Ethnonationalism is a form of nationalism that defines national belonging primarily through shared ethnicity, including common ancestry, language, religion, or cultural heritage, rather than through citizenship or adherence to political institutions. It stands in contrast to civic nationalism, which ties national identity to participation in a shared legal and political framework. The distinction between these two forms has been debated by scholars for decades, and in practice, most real-world nationalisms contain elements of both. But ethnonationalism’s particular power lies in its emotional appeal: it tells people that their nation is not merely a political arrangement but an expression of who they are by birth and blood.
The Civic-Ethnic Divide and Why It Gets Blurry
Political scientists have long sorted nationalisms into two broad camps. Civic nationalism says: you belong if you live here, follow the laws, and participate in public life. Ethnonationalism says: you belong if you share the ethnic, linguistic, or cultural identity of the dominant group. The traditional mapping placed civic nationalism in Western Europe and North America and ethnic nationalism in Eastern Europe and parts of Asia. That geographic shorthand, however, has come under serious scrutiny. Research refining the civic-ethnic dichotomy has shown that the policies flowing from ethnic, cultural, and civic conceptions of national identity do not map neatly onto a West-East split.1Comparative Political Studies. Challenging the Civic/Ethnic and West/East Dichotomies in the Study of Nationalism
The blurriness goes deeper than geography. Scholars have documented how rhetoric that sounds civic on the surface can function as ethnonationalism in practice. Statements like “they have to abide by our laws” can serve as proxies for ethnic boundary-drawing when “our laws” implicitly means “the norms of the dominant ethnic group.” The civic-ethnic distinction remains useful as an analytical tool for understanding different dimensions of nationalism, but its empirical accuracy as a clean binary has been repeatedly challenged.2Nations and Nationalism. ‘They have to abide by our laws … and stuff’: ethnonationalism masquerading as civic nationalism In countries where one ethnic group dominates politics and culture, “civic” requirements like language proficiency tests or knowledge of national customs can effectively screen along ethnic lines without ever mentioning ethnicity explicitly.
Where the Idea Comes From
Ethnonationalism in its modern form grew out of the Romantic intellectual movement of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Romantic thinkers across Europe championed the idea that each people, or Volk, possessed a unique spirit expressed through its language, folklore, and traditions. At the turn of the nineteenth century, ethnonationalism based on the Romantic concept of linguistic communities spread across Europe, reshaping politics, education, and culture.3Emerald Insight. Swedish-Language Folkhögskolor in Finland: Ethnonationalism, Language, and Adult Education in the Nineteenth Century This was not a fringe philosophy; it became the organizing principle for new nation-states in Germany, Italy, and across Central and Eastern Europe.
A related scholarly tradition, known as ethnosymbolism, argues that modern nations are not invented from scratch but grow from much older ethnic cores. This approach emphasizes the cultural and symbolic dimensions of ethnic communities and analyzes elements of nationhood over the long run, stressing both continuities and disruptions between modern nations and earlier ethnic communities.4The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism. Ethnosymbolism The idea is that ethnic symbols, myths of common ancestry, and shared memories provide raw material that nationalist movements can draw upon. Case studies like Lebanese Phoenicianism, where early twentieth-century nationalists reached back to ancient Phoenician identity as a foundation for a modern Lebanese nation, have been used to test this theory, though not without controversy over whether such connections are genuine continuity or creative reinterpretation.5Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism. Lebanese Phoenicianism: Rebutting Anthony Smith’s Ethno‐Symbolism
Whether or not modern ethnonationalism is “really” rooted in ancient ethnic ties, the perception of deep historical continuity is central to its appeal. Ethnonationalist movements thrive on the feeling that the nation has existed for centuries or millennia and that its current members are custodians of that legacy.
The Psychology Behind It
Ethnonationalism taps into basic social-psychological processes. People tend to favor groups they identify with and feel warmer toward fellow members. Research on social identity and social dominance in multiple countries has found that stronger identification with one’s group is associated with more positive feelings toward that group. Meanwhile, people who score higher on measures of social dominance orientation, meaning a preference for hierarchy between groups, tend to express more negative feelings toward lower-status outgroups.6Political Psychology. Social Dominance and Social Identity in the United States and Israel: Ingroup Favoritism or Outgroup Derogation? In an ethnonationalist framework, these tendencies get channeled into a political identity. The ethnic ingroup becomes the nation; outsiders become threats.
When this process intensifies, it can shade into something darker. Analysis of Serbian ethnonationalism, for example, has explored how ethno-nationalist ideologies contributed to intergroup hostility, moral disengagement, and the legitimization of violence against Albanians, Bosniaks, and Croats. Scholars have linked this pattern to collective narcissism: an exaggerated glorification of the ingroup paired with grievance narratives and hypersensitivity to perceived external threats.7Academia.edu. A Study of Collective Narcissism, Sociopathy and Psychopathy in Serbian Society The group comes to see itself as uniquely deserving and perpetually under siege, which can justify aggression as self-defense.
Economic Inequality as Fuel
One of the strongest predictors of ethnonationalist sentiment is not culture or history but economics. Analyses of data from dozens of countries have found that income inequality is associated with greater ethnonationalism, with the relationship varying by income level and ethnicity, and that ethnonationalism strongly predicts radical-right voting.8Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World. Politics of Boundary Consolidation: Income Inequality, Ethnonationalism, and Radical-Right Voting The mechanism is intuitive: when the economic pie feels like it is shrinking, people become more protective of who gets a slice. Ethnic boundaries offer a ready-made criterion for deciding who deserves resources and who does not.
This dynamic plays out at the party level as well. A study of more than 150 ethnonational parties in Europe between 2011 and 2017 found that inequality is linked to increasing ideological extremism across multiple policy dimensions. Local-level voting data from Romania and Slovakia showed that higher inequality makes adopting more extreme positions a more successful electoral strategy, especially where economic issues are ethnically salient.9Research & Politics. Turning discontent into votes: Economic inequality and ethnic outbidding In other words, when people in a given area are feeling economic pain and that pain maps onto ethnic lines, politicians who play up ethnic identity win more votes. The incentive structure rewards extremism.
This does not mean that ethnonationalism is purely economic grievance in ethnic clothing. Cultural anxieties, demographic change, and historical memory all play roles. But ignoring the economic dimension means missing one of the most consistent drivers that cross-national data reveal.
Demographic Anxiety and Electoral Activation
In countries where a historically dominant ethnic group perceives its share of the population shrinking, ethnonationalist ideas find a receptive audience. Research on the 2016 U.S. presidential election examined what it means to be a “true American” and found that ethnonationalist attitudes, specifically the belief that being truly American requires being born in the country, being Christian, or having European ancestry, were significant predictors of vote choice. The findings highlighted the electoral activation of White majorities concerned about the perceived threat that demographic change poses to national identity.10Nations and Nationalism. What it means to be a “true American”: Ethnonationalism and voting in the 2016 U.S. presidential election
The key word there is “perceived.” Demographic shifts do not automatically produce ethnonationalist politics. What matters is whether those shifts get framed as threats, and by whom. Media coverage, political rhetoric, and social media all shape whether a population increase among minority groups registers as a neutral demographic fact or as an existential crisis for the majority. The framing is as important as the numbers.
Ethnonationalism in Government and Policy
When ethnonationalist ideas capture state power, the consequences go beyond rhetoric. Scholars have described regimes where one ethnic group controls state institutions and territory as “ethnocracies,” defined as regimes facilitating the expansion, ethnicization, and control of contested territory and state by a dominant ethnic nation. “Open ethnocracies” may maintain certain democratic features like political competition, free media, and civil rights, but these features are applied selectively and typically only to the extent they do not interfere with the ethnic project.11Elsevier / Political Geography. Understanding ‘ethnocratic’ regimes: the politics of seizing contested territories The result is a system that looks democratic from the outside but distributes rights and resources along ethnic lines.
Welfare policy offers another window into how ethnonationalism reshapes governance. Far-right populist parties in Finland and Sweden have reframed the traditionally universal Scandinavian welfare state in nationalist terms, pushing a vision where access to social services is no longer universal and egalitarian but based around ethnicity.12Social Policy & Administration. Nationalist Reframing of the Finnish and Swedish Welfare States – The Nexus of Nationalism and Social Policy in Far‐right Populist Parties The argument is that welfare should be reserved for “our people,” however that is defined. This represents a fundamental shift in how those societies understand solidarity: from shared citizenship to shared ancestry.
Territory, Borders, and Escalation
Ethnonationalism is rarely just about identity in the abstract. It almost always involves claims to land. The concept of ethno-territoriality, where one group asserts exclusive rights over a territory and its resources, is one of the recognized drivers of ethnic conflict because it inherently marginalizes and excludes other groups with competing claims to the same space.13Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. Borderland as a necrospace: identity, ethno-territoriality and narcotrade in Manipur When identity is tied to soil, compromise becomes psychologically harder: giving up territory feels like giving up a piece of the nation’s body.
Escalation from political rhetoric to actual violence follows recognizable patterns. Modeling of ethnonationalist radicalization has identified a recursive feedback loop between political and cultural dynamics: opposing ethnically homogeneous regions feed off each other’s radicalization, creating an escalation spiral driven by political influences. This process unfolds before violence actually breaks out, meaning the warning signs are visible in the political arena long before the first shot is fired.14Social Science Computer Review. The Escalation of Ethnonationalist Radicalization Each side’s escalation becomes justification for the other side to escalate further, and political leaders on both sides may find it rewarding to stoke the cycle rather than cool it.
Gender Roles Within Ethnonationalist Movements
Ethnonationalist movements tend to carry a specific vision of gender. Feminist and postcolonial scholars have documented how women’s agency and bodies become sites of national political contestation. These movements often take a reactionary stance against feminism and gender equality, promoting rigid, binary views of gender that cast women as naturally suited for nurturing roles as mothers, caregivers, and reproducers while portraying men as protectors, leaders, and aggressors.15SAGE Publications. The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Politics and Gender: Ethnonationalism and Gender
This is not incidental to the ideology; it is structural. If the nation is defined by descent, then women’s reproductive choices become matters of national concern. Pronatalist policies, restrictions on interethnic marriage, and hostility toward LGBTQ+ rights often follow. Control over women’s bodies is reframed as defense of the nation’s future. Meanwhile, men are mobilized through appeals to martial identity: the warrior-protector archetype serves both to recruit fighters and to police masculinity within the group. Anyone who does not fit these roles, whether a woman who rejects motherhood or a man who rejects militarism, faces pressure as a traitor to the ethnic cause.
Grassroots Culture as Nation-Building
Ethnonationalism does not live only in parliaments and protest movements. It gets reproduced at the grassroots level through cultural practices that feel apolitical to participants. Research on folk music and dance groups in Serbia has explored how collective ethnonational identity forms from the bottom up through participation in singing, dancing, and other forms of heritage production. These activities create and reinforce a sense of shared ethnic belonging that feeds into broader nationalist narratives.16SHAREOK. Grassroots Ethnonationalism: Serbian Ethnonationalism and Heritage (Re)production Through Folklore and Ethnomusicology
This cultural dimension is easy to underestimate. A folk dance troupe or a traditional music festival may seem like harmless cultural preservation, and often it is. But the same practices can serve as vehicles for defining who belongs and who does not, for linking present-day people to an imagined ancestral past, and for creating emotional solidarity that political movements can harness. The line between cultural celebration and ethnonationalist mobilization is often genuinely unclear, and people participating in these activities may not see themselves as making a political statement at all.
What De-escalation Looks Like
If ethnonationalism is driven by psychology, economics, and cultural narratives, reversing it requires engaging on all three fronts. Political solutions like power-sharing agreements have been tried in ethnically divided societies, with mixed results. Consociationalism, a formal arrangement for sharing power among ethnic groups, has been affirmed as an ideal approach for resolving conflicts in divided societies, but implementation in places like South Sudan has deviated from the classical model and has not delivered sustainable peace.17African Journal on Conflict Resolution. Power-sharing consociationalism in resolving South Sudan’s ethno-political conflict in the post-Comprehensive Peace Agreement era Formal institutions, in other words, are necessary but not sufficient. If elites on all sides are not genuinely committed to the arrangement, the structure becomes a stage for continued ethnic competition rather than a framework for peace.
On the cultural and psychological side, there is more promising evidence. Experimental research in Poland found that referencing the country’s multiethnic past, specifically its history before and during World War II as a place where Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, and others lived side by side, led respondents in a nationally representative sample to express a greater preference for civic rather than ethnic nationalism. In other words, they expressed a more inclusive understanding of their national identity. The effect was replicated in a follow-up experiment with a targeted sample.18International Journal of Intercultural Relations. Increase in the preference for civic over ethnic nationalism among Poles: The impact of representations of a multiethnic past on the perceived inclusiveness of the nation The researchers framed this as a form of indirect intergroup contact: learning about a time when the nation included diverse peoples makes the current nation feel more open to diversity.
This is a genuinely interesting finding because it uses national history, the very raw material ethnonationalism feeds on, to push in the opposite direction. Instead of mythologizing an ethnically pure past, it highlights a past that was mixed and complex. Whether this approach can scale from an experiment to a sustained public narrative is an open question, but it suggests that ethnonationalist framings are not as fixed as they feel. The stories a society tells about itself shape what kind of belonging it considers natural, and those stories can be revised.
When Ethnonationalism Wears Other Labels
One of the persistent challenges in studying and countering ethnonationalism is that it rarely announces itself by name. Movements and leaders who hold ethnonationalist positions typically prefer labels that sound more acceptable: “patriotism,” “national conservatism,” “traditional values,” or simply “putting our country first.” The civic-ethnic blurriness discussed earlier is part of this: you can advocate for ethnic exclusion through ostensibly civic language by defining citizenship requirements, cultural integration tests, or “shared values” in ways that systematically favor the dominant ethnic group.
In democratic contexts, this creates a detection problem. Voters may support ethnonationalist policies without recognizing them as such, because the framing emphasizes economic protection, border security, or cultural preservation rather than ethnic hierarchy. Scholars who study this space have noted that unpacking the actual content of “civic” requirements often reveals ethnic assumptions underneath. A language requirement sounds civic; requiring proficiency in the historically dominant group’s language while defunding minority-language education is ethnonationalist in practice. A values test sounds civic; defining the “correct” values as those of the dominant religious or cultural tradition is ethnonationalist in practice.
This gap between labeling and substance means that raw survey data on “support for ethnonationalism” almost certainly undercount actual ethnonationalist attitudes. People may hold views that scholars classify as ethnonationalist while self-identifying as moderate patriots who simply want their country’s laws and traditions respected. The research on American voters’ conceptions of “true” national belonging, mentioned earlier, captured precisely this dynamic: respondents were not asked whether they supported ethnonationalism but whether being Christian, being born in the country, or having European ancestry was important to being truly American. The ethnonationalism was in the content of the answers, not in how people labeled themselves.