Ethnonationalism

Ethnonationalism, or ethnic nationalism, is a form of nationalism that defines the nation as a community of shared descent, language, culture and often religion. Membership is mainly inherited rather than chosen. Ethnonationalists hold that each ethnic nation should govern itself in its own state, and that the state should protect and express the culture of that nation. It is usually contrasted with civic nationalism, which defines the nation by citizenship and shared political values. Ethnonationalism has taken many forms, from liberation movements of stateless peoples to majority movements that restrict the rights of minorities. In its most extreme forms it has been linked to ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Scholars trace ethnic ideas of the nation to German Romantic thinkers such as Johann Gottfried Herder, who stressed the unique language and culture of each people, and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, whose Addresses to the German Nation appeared in 1808. In the nineteenth century, many movements in Central and Eastern Europe sought states based on language and descent. After the First World War, the breakup of empires produced new states with large minorities, followed by population exchanges such as that between Greece and Turkey in 1923. Nazi Germany pushed racial ethnonationalism to its most extreme form, leading to war and the Holocaust, in which about six million Jews were murdered. After the Cold War, ethnonationalist conflicts in the former Yugoslavia involved ethnic cleansing and the Srebrenica genocide of 1995. The political scientist Walker Connor made the term ethnonationalism widely used in scholarship.

Stateless or liberation ethnonationalism seeks independence or autonomy for peoples without their own state, such as the Kurds. Majority or state ethnonationalism seeks to secure the dominance of one group in an existing state. Irredentism seeks to unite ethnic kin across borders by annexing territory. Religious ethnonationalism links ethnic identity to a particular faith. Racial nationalism, including white nationalism, defines the nation in racial terms and is widely regarded as a far right ideology.

Critics argue that ethnonationalism excludes and discriminates against minorities and immigrants, and that it has driven forced expulsions, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Many scholars argue that ethnic groups are historically constructed and that no modern state is ethnically pure. Liberals argue that equal citizenship cannot rest on ancestry. Defenders argue that shared ethnicity builds social trust and that small nations need states to protect their language and culture.

Ethnonationalism has shaped the creation of many nation-states and citizenship laws that favor descent, as well as policies on official languages and the rights of ethnic kin abroad. It has also fueled civil wars and secessionist conflicts, and it remains influential in many contemporary nationalist and far right movements.