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Zunaira Ali
How ethnic and civic nationalism relevant in the populist world?
In the wake of massive unprecedented global migration with 65 million people on the move, we see a renaissance of fantasies of homogeneity where people came to believe that they should live only with and among the people like themselves. The construction of ‘the other’ in such a populist milieu inculcates a faction of nationalism which is grounded on fixed identity. So, the rise of populist leaders all over the globe prevails over ethnic nationalism rather than civic.
This term paper will, later on, discuss the following queries; first, what is ethnic and civic nationalism? Second, what is populism and how do populist leaders portray themselves to the target audience? Third, what are the reasons behind the political acceptance of a populist leader? And finally, why ethnic nationalism is more eloquent in dealing with populism?
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Nationalism
A sense of ambiguity is roaming around the term nation and nationalism, as on one side if it is connoted with terms like homogenization, ethnocentrisms etc. then on the other, it is also associated with social integration, inclusion etc. This dualistic distinction, which has a tint of orientalism in it, was first proposed by Hans Kohn1. Various scholars criticize Kohn’s theory by arguing that at the heart of nationalism, there is a lucidity that slanted it towards exclusion.
Through this it became clearer that East-ethnic/West-civic dichotomy is theoretically and historically perished, as the loud affirmations of civic values signifying the moral and developmental superiority of the West and denouncing the Eastern model as backward or inferior, themselves falling apart when Brexit happens.
The assumption that nationalism is an ideological construction and a political principle demarcates who is in and out of society. This interpretation is summarized in a German slogan i.e. Germany for Germans foreigners leave. The bifurcation of nationalism into two broad categories, namely ethnic and civic nationalism, helps us in understanding the vagueness of the term.
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Ethnic Nationalism
In this, deep attachments are inherited not chosen as it is the national community that defines the individual; not the other way around. These ethnic nations are founded on the basis of shared language, culture or history and their solidarity is premised on presumed intrinsic and primordial2 connections, because of this mode, nationalism promotes exclusive or illiberal policies based on ethnicity which is also the core element of far-right party ideology.
Due to this, they are positioned on the right fringe axis as their ideological core is shaped by the radical understanding of nationalism or in other words nativism. This mindset when in practice rejects social equality and opposes the integration of marginalized groups which further arranges them into a ‘distinctiveness’ criterion.
In this process, nationalist politicians play a major role in mobilizing the public against the perceived foreign or domestic threat. This is exactly the same situation faced by European nationalism. As they began with the idea of a perfect fit which elaborates that there is a state and then there is a nation. The borders of the state should be the borders of the nation and it all would be very neat but it was never neat as there are some heterogenous groups (minorities) within the homogenous community.
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Civic Nationalism
Conversely, it is premised on an ideological commitment to a common destiny and government through shared civic institutions i.e. If a state creates an ‘imagined community3 ’ by promoting inclusive or liberal policies, the community’s membership is civic or citizenship based. Brubaker4 argues this conception and articulates that “a purely a-cultural understanding of nationhood has never been widely held.”
He resonates with this by giving examples of the US and France, who claim themselves as civic nations, that their national identity has a cultural component in it. Thus, exclusion based on civic identity is far more effective than any kind of exclusion grounded on ethnic identity.
This is exemplified by the case of France, which problematically excluded emigres, nobles or priests. Besides this, civic states are also exclusionary even in their constitution i.e. the disappearance of the Gallic language, as Britain imposed the English language over it or in the case of the Breton language, which disappeared from France when they claim that ‘spitting and Breton is forbidden.
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Populism and its depiction
Populism is one of the main political buzzwords of the 21st century which is essentially a political Kampfbegriff5 (battle term) to denounce political opponents. Well, we defined it as a
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“Thin-centered ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups the pure people are the corrupt elite. And that which argues that politics is an expression of the Volente general (general will) of the people.”
This definition will resonate with two vital themes which later on develop a link between nationalism and populism or more so the upsurge of Ethnopopulism.
First and foremost is the notion of ‘the people’ within which the homogenous people have the same goals and interests. So, when a populist came into power they first identify ‘the common people’ and then exclude the non-members from the state. He does this by constructing an image of ‘the other/enemy’ to fight with them in the name of the people e.g. in 2015, Poland’s Jaroslav alerted Poles that refugees would spread infectious diseases in Poland via ‘various parasites’ that are common to ‘other continents’, he used the term “the people” to refer to the national community.
This implies that all-encompassing ‘natives’ from a particular country together form a community with a common life. Second, is the conception of ‘the elite’ which gave impetus to distort the truthful links between the populist leaders and ‘the pure people’. That is why many populists detest the political establishment by critiquing the economic, cultural or media elite, as according to them this ‘corrupt group’ works against the ‘general will’ of people. Due to that populism is usually paired with thicker right-wing ideologies like nationalism.
This version of populism follows an exclusionary discourse for the implicit narrowing of ‘the people to demarcate them by markers of ethnicity or race for instance when Trump came into power in 2016, he attacks his own institutions i.e. his own FBI, his own attorney general and denounced the mainstream media as enemies of the American people which primarily targeted white, native-born voters.
He carried out this by tapping into the grievances of Native Americans with a demographic and cultural change, as well as their dissatisfaction with mainstream politics. Hereby, we came to the deduction through history that leaders use populism not as an ideology, rather they use it as a rhetorical strategy to ‘frame7 ’ a certain issue. Such as Eisenhower who relied heavily on populism in 1952, but not in 1956 shows, that how leaders practice this to target a particular audience.
Leading to the certitude that how populists portray themselves in Infront of ‘the pure’ people. So, they conduct themselves by creating a fiction of a homogenous populace and putting words into their mouth. They constantly refer to the people like Nigel Farage, who designate Britain’s vote to leave the European Union a ‘victory for real people,’ as if the 48 per cent of the British population who voted to remain in the EU were “somehow less than real by questioning their status as members of the political community.”
Also, they call out the elite as they believe that they represent ‘the people’ against the corrupt elite e.g. Rodrigo Deuterate of the Philippines says ‘It’s either the filthy rich, the oligarchs who continue to enjoy the perks of government’; This makes them anti-institutionalist, as institutions are ones who check and balance the exacerbating power of the executive and because they believe that they got this popular mandate by the ‘real people’ they tend to attack institutions. In the succeeding facet, Fukuyama shed light on the drivers of the trend: populist nationalism.
He describes the top-notch conception as ‘conventional wisdom’ in which globalization causes the movement of people’s investments, ideas and trade across international borders. It took many people in China and India out of poverty but it reduces the income of low-skilled people in rich countries i.e. in the US and Europe and that has led to the decline of the social status of many older communities.
Second is ‘Politics’, a feeling in many democracies that they are being paralyzed by interest groups which creates a yearning for a powerful man, who can break through all the blather of parliamentary politics and get things done. Ultimately, the ‘cultural factor’ where a feeling that globalization has not only to cause economic losses but cultural losses as well. The belief that our national identity is being stolen from us by foreigners who came into our society replaced us. Thus, all of the anti-immigrant parties like the AFD in Germany or the national rally in France draw similar kinds of arguments.
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Relevancy of Ethnic nationalism
The infusion of populism with ethno-nationalist content, often employs more restrictive definitions of the polity, based on ethnic, racial, or religious criteria. That is why their combo is labelled as a ‘powerful cocktail’ which in its extreme leads to ‘virulent’ nationalism. It is a particular form of style or strategy to attract voters, often equated with agitative propagandism. Populations are often engrossed with ethnopopulist discourse in the wake of global and national crises, such as the Great Recession or the end of the Cold. These ‘movements of crisis’ have given rise to extreme ethnopopulist impulses.
Hungarian case
Since the refugee crisis of 2015, anti-immigrant rhetoric became a political agenda under Viktor Orban’s leadership. He succeeded to build a fence along Hungary’s borders with the Baltic States to block immigrants flowing mainly from non-European countries. This also became a successful electoral campaign strategy for him to sustain longer in power.
After re-election, he established “Christian democracy” in Hungary, shaped by European traditions. As its name stands, it solely serves Christian culture by ignoring or non-tolerating other cultures living in Hungary which gave a more exclusive rather than inclusive rhetoric.
This suggests that constructing the ‘other’ vis-a-vis ‘the people,’ develops an illiberal, authoritarian and corrupted political regime. Another institutional “enemy” of “the people” is non-governmental organizations funded by George Soros, in particular Open Society Foundations, which is accused of actively encouraging immigration and supporting refugees. In addition to this, his government adopt a “stop-Soros” law in the Parliament which introduces high taxation (25% increase) towards NGOs that support immigration.
It is widely campaigned by Orban that Soros has a conspiracy for the fall of Hungary by interfering in its domestic affairs. His exclusionary rhetoric doesn’t stop there as in Figyelo, Andras Heisler is featured as a money-grubber, which commonly refers to the jewfish community. On that note, Orban claimed that he maintains a zero-tolerance policy towards Semitism.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is pretty much clear that the reason behind the downplay of civic nationalism is because of the rising populist leaders, who emerged because of the upsurge of migrations. Migrations in this repertoire develop a threat among the native people that indoctrinated a sense in the populace that they should live with and among the peoples like themselves.
So, when a populist holds power he/she tries to sustain that power by politicizing the identities of people and eventually categorising them into certain boxes of ethnicity, race, culture or language etc. This irrevocably erodes the feelings or notions of civic features and triggers those values which transcend into nativism.
This crystalline the aspect that ethnic nationalism overlaps with the key features of populism viz. the idea of a general will of ‘the real people’ and the Manichean world view which is in search of enemies and boundary-making.