![]() Following the crumbling of the Soviet Union three decades ago, democracy, capitalism, and globalization seemed universally accepted as the best way to organize economies and govern societies. Many observers are surprised by nationalism's global re-emergence after decades of seeming retreat. The global reawakening of nationalism has perhaps been most visible in the United States, where former President Trump was elected on a campaign to put “America first” and “make America great again.” While Trump may be the most visible avatar of this “new nationalism,” analogous movements have swept to power in every corner of the globe: Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro borrowed Trumpian nationalism, running a campaign to “make Brazil great again” that handily delivered him the presidency in 2018 Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán continually argues that “the millions with national feelings are on one side the elite ‘citizens of the world’” ( Orbán 2018) India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi decisively swept to power in 20 by proudly proclaiming Hindu nationalism and Xi Jinping, trumpeting Han-based nationalism, has become the most powerful president of China since Mao Zedong. Nationalism is more relevant to the politics of our time than it has been in half a century. A final section calls for more comparative, cross-disciplinary, cross-regional research on nationalism. ![]() ![]() The penultimate section briefly summarizes relevant insights from philosophy, history, and social psychology and identifies knowledge gaps that political scientists are well-positioned to address. We then highlight three trends in contemporary nationalism scholarship: ( a) comparative historical research that treats nationalism as a macropolitical force and excavates the relationships between nations, states, constitutive stories, and political conflict ( b) behavioral research that uses survey data and experiments to gauge the causes and effects of attachment to nations and ( c) ethnographic scholarship that illuminates the everyday processes and practices that perpetuate national belonging. We begin by synthesizing classic debates and tracing the origins of the current consensus that nations are historically contingent and socially constructed. Amid the global resurgence of nationalist governments, what do we know about nationalism? This review takes stock of political science debates on nationalism to critically assess what we already know and what we still need to know.
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