Of the many political ideologies that exist, perhaps one of the most paradoxical ones is nationalism. It has been associated with various political currents. At the end of the eighteenth and during the nineteenth century, people who wanted to overcome monarchy were often staunch nationalists. In the first half of the twentieth century, nationalism is said to have been a root cause for the two world wars and the horrors of fascism. However, especially in the second half of the same century, nationalism was important in the fight against imperialism and the struggle for decolonization of many countries in the Global South.
Today, in almost the whole world, processes of democratic backsliding, autocratization, and a rise of the far-right can be observed. Again, nationalism is said to play an important role in this. In this conversation, Filip Milačić considers the influence of nationalism on current processes of democratic backsliding and proposes counterstrategies.
Filip Milačić is a senior researcher at the “Democracy of the Future” office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, visiting professor at the Central European University (CEU), and research affiliate at the CEU’s Democracy Institute. His new book, Abandoning Democracy for the Nation, has just been published by Cambridge University Press.
The interview was conducted by Konstantin Kipp. Alina Young edited the audio file.
