Defensive Nationalism: Where Populism Meets Nationalism

Abstract With the 21st century surge of populism, a debate has emerged over the relationship between nationalism and populism. Some scholars maintain these two phenomena are distinct and should be analytically differentiated; others hold the difference between the two is primarily an artifact of how the scholarship has evolved around each. To bridge these positions, this paper argues that by reorganizing our typologies of nationalism, we can better account for why populism seems to have become fused with nationalism. To do so, it introduces a new typology that distinguishes among state-creating, state-consolidating and state-defensive nationalisms. Applying this new typology, the case made is that we are experiencing a convergence of populism and nationalism today because we are currently in an era of defensive nationalism.