Official nationalism serves threatened ruling classes, not great powers alone
Evidence
Having considered these three varied cases of ‘official nationalism’, it is important to stress that the model could be selfconsciously followed by states with no serious great power pretensions, so long as they were states in which the ruling classes or leading elements in them felt threatened by the world-wide spread of the nationally-imagined community. A comparison between two such states, Siam and Hungary-within-Austro-Hungary, may prove instructive. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 380
Categorization
- DEFINE: Specifies the causal trigger of official nationalism: perception of threat from the spread of nationally-imagined communities, independent of great-power ambitions.
- XREF: connects to: Official nationalism is a copyable state-serving policy with a Janus-headed legacy — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 625; Ideologies are not what is shaped at power’s base; Generic nationalist slogans can mask a bloc’s concrete class interests (+5 more)
Related
- Official nationalism is an anticipatory strategy by threatened dominant groups (similarity 0.84)
- Official nationalism is a copyable state-serving policy with a Janus-headed legacy (similarity 0.84)
- Once a national-state model exists, even reactionary nationalisms must adopt populist standards (similarity 0.83)
- Nationalism in multinational empires disrupts internally instead of unifying as in nation-states (similarity 0.79)
- Official nationalism is a reactive response to earlier popular national movements (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Official nationalism is a copyable state-serving policy with a Janus-headed legacy
#expands(0.92) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 625 - Ideologies are not what is shaped at power’s base
#corroborates(0.75) - Generic nationalist slogans can mask a bloc’s concrete class interests
#expands(0.75) - Post-colonial nations blend popular and official nationalism as ongoing projects
#complicates(0.70) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 446