Nationalism

Types of Nationalism

There are many typologies of nationalism; one of the most useful being Hans Kohn's two-part distinction between Western and Eastern or civic and ethnic nationalism. This typology was expanded by Liah Greenfeld to include a third category, collective nationalism, which can take either ethnic or civic forms.

Civic nationalism was the first to develop and is represented by the English model of national identity as a rational choice for those desiring self-determination and individual liberty. The nation is composed of individuals who occupy a common territory and willingly form bonds based on ideology and on shared political institutions. This model is flexible and inclusive, permitting membership to anyone who voluntarily resides in the territory and recognizes the institutions, iconography, and ideology of the group. The goal of civic nationalism is generally statehood, as it is only at that level of sovereignty that ideology can be translated into fully independent institutions. Civic nationalism embodies the [Page 1979]concept of sovereignty of the people; the nation cannot exist without the collective will of the people who support it. This model began in Tudor England but is best represented in the formation of the United States, where the desire for self-determination was largely based on the ideological drive toward greater individual liberty and the need to create new institutions to enshrine popular sovereignty. After two centuries of absorbing immigrants, who identified with countless different language, religious, ethnic, and racial groups, the very strong nationalist ethos of the United States remains almost entirely based on attachment to iconography and institutions.

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