups' natural striving for autonomy but to the pursuit of democracy.     

The evolution of the civic–ethnic distinction as a partial success story: Lessons for the nationalism–patriotism distinction

This article brings, for the first time, two of the most pivotal distinctions in nationalism studies into extended dialogue: the civic–ethnic distinction (CED) and the nationalism–patriotism distinction (NPD). By reviewing both the evolution of those distinctions over the previous decades and the ways in which they have been used in quantitative empirical research, we argue that the CED's evolution has been a partial success story, whereas discourse around the NPD has not seen substantial development. Despite lingering inconsistencies, researchers drawing on the CED have been successful in addressing different lines of critique and in using the CED as a heuristic for investigating notions of nationhood as expressed in public perceptions. In contrast, there has been only limited dialogue between theoretical and empirical approaches to the NPD. The article illustrates how research drawing on the NPD could profit from the CED's evolution. We close by providing a conceptual roadmap to guide the path towards more terminological clarity and to construct more theoretically robust measures for nationalism and patriotism. We specifically suggest that nationalism and patriotism should be consistently understood as ideal types that citizens can simultaneously hold to varying degrees.     

Denied ethnicism: on the Walloon movement in Belgium

The Walloon movement is the lesser‐known counterpart to the Flemish movement in Belgium. In contemporary political debate it presents itself, and is usually perceived, as a civic and voluntaristic movement predicated on the values of democracy, freedom, openness and anti‐nationalism. As such it is contrasted against its Flemish counterpart, which accordingly is characterised as tending towards an ethnic exclusivist form of nationalism hinging on descent, culture and language. However, the historical record behind these representations shows that the Walloon movement is rooted in ethno‐cultural as much as social politics, and that it has always contained both civic and ethnic elements to varying degrees. This article highlights the Walloon movement in order to analyse the language and national stereotypes in which national movements are characterised both in political rhetoric and in scholarly analysis. The case is particularly relevant for the problematic usage of the ‘civic–ethnic’ opposition, slipping between the discourses of antagonism and analysis; one type of such slippage is here identified as ‘denied ethnicism’.     

The civic zeitgeist: nationalism and liberal values in the European radical right

This article examines the relationship between nationalism and liberal values and, more specifically, the redefinition of boundaries between national communities and others in the rhetoric of radical right parties in Europe. The aim is to examine the tension between radical right party discourse and the increasing need to shape this discourse in liberal terms. We argue that the radical right parties that successfully operate within the democratic system tend to be those best able to tailor their discourse to the liberal and civic characteristics of national identity so as to present themselves and their ideologies as the true authentic defenders of the nation's unique reputation for democracy, diversity and tolerance. Comparing the success of a number of European radical right parties ranging from the most electorally successful Swiss People's Party, the Dutch Pim Fortuyn List and Party for Freedom to the more mixed French Front National, British National Party and National Democratic Party of Germany we show that the parties that effectively deploy the symbolic resources of national identity through a predominantly voluntaristic prism tend to be the ones that fare better within their respective political systems. In doing so, we challenge the conventional view in the study of nationalism that expects civic values to shield countries from radicalism and extremism.     

After Empire: Karl Renner's Danubian model of pluralism

This article argues that Karl Renner's multinational model for the Austrian‐Hungarian Empire is an alternative model for contemporary a‐territorial, multinational and federal arrangements. Nations, in his view, should act as intermediary bodies between the relevant communities and the state. His concept of ‘subjective public law’ combines principles that most authors find mutually exclusive: individual rights, choice over one's national cultural membership, non‐territorial administration of national communities and overseeing of equal collective rights by the state. Neither Staatsnation nor Kulturnation, the model is a combination of the two under the auspices of a federal state combined with a strong theory of individual and collective rights. I provide the reader with a comprehensive intellectual biography of Karl Renner, as I argue that an understanding of the man himself, his political pragmatism and his statism are crucial to comprehending this theoretical position. Throughout his life, Renner was a German nationalist, held a strong nostalgia for the Habsburg Empire and voted in favour of the Anschluß. His concurrent careers as a scholar and as a politician account for a series of contradictions. I argue however that these can be reconciled and explained by a careful comparative reading of his scholarly work and his political statements.     

Tolerant exclusion: expanding constricted narratives of wartime ethnic and civic nationalism1

ABSTRACT. During war, the demarcation ‘enemy alien’– whether on ethnic or civic grounds – can lead to loss of political, social or economic rights. Yet not all minorities are excluded even though they pose problems for civic and ethnic national categories of belonging. This article explores the experiences of an ethno‐religious minority who posed an intriguing dilemma for ethnic and civic categorisation in North America during World War II. The Mennonite experience enables a close examination of the relationship between a minority ethnic (and religious) group and majority concepts of wartime civic and ethnic nationalism. The article supports arguments that both ethnic and civic nationalism produce markers for the exclusion of minority groups during wartime. It reveals that minority groups can unintentionally become part of majority ‘nationalisms’ as the content of what defines the national ideal shifts over time. The experiences also suggest that a minority group can help mobilise symbolic resources that participate in transforming what defines the national ideal.     

Losing the peace: Euroscepticism and the foundations of contemporary English nationalism

ABSTRACT. Political resistance to European integration in the UK laid important ideological foundations for contemporary English nationalism. The politics surrounding accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) was such that it signalled that accession was a matter of supreme national importance and, via the device of a referendum, it led to the fusing of parliamentary and popular sovereignty. The unfolding of the Thatcherite project in Britain added an individualistic – and eventually an anti‐European – dimension to this nascent English nationalism. Resistance to the deepening political and monetary integration of Europe, coupled with the effects of devolution in the UK, led to the emergence of a populist English nationalism, by now fundamentally shaped by opposition to European integration, albeit a nationalism that merged the defence of British and English sovereignty. Underpinning these three developments was a popular version of the past that saw ‘Europe’ as the ultimate institutional expression of British decline. Thus Euroscepeticism generated the ideology of contemporary English nationalism by legitimising the defence of parliamentary sovereignty through the invocation of popular sovereignty underpinned by reference to the past.     

Are secessionists making the right arguments for independence?

There are roughly 70 secessionist movements around the world, and all of them advance arguments for why they deserve independence. These include restorative rights, remedial rights, primary rights, a history of conflict and functionality-based arguments. However, no one has conducted a comprehensive analysis to see how these arguments (or grievances) match reality. That is, are secessionists making the right arguments given their context? To answer this question, we utilise a data set of potential secessionist grievances to determine what normative arguments each secessionist movement ought to make given their setting. We conduct a content analysis of the normative appeals/grievances that have actually been made by specific secessionist movements since 2000. We then compare the predicted grievances against the actual grievances and summarise the patterns. The results matched our predictions where restorative rights, remedial rights and functionality-based arguments are concerned. Our analysis returned a positive and statistically significant relationship. However, we found no evidence that those making conflict-related arguments were more likely to exist in conflict settings. Interestingly, the findings for primary rights were the opposite of our expectations; it is the secessionists with the most political voice, not the least, that are the keenest to stress primary rights.     

Vox populismus: a populist radical right attitude among the public?

In the last two decades, populist radical right (PRR) parties have been electorally very successful in Western Europe. Various scholars have argued that these parties share an ideological core that consists of a specific form of nationalism (nativism), in combination with two other attitudes (authoritarianism and populism). The aim of this research note is to assess whether this ideological core also exists as a consistent attitude among citizens. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the attitudes of Dutch citizens indicate that we can indeed speak of a consistent PRR attitude among the public. I also show that this attitude is strongly related to the probability of voting for the PRR Freedom Party (Partij voor de Vrijheid) of Geert Wilders.