Guest Contributors

Daphne Halikiopoulou – University Of Reading, Michael Jennewein – Friedrich-ebert-stiftung, Tim Vlandas – University Of Oxford

In almost all European countries, right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) have increased their electoral success at the expense of the mainstream right and left, in both national and European Parliament elections. The rise of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National is a prominent example. Elsewhere in Europe, for example, Hungary and Poland, right-wing populists are even more entrenched, leading governments and exercising a firm grasp over their countries beyond the immediate political arena. In countries such as Austria, Slovenia and Italy, RWPPs governed until recently.

In almost every country, these parties have managed to influence the policy agendas permeating mainstream ground moving conservatives and progressives alike to the right on salient issues – especially regarding immigration. Even Putin’s war against Ukraine, which some thought would damage European right-wing populists who have cozied up to Russia’s leader in the past, has not significantly altered this trajectory.

Guest Contributor

Jonathan Hearn, Professor of Political and Historical Sociology at the University of Edinburgh & President, Association of the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN)

As the war in Ukraine increasingly eclipses COVID-19 in the daily news round, and responses to the pandemic are levelling out, it is perhaps a good moment to reflect on COVID-19 and the imagining of nations.  I am always interested in how people invest personal senses of agency and identity in larger collectivities, especially nations and nation states. How do nations come to represent the agency and identity of actual persons?

Guest Contributors

Antía Mato Bouzas, London Metropolitan University and Lorenzo Casini, University of Messina

Migration is one of the constituent features of Gulf societies in the contemporary period. Over decades migrants from different origins have contributed, as nowhere else in the world, to the modernization and nation building projects of the Gulf Arab states. However, migrants’ presence and activity largely go unnoticed in the way these different countries articulate a national identity based on elements of tribal authenticity, traditional notions of hospitality and a cosmopolitan ideal of tolerance. Interestingly, this nationalistic rhetoric of hospitality and openness has also been appropriated by a section of the migrant population in the Gulf, generally among highly skilled workers.

The 30th Anniversary of the Erasure from the Slovenian Register of Permanent Residents

Blog Editor’s Note

By Barbara Gornik, Science and Research Centre Koper

On June 25th, 1991, Slovenia formally declared its independence and adopted legislation related to internal affairs, citizenship, and sovereignty. Article 40 of the Citizenship Act (1991) provided that citizens of other republics of former Yugoslavia could acquire Slovenian citizenship if they met three requirements: they had acquired permanent resident status in Slovenia by December 23rd, 1990; they were actually residing in Slovenia; and they had applied for citizenship within six months of the Citizenship Act entering into force. According to the official data, approximately 171,000 out of 200,000 citizens of the other republics of former Yugoslavia were granted citizenship under Article 40 of the Citizenship Act (Zorn, 2009). 

Guest Contributor

Igor Okunev, Professorial Research Fellow at MGIMO University’s Institute for International Studies

It is customary to distinguish between two major territoriality-defined foundations of statehood. These are common territorial identity and mental maps marking the community through awareness of external security threats. In other words, we are talking about an awareness of the “we”-community and the revision of the “they”-community. Nation building connects geographically separate cultural communities with emerging political institutions, which allows the population to act as a source of legitimacy for the future state. 

Common territorial identity is the internal basis for statehood, while external security threats, or rather, the relevant security discourse, constitutes the external basis. External threats create the image of “them”, and it is by opposing “them” that the nation is built. In addition to political borders, a new political entity needs identity boundaries, which among others arise also through the awareness of a danger from the outside. In addition, security threats mobilize the population, thereby significantly accelerating internal legitimation. Thomas Eriksen contrasted the two mechanisms as “we-hood,” the common identity and the common mission, and “us-hood,” opposition to an external foe, real or imaginary.