Every political community is built on some idea of who belongs together and why. Some communities define themselves by shared laws and institutions. Others define themselves by shared history, language, religion, or culture. Still others define themselves by a sense of common struggle against those who hold power or who are perceived as hostile outsiders. The political movements explored in this chapter — nationalism, populism, and identity politics — all draw on the powerful human desire to belong, to be recognized, and to be represented by leaders and institutions that speak for people like oneself. Understanding these movements is not optional for students of government. They are among the most consequential forces shaping elections, institutions, conflicts, and international relations in the twenty-first century.

Nationalism is the belief that a people sharing a common identity — whether defined by language, culture, ethnicity, history, religion, or territory — forms a natural political community that deserves its own government. Nationalism has motivated the creation of new states, the dissolution of empires, the unification of divided peoples, and devastating wars. Populism is a political style and logic that frames politics as a conflict between a pure, virtuous people and a corrupt, self-serving elite. Identity politics refers to political organizing and advocacy organized around shared social identities. Each phenomenon is distinct; all three frequently overlap in the real world of politics.

The goal of this chapter is not to condemn or celebrate nationalism, populism, or identity politics in the abstract, but to explain what each means, how each operates in political systems, what problems each tries to solve, and what dangers each can create when it operates without institutional checks or civic moderation. Students should approach these topics with the same analytical care they bring to any serious question in political science: explain the system first, explain the debate second, explain the tradeoffs third.

Nationalism is one of the most powerful and most misunderstood forces in modern politics. Before examining its varieties and consequences, students must understand what nationalism actually claims. At its core, nationalism is the political belief that people who share a common identity — a nation — deserve to govern themselves and that political authority should be aligned with national community. Nationalists hold that the nation is the natural and proper unit of political life, and that governments derive their legitimacy from the nation they serve.

The concept of the nation is itself contested. A nation is not simply a state or a government. Nations are communities defined by shared characteristics, which may include language, culture, history, religion, territory, ancestry, or some combination of these. What makes a group a nation rather than merely a population is partly objective — shared characteristics — and partly subjective — a belief among the group's members that they form a distinct community with a shared destiny. As the political philosopher Ernest Renan argued in the nineteenth century, a nation is a daily plebiscite: it exists as long as its members choose to regard themselves as part of it.

This definition immediately reveals that nations are not natural facts but social and political constructions. People decide — through collective memory, cultural practice, political mobilization, education, and storytelling — that they belong together as a nation. This does not mean nations are arbitrary or unimportant. Constructed identities can be deeply felt and historically powerful. The fact that a national identity was built by poets, educators, politicians, and propagandists over centuries does not make it less real to those who hold it. It does mean, however, that national identities can change, expand, contract, and be deliberately shaped for political purposes.

Modern nationalism emerged primarily in Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, intertwined with the French Revolution, the Romantic movement, and the collapse of dynastic empires. Before nationalism, most people owed primary loyalty to rulers, religions, local communities, or extended families — not to abstract national communities. Nationalism created new forms of mass political loyalty. It contributed to the unification of Germany and Italy in the nineteenth century, the dissolution of the Ottoman and Habsburg empires in the early twentieth century, and the wave of decolonization that created dozens of new states in the mid-twentieth century. It also contributed to catastrophic wars and mass atrocities, including the two World Wars and the genocides of the twentieth century.

The relationship between nationalism and the modern state is fundamental. The nation-state — a political unit in which political boundaries ideally correspond to cultural or ethnic communities — became the dominant model of political organization after the French Revolution. Before nationalism, empires routinely governed diverse peoples without expecting them to share an identity. Nationalism challenged the legitimacy of empire and polyethnic rule, declaring that each people deserved its own state. This principle — national self-determination — became central to international law and political practice after World War I, when President Woodrow Wilson made it a cornerstone of the post-war settlement. National self-determination, however, created new problems even as it solved old ones: many territories contained mixed populations, and drawing borders to match national groups was often impossible without displacing, excluding, or subjugating minorities.

Students should understand nationalism as a political force that can support democratic self-government and can threaten it. A democratic nation-state in which citizens identify with their shared institutions can be a stable, effective political community. A nationalist movement that defines the nation narrowly and treats minorities as outsiders or enemies can undermine democratic pluralism and produce persecution, ethnic conflict, or worse. The form nationalism takes — who it includes, who it excludes, and how it relates to institutions and rights — determines whether it strengthens or weakens political life.

The most important distinction within nationalism is between civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism. Understanding this distinction helps students analyze real political movements with precision and avoid the error of treating all forms of nationalism as equivalent.

Civic nationalism defines the nation in terms of shared political commitments rather than shared ancestry or culture. A civic nationalist holds that the nation is composed of all who accept its laws, institutions, values, and membership. In principle, anyone who participates in the political community and accepts its civic norms can belong to the nation, regardless of race, religion, language, or ancestral origin. The nation is a voluntary political community united by common institutions and shared commitment to civic ideals.

The French Republican tradition of nationalism is often cited as a model of civic nationalism. The French Revolution declared that sovereignty resided in the nation — defined as the people who participated in the republic — rather than in the king or in any particular ethnic group. In principle, French national identity was open to all who accepted the republic's civic values. The United States offers another example often analyzed as civic nationalism. American national identity, at its most expansive, has been defined by commitment to constitutional principles — liberty, equality, democratic government, and the rule of law — rather than by ethnicity or religion. "E pluribus unum" — out of many, one — expresses the idea that people of diverse origins can form a single national community through shared commitment to civic institutions.

Ethnic nationalism defines the nation in terms of descent, blood, language, religion, or culture. An ethnic nationalist holds that the nation is composed of people who share ancestral heritage or cultural characteristics that cannot be simply adopted by outsiders. Ethnic nationalism tends to view national membership as something you are born into, not something you choose. It often regards immigrants, minorities, or people of different descent as fundamentally outside the nation even if they hold legal citizenship.

Ethnic nationalism became politically influential in Central and Eastern Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, where national movements sought independence from multiethnic empires on the basis of distinct linguistic or cultural identities. The German Romantic tradition of nationalism, associated with thinkers like Johann Gottfried Herder, emphasized the unique spirit of a people expressed through language, folklore, and culture. This tradition placed authentic national character in organic cultural communities rather than in abstract political principles. At its extreme, ethnic nationalism defines outsiders as threats to national purity and justifies their exclusion, persecution, or elimination. The Nazi ideology of Aryan racial nationalism is the most catastrophic example of this logic in history.

In practice, most nations combine civic and ethnic elements. Even formally civic nations have often defined citizenship in culturally or racially exclusive ways in practice. The United States declared civic principles of equality while denying citizenship and rights to enslaved African Americans and many other groups. The gap between civic ideals and ethnic practice is often wide and politically significant. Contemporary nationalist movements frequently combine civic rhetoric with ethnic sentiment. Students should be attentive to both the formal claims nationalist movements make and the political practices and exclusions they produce.

Populism is one of the most contested concepts in contemporary political science. Used carefully, populism refers to a specific political logic or style that frames politics as a conflict between two morally opposed groups: the pure, virtuous people on one side and the corrupt, self-serving elite on the other. The populist leader claims to speak directly for the real people and to represent their will against the established interests, institutions, and elites that have betrayed them. This logic resonates in societies where people believe that political institutions serve the wealthy, the connected, or the culturally dominant rather than ordinary citizens.

Populism is not a policy platform or a fixed ideology. It is better understood as a political logic or style that can be attached to many different substantive agendas. There is left-wing populism that defines the people as the economically exploited working class and the elite as wealthy capitalists, bankers, and corporations. There is right-wing populism that defines the people as the culturally authentic majority — often defined by religion, ethnicity, or tradition — and the elite as culturally alien cosmopolitans, bureaucrats, academics, and media figures who look down on ordinary people. The common thread across these variants is the antagonistic framing of politics as a conflict between the virtuous people and the corrupt elite.

Because populism presents the will of the people as unified and morally authoritative, it can be hostile to institutional complexity. Constitutions, independent courts, free press, bureaucratic procedures, international agreements, and minority rights can all be framed by populists as obstacles to the people's will — devices invented by elites to frustrate genuine popular governance. This hostility to institutional checks is what makes populism potentially dangerous for democratic systems. If the leader truly represents the pure people, who dares to limit the leader? Institutions that check executive power can be reframed as enemies of democracy rather than protections of it.

At the same time, populism has sometimes been a force for democratic expansion. The original American Populist movement of the 1890s sought to give ordinary farmers and workers more political power against railroad monopolies, banks, and established political parties. Latin American populists in the mid-twentieth century sometimes expanded social rights and civic participation even while concentrating executive power. The political impact of populism depends on what institutional conditions surround it and whether populist leaders respect constitutional limits after gaining power.

Why does populism emerge when and where it does? Research suggests several contributing conditions. Economic inequality and displacement create populations who feel left behind and suspicious of elites who profited from the same economic changes that harmed ordinary people. Political exclusion and unresponsiveness create voters who feel that established parties serve wealthy donors and organized interests rather than average citizens. Cultural anxiety and rapid social change create people who feel that their values, traditions, and ways of life are being dismissed or mocked by cosmopolitan elites. Distrust of institutions — government, media, courts, experts — creates openings for leaders who claim to bypass corrupted systems and speak directly to the people. Populism is a symptom as much as a cause: when it emerges powerfully, it signals that a significant portion of the population feels excluded, ignored, or dismissed.

A central claim of populism — that elites have captured government and betrayed the people — raises important analytical questions. Who are the elites that populists target? What do they actually do? Are the claims populists make about elites accurate, exaggerated, or false? And how should democratic institutions respond to anti-establishment political challenges?

The concept of political elites refers to the relatively small number of people who exercise disproportionate power over political decisions. Political scientists have long studied how power concentrates in the hands of small groups even in formally democratic societies. This observation — that even democratic systems can have powerful, partially self-selecting elite groups — is a legitimate subject of political analysis. Populists simplify and dramatize this observation. They present elites as not merely powerful but as fundamentally corrupt, conspiratorial, and contemptuous of ordinary people. In reality, elites are rarely unified. Business elites compete with each other. Political elites are divided by party, ideology, region, and interest. Bureaucratic elites often genuinely serve public functions. The populist image of the elite as a monolithic, conspiratorial class is a simplification that can tip into conspiracy thinking.

Democratic institutions face a genuine dilemma when confronted with powerful anti-establishment movements. On one hand, dismissing or suppressing legitimate popular grievances can intensify distrust and delegitimize the very institutions that need to maintain public confidence. On the other hand, accommodating every populist claim can mean weakening the institutional checks — independent courts, free press, civil service rules, electoral integrity — that protect democratic governance from abuse. The most robust response to populism in democratic theory is not merely to oppose it rhetorically but to address the conditions that make it attractive: making democratic institutions more responsive and accountable, reducing corruption and conflicts of interest, and ensuring that economic growth and social protection reach ordinary citizens.

Identity politics refers to political organizing and advocacy organized around shared social identities. The identities involved are diverse: race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, class, national origin, and more. Identity politics is not simply interest-group politics, though the two overlap. Interest groups pursue concrete policy goals — lower taxes, higher wages, environmental regulation. Identity-based politics often also pursues recognition — the demand that a group's existence, dignity, experience, and value be acknowledged by the political system and by fellow citizens.

The political philosopher Charles Taylor, whose work on "the politics of recognition" became widely influential, argued that recognition is a genuine and important human need. People need not only material resources and legal rights but also public affirmation of who they are. When a group's identity is denied, demeaned, or rendered invisible by political institutions and public culture, its members suffer a real injury beyond simple material deprivation. The demand for recognition — that LGBTQ+ people exist and deserve equal dignity, that Indigenous peoples have distinct histories and rights, that women's experiences are politically relevant — is a legitimate political claim.

Identity-based political organizing has a long history in democratic societies. The abolitionist movement organized around the collective experience and moral claims of enslaved people. The women's suffrage movement organized around the shared status of women excluded from political participation. The civil rights movement organized around the shared experience of racial discrimination. The labor movement organized around shared working-class economic status. Indigenous rights movements organized around shared histories of colonial dispossession. In each case, political organizing around a shared identity produced important expansions of democratic rights and civic inclusion.

Critics of contemporary identity politics raise several concerns. Some argue that organizing politics around particular identities fragments the common civic life that democratic solidarity requires. Others argue that identity politics can freeze social categories into rigid political identities rather than allowing for individual complexity and social evolution. Still others worry that competitive claims over whose identity-based grievances are most legitimate can become a substitute for genuine political analysis of power and material conditions.

Defenders of identity politics respond that the critique often comes from groups whose identities have historically been treated as the neutral, universal default rather than as particular identities at all. When straight, white, male, Christian perspectives are treated as simply "the American" or "the human" perspective, other identities appear as special pleading. Making visible the particularity of all identities — including dominant ones — is part of honest democratic politics. They also point out that refusing to name racial or gender discrimination does not produce equality; it allows discrimination to continue unmarked and unchallenged.

The civil rights movement is instructive: it organized around the particular identity and experience of African Americans while simultaneously appealing to universal American civic ideals of equality and constitutional rights. It did not choose between particular identity and universal principle; it used both in the service of democratic expansion. The question of how democratic societies balance particular identity claims and universal civic norms is one of the most important and unresolved questions of contemporary democratic politics.

The relationship between nationalism and democracy is not fixed. Nationalism has been both a friend and an enemy of democratic governance, and it remains a contested force within contemporary democratic systems.

Nationalism and democracy have historically reinforced each other in important ways. Democratic theory holds that the people are sovereign — that legitimate government derives from the will and consent of the governed. But who are the people? National community has historically provided the answer. The nation defines the demos — the collective self-governing body — that democratic institutions represent. Without some shared sense of belonging and political community, democratic governance becomes difficult. Nationalism, by providing that sense of shared community, can serve as a foundation for democratic solidarity.

Many of history's great democratic expansions were also nationalist in character. The American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the independence movements of the twentieth century all combined democratic demands for self-government with nationalist demands for freedom from foreign or dynastic rule. Anticolonial nationalism was a democratic force in the sense that it asserted the right of subjugated peoples to govern themselves rather than be governed by distant imperial powers.

At the same time, nationalism has repeatedly threatened democratic pluralism and rights. When nationalism defines the nation narrowly — in ethnic, racial, or religious terms — it creates insiders and outsiders within the political community. Minorities who are defined as outside the nation can be denied political rights, cultural recognition, and legal protection. The logic of national purity can justify suppressing minority languages, religions, and identities. Even in democratic systems without extreme ethnic nationalism, nationalist politics can undermine democratic pluralism by framing political disagreement as national disloyalty. If those who criticize the government are painted as enemies of the nation — traitors, foreign agents, or defenders of alien interests — then democratic debate becomes difficult. Democracy requires that political opponents be regarded as legitimate participants in shared governance, not as enemies to be defeated and silenced.

Contemporary democracies face challenges from nationalism both from within their societies and at their borders. Within societies, nationalist movements pressure governments to prioritize particular ethnic or cultural definitions of national identity, sometimes at the expense of minorities, immigrants, and diverse communities. At borders, nationalism shapes debates about immigration, trade, international agreements, and multilateral institutions. When nationalist leaders reject international commitments in the name of national sovereignty and the people's will, the question of how democracies balance national self-government and international cooperation becomes one of the defining policy debates of the era.

The connection between nationalism and political conflict is well-documented in history and political science. Understanding why nationalism so frequently produces conflict — and under what conditions it does not — is important for students of both government and international relations.

Nationalism generates conflict potential through several mechanisms. First, multiple national groups often claim the same territory. When Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Slovenes, Albanians, and other peoples all claimed national rights over territories that they shared or that overlapped, political resolution proved impossible without devastating war. The dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s produced civil wars precisely because national claims to territory were both passionately held and mutually incompatible. Second, minorities within nation-states are vulnerable to nationalist majorities. When a nationalist government defines the nation in ethnic terms that exclude minorities, those minorities may face discrimination, cultural suppression, or violence. Minority groups may respond by organizing their own nationalist movements, demanding autonomy or independence, or seeking external protection. Third, nationalism enables elites to mobilize mass support for foreign policy conflicts by framing them as threats to the national community. Leaders who face domestic difficulties sometimes turn to nationalist themes — foreign threats, external enemies, national humiliation — to redirect public attention and generate solidarity.

Fourth, nationalism interacts with historical grievances in ways that can sustain conflicts across generations. Communities that have experienced conquest, displacement, cultural suppression, or mass atrocity develop strong collective memories of historical injustice. These memories become politically salient when nationalist leaders invoke them to explain present difficulties or justify political demands. Resolving conflicts rooted in historical grievance requires not only political negotiation but also processes of historical acknowledgment, reconciliation, and in some cases transitional justice.

Despite this conflict potential, nationalism does not inevitably produce violent conflict. Switzerland has maintained a stable democracy among German, French, Italian, and Romansh speakers for centuries. Canada has accommodated Quebec nationalism through federalism, official bilingualism, and democratic negotiation. Spain has developed extensive regional autonomy for Catalonia, the Basque Country, and other regions. These cases demonstrate that nationalist tensions can be managed through institutional design and political will. The conditions that make nationalist conflict less likely include democratic institutions that give minorities meaningful political voice, federal or regional arrangements that allow diverse communities to govern themselves, constitutional protections for linguistic, religious, and cultural rights, civic education that builds understanding across communities, and political leadership willing to pursue accommodation rather than exploit divisions for short-term political gain.

Populism appears across many different political systems, economic contexts, and historical periods. Comparing populist movements across countries helps students understand what populism is and is not, why it emerges, what it achieves, and how democratic institutions respond to it.

In Latin America, populism has a long and complex history. Figures like Juan Perón in Argentina, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico have combined anti-elite rhetoric with social policy, resource nationalism, and — to varying degrees — concentration of executive power and weakening of institutional checks. Latin American left populism has often mobilized poor and working-class communities, expanded social programs, and challenged established oligarchies, while simultaneously concentrating power in the executive and reducing institutional independence. The Venezuelan case under Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro illustrates how populist governance can slide from democratic reform to authoritarian control when institutions lack the strength to constrain executive ambitions.

In Europe, populism has appeared more prominently on the right in the twenty-first century, though significant left-populist movements emerged in Greece (Syriza), Spain (Podemos), and elsewhere. Right-wing populist parties — including the National Rally in France, Alternative for Germany, Fidesz in Hungary, Law and Justice in Poland (until its 2023 electoral defeat), and others — have mobilized voters concerned about immigration, cultural change, EU governance, and economic dislocation. The Hungarian government under Viktor Orbán represents a case study in how a populist government can systematically weaken judicial independence, press freedom, and electoral fairness while maintaining the form of democratic elections.

In the United States, populist themes have appeared across the political spectrum and throughout American history. The Populist Party of the 1890s mobilized farmers against railroad monopolies and banks. The Tea Party movement of the 2010s expressed anti-establishment conservative energy that eventually fed into the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump. Trump's election combined anti-elite rhetoric, immigration restriction, skepticism of multilateral institutions, and direct attacks on free press and judicial independence. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary campaigns of 2016 and 2020 offered a left-populist challenge to economic elites and the Democratic Party establishment.

In South and Southeast Asia, populist movements have emerged in India under the Bharatiya Janata Party and Narendra Modi, combining Hindu nationalist identity politics with populist anti-establishment themes; in the Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte, who combined anti-elite rhetoric with authoritarian methods; and in Thailand, where populist politicians mobilized rural communities against Bangkok-based elites.

Comparing these cases reveals several patterns. Populism tends to emerge during periods of economic stress, cultural anxiety, and institutional delegitimation. Populist leaders are more likely to consolidate power when existing institutions are already weak, when political culture lacks strong norms of institutional independence, and when opposition parties and civil society organizations are fragmented or unpopular. Populism is more likely to be constrained when courts are strong and credible, when press freedom is genuinely protected, when civil society is vibrant, and when democratic norms have deep roots across political elites.

Democratic political communities face recurring tensions between the rights of majorities and the rights of minorities. Democratic majoritarian logic holds that collective decisions should reflect the preferences of the majority of citizens — elections are decided by more votes rather than fewer, and popular sovereignty means that the people govern themselves. The legitimacy of democratic outcomes rests significantly on this principle.

But unlimited majority rule conflicts with the rights of minorities. If majorities can do whatever they choose, they can vote to discriminate against racial or religious minorities, restrict minority voting rights, suppress minority languages, or exclude minorities from public life. A democracy that does these things retains the form of majority rule while abandoning the substance of democratic equality. Constitutional rights, judicial review, federalism, and minority protections are mechanisms for protecting minorities from majority tyranny — for ensuring that democratic systems serve the rights and dignity of all members, not only the most numerous.

The responsibilities of citizenship in a diverse democratic community extend in several directions. Majorities have a responsibility to respect the rights, dignity, and civic belonging of minorities — to recognize them as full members of the political community rather than outsiders to be tolerated at the majority's discretion. Minorities have a responsibility to engage with shared civic institutions and to pursue their claims through legitimate political channels. And all citizens share a responsibility to maintain the civic institutions — free press, independent courts, honest elections, civil service integrity — that make democratic governance possible regardless of which group holds power at any given moment. Nationalism can either strengthen or undermine these responsibilities depending on how it defines the political community.