The origins, characteristics and trends of neo-nationalism in the 21st century

Abstract

The rise of neo-nationalism has been an important political phenomenon since the 21st century. Neo-nationalism is not a single form of nationalism. It is not only a generalization of a specific type of nationalism at present, but also a description of a series of new nationalism phenomena. From the point of what it may include, it has at least four forms: far-right nationalism, evangelical nationalism, separatist nationalism, and (the third world) religious nationalism. Compared with traditional nationalism, neo-nationalism has undergone major changes in terms of guiding ideology or values behind, epochal character, propulsion mechanism, function, propagation mode, influence, and field of occurrence. At the same time, neo-nationalism is also a kind of high-intensity identity politics with a sort of quasi-fundamentalist characteristics. It discards the core value principles of traditional nationalism and the basic etiquette of polite society. Some dangerous and even crazy essential factors of nationalism have been developed to extremes in the new era. This means that its destructiveness to specific countries and societies is far greater than that caused by the reactive identity politics of minorities. From the perspective of trends in development, while the neo-nationalism shows the general characteristics of co-advance and retreat in the general trend, its four specific forms also show certain differences in the development direction. With the further setback of the globalization process, neo-nationalism will have a significant impact on the security of relevant countries, regions and even the world.

Keywords: Evangelical nationalism; Far-right nationalism; Neo-nationalism; Separatist nationalism; Third world religious nationalism.