Territorial nationalism

Part of a series on
Nationalism
Nation forming Nationalism in the Middle Ages Anthem Church Colours Emblem Father Flag Epic God Identity Language Myth Sport State Symbol Treasure
Core values Allegiance Independence Patriotism Self-determination Solidarity
Types African Anarchist Blind Bourgeois Business Welfare Civic American French Irish Communist Constitutional patriotism Corporate Cyber- Ecological Economic Ethnic Ethnopluralism European Expansionist Homosexual Integral Left-wing (populism) Musical Mystic Neo- Pan- Racial Arab Black Japanese Shōwa Korean White Zionism Religious Christian Catholic Clerical Hindu Hindutva Muslim Sikh Resource Revolutionary National syndicalist National Bolshevik Fascism Legionarism Nazism Rexism Ethnocacerism Romantic Technological Territorial Trans- Ultra-
Organizations List of nationalist organizations
Related concepts Anationalism Anti-nationalism Anti-globalization movement Anti-imperialism Banal nationalism Civil religion Communitarianism Cosmopolitanism Cultural nationalism Diaspora politics Ethnocentrism Francoism Gender and nationalism Globalism Historiography and nationalism Imagined community Imperialism Internationalism Irredentism Jingoism Localism Militarism National indifference Nationalism studies Nativism Plurinationalism Post- Principle of nationalities [fr] Racism Revanchism Right-wing populism Seasonal or cultural festival Subsidiarity in Catholicism Trumpism Xenophobia
Politics portal
v t e

Territorial nationalism describes a form of nationalism based on the belief that all inhabitants of a particular territory should share a common national identity, regardless of their ethnic, linguistic, religious, cultural and other differences. Depending on the political or administrative status of a particular territory, territorial nationalism can be manifested on two basic levels, as territorial nationalism of distinctive sovereign states, or territorial nationalism of distinctive sub-sovereign regions (regional nationalism).^[1]

Within sovereign nation states, territorial nationalism is manifested as a belief that all inhabitants of that nation owe allegiance to their country of birth or adoption.^[2] According to territorial nationalism, every individual must belong to a nation, but can choose which one to join.^[3] A sacred quality is sought in this nation and in the popular memories it evokes.^[4] Citizenship is idealized by a territorial nationalist.^[4] A criterion of a territorial nationalism is the establishment of a mass, public culture based on common values and traditions of the population.^[3][4] Legal equality is essential for territorial nationalism.^[3]

Because citizenship rather than ethnicity is idealized by territorial nationalism, it is argued by Athena S. Leoussi and Anthony D. Smith (in 2001) that the French Revolution was a territorial nationalistic uprising.^[4]

Territorial nationalism is also connected to the concepts of Lebensraum, forced expulsion, ethnic cleansing and sometimes even genocide when one nation claims a certain imaginary territory and wants to get rid of other nations living on it. These territorial aspirations are part of the goal of an ethnically pure nation-state.^[5] This also sometimes leads to irredentism, since some nationalists demand that the state and nation are incomplete if an entire nation is not included into one single state, and thus aims to include members of its nations from a neighboring country. This thus often leads to ethnic conflict. Thomas Ambrosio argues: "If the leader of state A sends material support and/or actual troops into state B in the hopes of detaching state A's diaspora from state B, this would clearly be an indication of ethno-territorial nationalism".^[6]