Featured weekly article: The Rise of Han‐Centrism and What It Means for International Politics

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The Rise of Han‐Centrism and What It Means for International Politics

By John M. Friend and Bradley A. Thayer

Volume 17, Issue 1, pages 91-114

Abstract

This article addresses the rise of Han‐centrism, a form of hyper‐nationalism, in contemporary China. As Chinese nationalism has become more ethnocentric since the 1990s, the cultural chauvinism of Han‐centrism has become increasingly more influential in the debate over national identity. Within this narrative, Han culture is considered to be the authentic character of the nation; to deviate from the Han identity will only tarnish Chinese exceptionalism and impede China’s rise. While Chinese nationalism consists of many competing discourses, we argue that Han‐centrism has a significant influence within both policy‐making circles and the public sphere in China, and, as a result, has important consequences for the future of international politics.

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Featured weekly article: Ethnic and Regionalist Parties in Western Europe: A Party Family?

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Ethnic and Regionalist Parties in Western Europe: A Party Family?

By Andreas Fagerholm

Volume 16, Issue 2, pages 304-339

Abstract

Parties that defend the interest of one or a few ethnic groups and/or regions are, despite their differences, recurrently grouped together into a single party family. This article systematically applies the multidimensional framework offered by Mair and Mudde in order to provide an up‐to‐date inventory of the universe of ethnic and regionalist parties in Western Europe and assess whether they form a family. The evidence indicates that although the ethnic and regionalist family appears to be somewhat less coherent than more established families, there are clear similarities between the proposed (core) member parties. More specifically, the common denominators that distinguish the members of the ethnic and regionalist party family are their rather similar origins, sociologies, and policy orientations.

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Featured weekly article: Ethno‐Religious Identity and Sectarian Civil Society: A Case from India

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Ethno‐Religious Identity and Sectarian Civil Society: A Case from India

By Sarbeswar Sahoo

Volume 8, Issue 3, pages 453-480

Abstract

This paper analyses the role of Rajasthan Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad (RVKP), an ethnic Hindu(tva) organisation, among the tribal populations in south Rajasthan. It argues that the RVKP has been able to enhance its legitimacy and expand its socio‐political support base among the tribals through a well‐articulated and planned process of ‘ethnification’. This process has been carried out in four basic ways: (1) utilising development projects as means to spread the ideology of Hindutva, (2) bringing religious awakening and organising mass re‐conversion programmes, (3) redefining indigenous identity and characterising certain communities as ‘the other’, and (4) with the support of the various state institutions. The paper concludes that by ethnicising indigenous identity, the RVKP has not just created a ‘culture of fear and violence’ in the tribal regions but also threatened the secular democratic ethos of Indian society.

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Featured weekly article: Nationalism in the Classroom: Narratives of the War in Bosnia‐Herzegovina (1992–1995) in the History Textbooks of the Republic of Srpska

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Nationalism in the Classroom: Narratives of the War in Bosnia‐Herzegovina (1992–1995) in the History Textbooks of the Republic of Srpska

By Alenka Bartulovic

Volume 6, Issue 3, pages 51-72

Abstract

The article considers the problem of the representation of the last war in Bosnia‐Herzegovina (1992–1995) in the history textbooks of the Republic of Srpska (Serb Republic)‐one of the entities in the country. The analysed textbooks are deliberately used as one of the most important instruments for the formation of national identity. Scholars generally agree that history lessons are in fact lessons in patriotism and that nation‐states use history to form the national identity of students and guarantee loyalty to the nation and state. While contemporary Bosnia‐Herzegovina supports this view, it must simultaneously be seen as a slightly peculiar case. The textbooks used in Bosnia‐Herzegovina promote separate, exclusive national identities: the Bosniac, Croatian and Serbian. This to a large extent explains why we are not witnessing the formation of a unified nation‐state, but its slow disintegration. The existence of Bosnia‐Herzegovinian culture and identity is intentionally neglected and denied. Serbian narratives about the war clearly show that strong aspiration for unification with the neighbouring Serbia still exists. This idea has proved to be dangerous in the past and might lead to a new tragic episode in Bosnia‐Herzegovinian history.

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Featured weekly article: Nationalism Reconsidered: The Local/Trans‐local Nexus of Globalisation

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Nationalism Reconsidered: The Local/Trans‐local Nexus of Globalisation

By Sandra Halperin

Volume 9, Issue 3, pages 465-480

Abstract

The emergence and generalisation of the nation‐state model was a product of an earlier phase of capitalist globalisation and the resulting dualistic process of expansion that, throughout the world, worked to increase the cultural distance between cities and their surrounding hinterlands. This dualism had a simultaneous globalising and localising dynamic: it linked together the upper strata of communities around the world in a trans‐local system of trade and inter‐cultural exchange; but, by restricting access to the material and cultural products generated by this system, it simultaneously reinforced a separate set of conditions of life for the wider local population. It was in the context of both the mobilisation of labour forces and the increasingly different systems for trans‐local and local interests and actors that dominant groups began to assert the national idea as a means of providing a new basis and cultural framework for social cohesion and order.

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