Territorial nationalism describes a form of nationalism based on the religious-like belief that all inhabitants of a particular nation owe allegiance to their country of birth or adoption. According to territorial nationalism every individual must belong to a nation, but can choose which one to join. A sacred quality is sought in this nation and in the popular memories it evokes. Citizenship is idealized by a territorial nationalist. A criterion of a territorial nationalism is the establishment of a mass, public culture based on common values and traditions of the population. Legal equality is essential for territorial nationalism.
Contents
- Territorial nationalism in Europe
- Territorial nationalism in the Middle East
- Territorial nationalism in North America
- References
Because citizenship rather than ethnicity is idealized by territorial nationalism, it is argued by Athena S. Leoussi and Anthony D. Smith (in 2001) that the French Revolution was a territorial nationalistic uprising.
Territorial nationalism in Europe
In Western Europe national identity tends to be more based on where a person is born than in Central and Eastern Europe. Scholars have argued this might be explained by the fact that states in the later two emerged from imperial states. The communist regimes in the Eastern Bloc actively suppressed what they described as "bourgeois nationalism" and considered nationalism a bourgeois ideology. In the Soviet Union this led to Russification and other attempts to replace the other cultures of the Soviet Union with the Russian culture, even while, at the same time the Soviet Union promoted certain forms of nationalism that it considered compatible with Soviet interests. Yugoslavia was different from the other European Communist states, where Yugoslavism was promoted.
Territorial nationalism in the Middle East
Although territorial nationalism is in contrast with the universality of Islam, especially Egypt and Tunisia had territorial nationalistic policies after gaining independence. This was gradually replaced by Pan-Arabism in the 1950s, but Pan-Arabism declined by the mid-1970s.
Territorial nationalism in North America
Just as in Western Europe, national identity tends to be more based on where a person is born than ethnicity.