Abstract

CARVALHAIS, Isabel Estrada. Nationalism: back to basics?. Relações Internacionais [online]. 2019, n.62, pp.09-24. ISSN 1645-9199.  https://doi.org/10.23906/ri2019.62a02.

At a time when we seek to understand the reasons, whether sociological, historical, political or others, that may explain the emergence of new forms of nationalism, it seems opportune to reflect, albeit necessarily brief and incomplete, on the concept of nationalism. This article proposes to revisit some authors who have helped to build the academic reading on the phenomenon of nationalism. This invocation seems useful, as talking about new forms of nationalism is not necessarily followed by a clear idea of what phenomenon they are actually ‘new' to. We revisit the modernist and primordialist theses, in what are their essential contours, to conclude that both sets have weaknesses in the way they interpret nationalism, sometimes placing it excessively in the position of ideological artifact of the modern state, sometimes in the position of a natural response of individuals in the process of construction and recognition of their collective identity. However, it is in the primordialist theses that the greatest challenge lies, since the naturalization of nationalism they imply results in its legitimation by means of a supposed biological inevitability.

Keywords : Nationalism; State; Nation; modernistsm; primordialists.

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