We sit down with Harris Mylonas and Maya Tudor to discuss their new book, Varieties of Nationalism. Join us live on Facebook and YouTube; members will receive an invitation to join on Zoom.

About Varieties of Nationalism

Nationalism has long been a normatively and empirically contested concept, associated with democratic revolutions and public goods provision, but also with xenophobia, genocide, and wars. Moving beyond facile distinctions between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ nationalisms, the authors argue that nationalism is an empirically variegated ideology. Definitional disagreements, Eurocentric conceptualizations, and linear associations between ethnicity and nationalism have hampered our ability to synthesize insights. This Element proposes that nationalism can be broken down productively into parts based on three key questions: (1) Does a nation exist? (2) How do national narratives vary? (3) When do national narratives matter? The answers to these questions generate five dimensions along which nationalism varies: elite fragmentation and popular fragmentation of national communities; ascriptiveness and thickness of national narratives; and salience of national identities.

About Harris

Harris Mylonas is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. His work contributes to the understanding of states’ management of diversity that may originate from national minorities, immigrants, diasporas, or refugees. He is particularly interested in the role of decision makers’ perceptions about foreign involvement in their domestic affairs and the impact these perceptions have on the planning and implementation of state policies. He is teaching undergraduate courses on Nationalism, Patriotism, and European Integration, and graduate courses on Nation-Building in the Balkans, Nationalism and Nation-Building, and Qualitative Research Methods.

Read more about Harris at GWU or follow him on Twitter.

About Maya

Maya Tudor is Associate Professor of Government and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. Her research investigates the origins of stable, democratic and effective states across the developing world, with a particular emphasis on South Asia. She was educated at Stanford University (BA in Economics) and Princeton University (MPA in Development Studies and PhD in Politics and Public Policy). She has held fellowships at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Oxford University’s Centre for the Study of Inequality and Democracy, and Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

Read more about Maya at Oxford or follow her on Twitter.