Georgia’s European identity, often regarded as the basis of its pro-Western foreign policy, has been contested in the domestic arena by alternative agendas. While government changes are usually deemed instigators of change in this contestation, no systematic analysis has been conducted on the effect of external developments. Considering that Georgia’s relations with the West and Russia have been evolving and that the debates on European identity inherently relate to foreign policy, this article asks to what extent and how contestation within the European identity discourse changes in response to different external events. To elucidate these questions, the study unpacks European identity discourse in Georgia between 2012 and 2017 in the context of various ongoing foreign policy developments. These include developments in Georgia–European Union (EU) and Georgia–Russia relations, the war in Ukraine, and internal issues of the EU. Moreover, instead of common pro- and anti-European binary positions, identity discourse is analyzed as a combination of three identity categories via media in which each category constructs different degrees of difference with Europe. This article finds that advocates of each category interpret different foreign policy developments to reinforce, rather than challenge, their positions; thus, contestation and division in the discourse persist over time.

This article explores a recent tendency in the official Chinese discourse on nationalism—the government more actively employs Chinese achievements in science and technology to boost national pride and regime legitimacy. This “techno-turn” focuses on China’s construction of megaprojects, its active role in international techno-economic business, and its development of cutting-edge scientific research and technologies. This transition in the official discourse on nationalism contains several rationales along material, policy, and ideological dimensions, and uses sophisticated propaganda tactics. It also faces constraints and challenges—some derived from conflicts with reality, and others derived from internal logical imbalances. The turn marks a new stage in the development of contemporary Chinese nationalism, in which official nationalism absorbs elements from popular nationalism. This ideological transition may influence both Chinese domestic and international politics—it may lead to China’s more confident engagement in international affairs, but may also generate uncertainties in relations between China and the West.

The authors of the article show manifestations of homophobia in a range of Eastern European countries. They use the example of Poland to compare the current situation of LGBT people with that in the communist period. The article defends the thesis that homophobia, which goes hand in hand with Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and widespread dislike for any cultural minority, is a cultural compensation for economic disappointment and an expression of the Eastern European opposition to the economic and political expansion of the West. From this perspective, the dominant nationalist orientation requires treating not only LGBT communities, but also their defenders, supporters of a more liberal culture and civic organizations, as representatives of “foreign centers” who intend to meet “the interests of the core European Union (EU) countries.” Thus, messianic nationalism and homophobia are a compensation for economic marginalization and a form of defense moved from the sphere of economic problems to the sphere of identity.

Linguistic purism in Croatia has long figured as one of the main elements of Croatian linguistic nationalism. Though it has been tackled in scholarly production, its newest embodiment, the so-called Šreter prizes, has not. The Šreter prizes are an award contest, established by the editorial board of the highly nationalist linguistic journal, Jezik (Serbo-Croatian “language”), in which competitors vie for prizes awarded for the “best new Croatian word,” often referred to as “neo-Croatian.” This article explores the narratives centered around the Šreter prizes, tackling additionally the lexical and morphological features of the newly minted “Croatian” lexemes.

The Chinese Communist Party's dramatic shift from Mao Zedong's Chinese Revolution to Xi Jinping's Chinese Dream remains under-examined and even misunderstood or mispresented despite its enormous impact on every aspect of national life in the People's Republic of China. There is a clear need for in-depth analysis of the extent to which the CCP has departed from the philosophical foundation of Marxism and Maoism, abandoned socialism and communism, inverted its long tradition of iconoclasm, transformed its own identity and altered its subject position. Part of the CCP's philosophical departure from Marxism and Maoism is its increasing conversion to nationalism. The new nationalism underpinning the Chinese Dream, in particular, operates against the grain of Marxism and Maoism, and vice versa, and is logically irreconcilable with the latter — so much so that the CCP cannot be nationalists and Marxists, Maoists or communists at the same time. The contradictory logics between nationalism and Marxism can be best seen from their respective conceptions of permanence and change, the unity and conflict of opposites, and conceptions of, and approaches to, tradition and the past, which have had major ramifications in political-cultural change in post-Mao China, especially in Xi's New Era.

The deterioration in Russian-Ukrainian relations heightened in 2014 but did not begin then and has deeper roots. Both Russian presidents have had troubled relations with all five Ukrainian presidents irrespective if they were described as ‘nationalist’ or ‘pro-Russian.’ This article is the first to explain why the roots of the crisis go deeper and it does this by investigating three areas. The first is the different sources of elites in 1991 when independent Russia captured Soviet institutions and undertook top-down state building while Ukraine inherited far less and set course with bottom up state-building. The second is divergent Russian and Ukrainian national identities. The third is the resultant different transitions with Russia reverting to great power imperial nationalism and Ukraine quadruple and post-colonial transitions.

This article presents electoral developments and mobilization issues of the extreme right political parties between 1993 and 2016. It analyzes the changes in the extreme right discourses and framing strategies in relation to their electoral results. We argue that during the transition to democracy in the 1990s and partially later in the 2000s, the extreme right parties were predominantly focusing on the issues related to national sovereignty and were successful mostly in the context of hostility against groups that could potentially threaten this independence, while their electoral achievements were affected mainly by their internal party stability. In the late 2000s, the extreme right has, however, begun to adopt a strategy that has bridged nationalist, populist and xenophobic discourses, with stronger success during the economic and refugee crises in Europe.

Based on the qualitative research of elite interviews and narrative analysis of Hungarian documents, the main aim of this article is twofold: (1) to elucidate the transformation of Jobbik from a marginal extra-parliamentary youth focused movement to an influential parliamentary party; (2) to discuss the impact of Jobbik's ascension on the main centre-right Fidesz only as a pre-conclusion. It argues that the rise of Jobbik is not a protest phenomenon that simply demonstrates a social disenchantment with the transitional economy. Jobbik's transformation is a unique post-Communist political development that is rooted in elements of Hungarian nationalism. These national elements include underlying social prejudice against Roma and Jews, a preference for paternalistic economic systems, and even attraction to the historical narrative of mythic Turanism in the debate over the origins of Hungarian national identity. Jobbik manipulates all of these national elements for the transformation of its own party identity, emerging as a main challenger to the Fidesz.

No aspect of the Russian–Ukrainian war has proved more unexpected than the revelation that Ukrainian national identity both ethnic and civil is far stronger than almost anyone thought, while Russian national identity is far more fragmented and weak than most expected. That was especially surprising to many because Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on the assumption that Ukrainians are not a “real” nation unlike Russians and that his actions were advancing the interest of what the Kremlin leader chooses to call “the Russian world”. One result of this discovery has been that the Kremlin has had to take Ukrainian identity more seriously. Another has been that it has gone to great lengths to promote Russian national identity via state-controlled media, but the latter effort has come up short because Moscows ability to promote Russian identity is limited by the same three factors that have restricted previous Russian rulers: the fundamental weakness of Russian identity, the tensions inherent between identities the state supports and those it fears, and the reactions of the increasingly numerous non-Russian nationalities to any ethnic Russian identifications.

There is a broad consensus among students of contemporary Russia that the political system constructed by Vladimir Putin is authoritarian and that he plays a dominant role in it. By building and expanding on these two features and by engaging in a deconstruction and reconstruction of the concept of fascism, this article suggests that the Putin system may plausibly be termed fascist. Not being a type of group, disposition, politics, or ideology, fascism may be salvaged from the conceptual confusion that surrounds it by being conceived of as a type of authoritarian political system. Fascism may be defined as a popular fully authoritarian political system with a personalistic dictator and a cult of the leader—a definition that makes sense conceptually as well as empirically, with respect to Putin’s Russia and related fascist systems.

Based on a wide array of archival sources of the Communist Party of Italy (PCI), the article explores the historical relationship between the Party, Israel and the Jew and focuses on the real motivations behind the current divide between Israel and the European (Communist or former Communist) Left. The articles argues that Communism for Israel has not been lost for the presumed discriminatory attitude of the Jews in the Communist world, nor for historical growing Communist support of Palestinian guerrilla groups, but because of the increasing militarism and nationalism of the Zionist Left and the erosion of Communist and pacifist ideals.

In this article the author examines the political development and activities, ideological and political positions, networks and relationships of the Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU) since 1990 to 2004. The party’s successor, the All-Ukrainian Union “Svoboda” (VO Svoboda), joined the Ukrainian parliament since 2012 to 2014. VO Svoboda was part of the opposition to the Party of Regions and former pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. The SNPU has ethnocentric and nationalist positions that are expressed in political statements and documents published by the leadership and functionaries of the party. Much attention is paid to the party’s ideology and the way it positions itself. The official and disparate ideological views of SNPU functionaries will also be illustrated. These views became consolidated due to the changes within the party leadership, and the party finally changed its name and image, in order to appeal to the wider masses.

The ideology of Ukrainian nationalism in the 1930s and 1940s was a contested arena in which three dominant currents fought for hegemony: the national democrats grouped around the UNDO party, the authoritarian nationalists who supported the OUN movement, and the more extreme brand of authoritarianism espoused by the publicist Dmytro Dontsov. The three currents can be distinguished by analyzing both ideological writings and the myth-system that underpinned creative literature of this period. Distinguishing between the three currents allows for a better understanding of ideological shifts among those calling themselves nationalists, particularly shifts which occurred during the Second WorldWar and its aftermath. It also helps to explain some of the confusions that surround the term “Ukrainian nationalism” in the present day.

This article traces the on-the-ground mobilization and recruitment strategies of Ukraine’s radical right party, Svoboda (Freedom) in the years prior to its 2012 electoral breakthrough. Ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews with Svoboda party leaders and activists in Galicia show how party leaders strategically created an organizational structure aimed at recruiting young people, making linkages with pre-existing nationalist groups, and shifting the ideological focus away from cultural and toward economic issues. Interviews with party activists reveal how personal networks were key in the recruitment and radicalization process, showing that radical right activists were radicalized, or “made,” through political participation. Consequently, Svoboda’s organizational capacity allowed the party to take advantage of a political opportunity — Yanukovych’s unpopularity and weakened national democratic parties — in the 2012 parliamentary elections.

This paper deals with the emergence of skinhead groups in Russia and the extent to which this subculture has influenced and been influenced by political developments in the country. The research builds on a wide variety of sources in order to explain the complex processes at work that have led to this social phenomenon. I intend to show that these groups signify a fundamental trend in Russian political culture rather than operating on the margins of it, and that they are the result of political reformations in the country and the spread of global capitalism.

In Kyrgyzstan, nationalism combines a narrative on the titular ethnic group and its relation to a civic, state-based, identity, feelings of imperiled sovereignty, and a rising electorate agenda for political forces. Nationalism has therefore become the engine of an interpretative framework for Kyrgyzstan’s failures and enables the society indirectly to formulate its perception of threat, both on the Uzbek and Kyrgyz sides. To this end, this article first analyzes the double identity narrative, civic and ethnic, of Akayev’s regime, followed by the transformation toward a more ethno-centered Kyrgyz patriotism under Bakiyev, the growing role of the theme of imperiled sovereignty—which culminated with the events in Osh—and how nationalism is today becoming a key element of the political agenda and the public scene.

This article explores the impact of populist attitudes on party preferences and voting behaviour at the 2010 Slovak election. Using an original battery of questions on populist attitudes developed by the author and attached to the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems post-election survey, the article addresses hypotheses about the impact of populist attitudes on preferences and choices alongside nationalist and economic attitudes and the socio-demographic ‘transition loser/winner’ divide. It finds that whilst nationalist and economic attitudes are significant predictors of preferences and choices, populist attitudes are much less influential than anticipated.

This article describes the extreme right in the Czech Republic, where, in contrast to several other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, this part of the political spectrum has been unsuccessful for the past ten years. The aim of this article is to analyse the position of the extreme right in the Czech party system and the internal ideological and strategic cleavages within the extreme right. The conclusion of this article is that organized party-political extremism is after two decades of modern political development only a marginal part of the Czech political spectrum, with many internal problems and without real chances of significant success in the near future.

The article focuses on rise of nationalism and xenophobia in Slovenia. It starts by considering the issue of unrecognized minorities in Slovenia (former Yugoslavia nations) that have no minority rights, despite being large groups, as many international organizations for the protection of minorities have pointed out. A particular issue in this relation for Slovenia is the ‘Erased’ – the individuals who did not acquire Slovenian citizenship when Slovenia seceded from federal Yugoslavia – and despite the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decision, the Slovenian state has still not recognized their rights, which were violated in the post-independence period. The article also examines two other minorities in Slovenia, the Jews and the Roma. The article finds Slovenia to be a closed, non-globalised society which, in spite of its constitutional declaration to protect the rights of minorities and other national communities, is seeking to retain a politically and culturally homogeneous nation state.