The Ruritanian

The blog of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism

Nationalism and crime

It is possible to find coverage of most things and nationalism in academic journals. For example: obscure sports (lacrosse) (Robidoux, 2022), wildflowers (Dahl, 1998), style of hats (Akturk, 2017) and food: gastronationalism (De Soucey, 2010) – literally, nationalism...

In memoriam: Shane Nagle

I was very sad to hear that my friend, Dr Shane Nagle, who served for several years as ASEN's conference secretary, passed away in April at the age of only 35 after being diagnosed with a glioblastoma in 2021. Shane and I met when I was a masters' student at the LSE...

Indirect Rule Can Shrink Polarization

Everybody knows that the United States is a highly polarized country, divided into blue states and red. Blue states tend to favor minority voting, abortion rights, mask mandates, climate mitigation, gay and transgender rights, Medicare expansion, gun controls, a...

Why Karabakh Does Not Need Autonomous Status in Azerbaijan

The small number of 25,000 Armenians continuing to live in Karabakh are too small in number to require an autonomous republic. Meanwhile, keeping 2,000 Russian peacekeeping forces in place is a bad policy option as their primary goal will be to keep tensions simmering...

The crisis in and over Northern Ireland

In elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly in May 2022, Sinn Féin won the largest share of the vote of any party by a wide margin.  In terms of seats it was just ahead of the second placed Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).  This was the first time a nationalist...

Announcing The Ruritanian

Welcome to ASEN's new blog, the Ruritanian! The fictional country of Ruritania, breaking away from the empire of Megalomania, is often used for a placeholder name of a country in which nationalism developed, not least by Ernest Gellner. "Ruritanians had previously...

Nationalism and crime

It is possible to find coverage of most things and nationalism in academic journals. For example: obscure sports (lacrosse) (Robidoux, 2022), wildflowers (Dahl, 1998), style of hats (Akturk, 2017) and food: gastronationalism (De Soucey, 2010) – literally, nationalism...

In memoriam: Shane Nagle

I was very sad to hear that my friend, Dr Shane Nagle, who served for several years as ASEN's conference secretary, passed away in April at the age of only 35 after being diagnosed with a glioblastoma in 2021. Shane and I met when I was a masters' student at the LSE...

Indirect Rule Can Shrink Polarization

Everybody knows that the United States is a highly polarized country, divided into blue states and red. Blue states tend to favor minority voting, abortion rights, mask mandates, climate mitigation, gay and transgender rights, Medicare expansion, gun controls, a...

Why Karabakh Does Not Need Autonomous Status in Azerbaijan

The small number of 25,000 Armenians continuing to live in Karabakh are too small in number to require an autonomous republic. Meanwhile, keeping 2,000 Russian peacekeeping forces in place is a bad policy option as their primary goal will be to keep tensions simmering...

The crisis in and over Northern Ireland

In elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly in May 2022, Sinn Féin won the largest share of the vote of any party by a wide margin.  In terms of seats it was just ahead of the second placed Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).  This was the first time a nationalist...

Announcing The Ruritanian

Welcome to ASEN's new blog, the Ruritanian! The fictional country of Ruritania, breaking away from the empire of Megalomania, is often used for a placeholder name of a country in which nationalism developed, not least by Ernest Gellner. "Ruritanians had previously...