Siniša Malešević, "Nationalism as a Way of Life: The Rise and Transformation of Modern Subjectivities" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

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He is the author of the award-winning books Grounded Nationalisms, published by Cambridge University Press in 2019, and Why Humans Fight Also Published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. His work has been translated into 14 languages. Sinisha Mousavitch, welcome to the new Books Network. Should I say welcome back? Because you were on with a previous host. Correct? Yes. Thanks very much for the invitation. Yes, I did this for my book, "Previous Book of Violence, Why Humans Fight?" So this was like three years ago. I think three years ago. Welcome back. We always like having our guests back on. As you might remember, we always like to begin our interviews by asking our guests. Tell us a little bit about yourself, and what's the backstory behind writing this book? Yes. So I'm a Comparative Historical Sociologist who mostly works on war, violence, nationalism, nation-states, empires, and with a little bit of social theory in the background everywhere. So most of my books go in that way. I write a book called "War Violence, the Violence, the Violence, the Nation, the Nation, the States, and so on. And for much of my career, I've been doing this kind of work, looking at links between state formation, nationalism, violence, war. And a lot of this has obviously to do with my own biography, you know, being born in what used to be a Yugoslavia. So I was kind of undergraduate student when federally Yugoslavia collapsed. So that was sort of an initial point for me to be repuzzled by these topics like why states collapse, why new states are formed, what role nationalism plays in conflict and violence. And then over the years I became interested in other parts of the world, and you know, you see similarities and differences. So I think much of my initial impetus was biographically, you can say, but then I lived in different countries, different places, and I've been in Ireland for 30 years now. And I also has its own history of conflict and violence, so that had played also an important part in both in research and in teaching for me. Yeah, just speaking for myself, I've read a lot of your books and they're just, it's really good top quality scholarship. And it is also influenced even my own work in related areas of nationalism and collective identities and war and how those issues kind of connect with each other. So thank you. You've done a very good job in the field, I must say. Thanks very much. I know you're focused more civilizational, so I kind of stop mostly the borders of either empires or nation states and you know, but I think this is also something that can, you know, there, there should be a dialogue between the kind of civilizational research. Yes, and not that I've heard too much, but one of my recent works is kind of seem where the overlap is. I just recently published in comparative civilizations review, you know, well, what is this distinction between the nation state or nationalism and a civilizational state and civilizational. So I've kind of started that dialogue a little bit in a way too. And of course, yeah, that's a whole nother discussion in of itself, but. Yeah, and maybe we can have you back on and we can discuss this in more detail, but game back to nationalism. I know we probably both know that this is kind of a wide ranging term. So just for our audience, especially those who have either never heard the term or they're confused about the term, what is a brief overview of what you mean by nationalism in regards to at least this book and your research. Yes, I mean, you're right. This is a kind of in some respect contested term because, you know, people have different understanding what nationalism is. And the concept itself keeps changing. It has been changed. So my view, I see nationalism as a political ideology and a form of social practice where there is a kind of prioritization of nation. So nation is seen as a principle unit of human solidarity and also as a dominant form of political legitimacy. So it is kind of a little bit broad definition, but it allows me to kind of study how nationalism changes and how nationalism can be so plastic ideology. So you can go very much along with far right and in European context, nationalism has often been associated with far right because of the legacy of the Second World War, but that's not always the case. And there are many nationalism which go all the way to far left or left. And I think the British are very interesting that context because in Ireland, you know, sheen fame is representative of the left wing nationalism and Scottish national party and applied camera wheeling in. In Wales. So here it's not unusual when you speak, but nationalism is the last thing that you know, but nationalism can be a centrist. The most of the time is very centrist. It can be like any political movement any political party uses a nation's century language. But it's not just political movements, social movements kind of so I see nationalism as a form of political and social subjectivity in modernity. So it affects everyday life, how we see the world, how we interpret the world. And you know, kind of often it's so naturalized and normalized that it's just taken for granted. So it is assumed and Geller would say that very, you know, he did this in his 1980s book that it you know, we now have nationality in the same way we have knows and ears and it's just kind of so completely normalized. So if you say people will often when you meet somebody in a more international setting first question is what's your name second question where you from with expectation they will say from US from Germany from France, Ghana, but not that from particular village or from particular clan or family. So that's the kind of normalizing aspect of what nationalism is about. Yeah, and even if you do try to talk about your specific city is usually like what's the nearest major city. This is especially true in the United States like for example me in the Detroit area, but I have to say one from Detroit because otherwise if I say the actual specific city nobody knows where that is. But everybody knows where Detroit is at least when you are in Europe, you know, the people just assume your American that's it there's nothing you can say about it regardless of any differences that you might have in the US. Yeah, well, this kind of complicated for me, depending on where I go because I have a Polish name and even people say say, oh, you look Slavic, you have the Slavic looks. So it's like, oh, are you American or you Polish and I'm kind of say, well, technically I both, but I usually just say well, I come from a Polish family, but I'm from America. And then some other you imagine if you go to Poland, if you speak with American accent to them, you will be an American regardless of the last name. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I could speak to that. And then other some other times it's like, well, you have a Polish name, but yet you're American, I thought you're American. I'm like, well, then I have to get into that that little history. But also team back to that. But I think that's a good thing, you know, because now, you know, being in that situation, you're always questioning all of these. Yeah, it's not the body. Yes. Even getting into my own biography, I mean, being from a Polish family, but also if Ukrainian and even Russian elements, it's just, you know, some of the mentalities of aspects of that history and culture from that part of the world, I'm able to relate to and even the fact that Polish and Ukrainian culture even implanted itself here in the Detroit area. So the point that if used with American culture, but it was almost like a, as we would say Polish American culture, it's kind of interesting. And then when I go to Poland or when I air with Polish people, it's kind of interesting seeing the comments. and reference points, but also the distinctions at the same time. So it's kind of interesting of how these different dynamics can occur. And it's kind of interesting just how fluid nationalism can be. And I was about to bring up one example that I often give, because in the United States, when you say nationalism, most people think of the Nazis and this concept of racial purity, but the French, they actually had a completely opposite conception of nationalism that they were the mixing of three races, the Gauls, the Romans, and the Franks, and out of that, they got all the strengths of all three together and out of that came the nation of France. So that was the basis of their nationalism. And I remember Charles Moraz, who was kind of like a French, he's often called a proto-fascist, but even he said like, yeah, talk of race, that's just German rubbish. We French our way above, beyond that. And I think it's just kind of interesting. And even and I know in Ukraine, at least in the late 19th century, early 20th century, there was a distinction between the nationals who they at least wanted autonomy for Ukraine within the Russian Empire. And then there were the nationalists who wanted a completely separate Ukrainian state. And that Russia and Ukraine had nothing to do with each other, like Dmitry Bonstoff, he was the most famous. infamous example of that perspective, whereas Hiroshesky was more along like, well, you know, we can be connected to Russia, but you know, Ukraine is distinct in its own right and away. And it's kind of interesting. There's these different spectrums and varieties. No, no, you're right in a sense. There are enormous differences, even with in specific traditional traditions of, you know, how nationalism has been understood and formulated. And then they are also historical differences in a sense how nationalism, I mean, obviously, when it starts with the French and American revolutions and the Latin American wars of independence, it is a very much a liberal project. It is about anti-futal, anti-monarchical, republican, you know, liberty, equality, fraternity. But then by the end of the 19th century becomes very right-wing, you know, kind of these people, I've mentioned them a lot, you know, others. And it is associated often with kind of racism, eugenics, and obviously ends up with Nazi and fascist and Japanese version of fascism and all of that, which is all very racialized and it's very different. And then again, in the 50s, 60s, this nationalism shifting more to the left, you know, with the decolonial projects and their nationalism is linked with socialism to some extent, not in a national social sense, but in a social sense more than national. And then again, I think by the end of 80s, particularly '89, '91, in the communist world, it becomes again a liberal, more liberal project, it's anti-communist to some extent. And now we are back in the right-to-right version of nationalism, you know, in many parts of the world. So yeah, it can go and it's very slippery in that sense. And there is another thing that Peter often comes and brings whenever I talk is, you know, nationalism is bad, patriotism is good. But sociologically speaking, it is part of the same family, you know, it's not, you know, patriotism obviously in political theory stands for a specific sense of loyalty to a political project and can be traced all the way back to the Romans in a way. But in the world of nation states, all forms of patriotism and nationalism because there is a nation state, you're not loyal to, you know, something very different that is an empire, whatever it's just, it's always a nation state. So I always keep saying to people, this is the way how we define things in the world of that, that is already nationalized. So it can be patriot because that's essentially select gravity. I mean, it's the same phenomenon. Hey, it can be just more gravity, less gravity, but it's still the same sociological phenomenon. Yeah. Now, how does your work on nationalism situate within the wider field of nationalism studies? And I know this is a big topic, but just kind of summarizes best you can because I know this. Yeah. So I started as a student of various gallery, you know, so I did the masters. He was my supervisor for my master's thesis in Central Imperial University, which used to be in Prague, at least one campus was in Prague in the mid 90s when I when I did this. And then he started supervising my PhD project, but unfortunately passed away 95 when I was just starting. So I was my early interests and my early focus was very hardly modernist. You can say in that that school. And then I was accepted to do a PhD in Antony Smith in LSC, but I decided to take some other scholarship and ended up in Ireland. So I was never really influenced by it, no symbol is, but I had a lot of dialogues and if you read Antony Smith's books, you will see your response to my critiques. And I've been always very have been critical at the symbolism, but not in any dismissive way. I think that was a very important contribution that has been made there. So I think my books on nationalism, particularly from 2006 identity is ideology that's kind of first book were engaged theoretically both with modernist and ethosimbalist extensively all the way to this book. And previous grounded nationalism book is sort of articulates a different position, which is modernist, but it's not kind of an unrestrained modernism that you would see in Gellner or in Hobbesbound because for them past doesn't matter. Gellner has a number of sentences, he was just saying, you know, anything that has happened before, but then it doesn't matter. Well, Smith obviously said, no, it is important to look at these cultural course, cultural roots, myths and everything else. While my argument is the past does matter, but not cultural past is the organizational past, of course, the organization parts for what parts so the past. So what matters for me is to look at the way how course, of course, the organization a capacity increases. So we don't move the maturing world of nation states and suddenly that we build on already existing elements that were there with patrimonial kingdoms with city states, with empires, you know, with the previous types of social order. So that's what I'm looking and that I think has something to do with the fact that I've been studying war as well and, you know, tracing war much more, you know, over longer periods of time to understand how course, organizational power works. So I think my perspective could, you know, it's still modernist, you know, I see nationalism, modern phenomenon, but it's a kind of restrained modernism of sorts. So I think that would be the simple take on it. No, that's great. And yeah, I've also read a lot of Anthony D. Smith's works and I don't know, is there any still any more scholars in the ethnocentbalysis? Yes, yes. So I mean, you can say his first PhD student was John Hutchinson and John, John Continuism in that vein. He's that symbol is probably the only a recognizable, recognizable living, getting a symbolist is such, although he's work is, to some extent also influenced by Michael Mann and Tilly who are modernist, but he kind of is critiquing them to some extent. And but he is definitely ethnocentbalism, emphasizing cultural kind of aspects of long-term, you know, transformations. So there is a, there's a younger generation which may not necessarily use that, that, you know, framing, like, Ah Tsukui Chi or she's a Japanese scholar, she just recently published the book, which is, to me, seems, looks very etnocimbolic, you know, she looks at the Asian case studies, Japan, China, Korea, and arguing that this nationalism is not something that started, the European started earlier in Asia and all of that. So that looks to me, and she was also supervised by Anthony Smith and John Hutchinson. So there is that link and there, there are a few academics here and there, but you're right in a sense, there is no kind of visible school, you know, apart from few individuals there that you can say they represent at the civil modernism is still dominant in different shapes, you know, it's not the same, some people are more economic modernist, some are political modernism, or military modernism, some are cultural modernist, but, but, you know, it is, I think, more, more influential perspective. Yeah. Yeah, we could discuss this all day. Yeah, so that's the good thing, but also the bad thing about these energies is we discuss all these big ideas, but we also have to compress them as best we can. Now, one major distinction you make is between structuralist and agency-based perspectives on nationalism, because you just explain what you mean by that distinction. So I think what are historical perspectives that have developed in the study of nationalism? I mean, you can say they can be traced to 60s, but it's really 1980s when nationalism studies becomes a proper area. I don't know, you know, is it something similar with the civilizational studies? They can say this is a particular decade, where this becomes established and, you know, there are journals associated with there's schools of thought. So we obviously have a lot of researchers and thinkers on nationalism before. I mean, it's called, you know, Ranaan and everybody else, but it's really 1980s when we can say this becomes a distinct area of scholarship, nationalism studies, and we have lots of journals, and we have associations emerging and all of that. So then we can say that, you know, So enter into it. Smith was very good not only as a kind of initiator, a particular perspective, not symbolism, but also as a person who institutionalized nationalism studies. He was really good. He wrote books, which were kind of reviews on what's going on in theories of nationalism. He set up the associations for the study of nationalism with his PhD students. He set up nations and nationalism journal and a few other journals. So I think from then on, we can see development of nationalism scholarship in the distinct areas. And I would argue that a lot of that scholarship in the 80s and 90s was very structuralist. So that's in part inevitable if you're looking over long periods of time. Long time historical changes, very difficult to zoom in on kind of microcontext if you look over centuries. What's happening? So then we have people like Hobbesbound and Geller being representatives of the economic structuralism. Although they are very different Hobbesbound, Marxist, Geller, anti-Marxist, but still both economically focused explanations for the origins of nationalism. Then you have Smith and Hanschenson kind of representatives of the cultural structuralism, looking at the role of this link of ethnic origins of nations, the ethnic and how ethnic has become politicized and particularly, you know, memories, collective memories and all the kind of cultural heritage and centrality of culture in general for nationalism. Then you have a kind of more military focus structures like Charles Steeley, like Michael Mann, at some extent John Hall from McGill and a few others. And then you have a kind of Benning Danderson who is very unusual because he combines, I think, cultural, you know, and economic aspects of structuralism because he was also initially at least neo-Marxist, but he became very cultural oriented. So you have the print capitalism, which is very economic explanation, but you also have the, you know, standardized vernacular and the importance of printing and media. And a lot of his culture on Central and Eastern Asia is very culturalist. So these are all the structural perspectives. And they obviously are very good in tracing these long-term patterns, but despite having kind of prioritized different factors, economy, politics, military culture. And then you have a, I think, much later development of the agency centered perspectives, particularly everyday nationalism in a scholarship, which we can identify with John Fox and Miller Idris, Cynthia Miller Idris, they wrote that piece in 2008, which was kind of pioneering piece on everyday nationalism. Since then, that's nearly 20 years now. We have lots of scholarship on everyday nationalism. Then before that, we obviously have Craig Calhoun's work on kind of a discursive kind of perspective. I think he's very much unique in that niche. He wrote that book in '97, and he wrote a few other books later. But it seems to be more agency-focused. Then we have, you know, kind of obviously more Eastern brewbakers work on kind of cognitive, cognitive perspective, which is he started more as a structure was before in the 90s when he was analyzing collapse of the Soviet Union. But now, you know, over the last 20 years, it become much more micro-sociological, you know, kind of perspective looking at the agency. So what I did in this book, I was trying to kind of emphasize what is good in preserving, you know, between these perspectives and develop this thing interpretation, which is a sort of what I call inducted middle range position, you know, that is, doesn't combine structure agents, because if you combine them, then you've got nothing. There's no explanation. You have to identify something. But it tries to kind of, you know, get elements from each perspective to develop a perspective, which I thought could be, you know, used. And then I applied to lots of different cases, as you could see in the book. Yeah, that kind of relates to my work in civilisations, where I've emphasized what I call a multi-paramatic view, where sometimes, you know, each paradigm kind of has something useful to it, but sometimes, depending on what aspect or what angle you're looking at, that's the paradigm that's most useful, because, you know, maybe you need a more structuralist, but if you're studying like, for example, every day, like what does nationalism mean in every day sense, that obviously wouldn't work, you would need a more agency. So it's not necessarily either or, but which one is most appropriate for the particular topic or angle or level that you're looking at? Yes, some scholars of every day nationalism, like, Ellie Not from LSE argues that, you know, every day nationalism perspective is a historical deliberately, because it has to focus on kind of microcosmos and micro- universities, if you like. And it will be very difficult for them to kind of historicize that I have been critical that I think it is necessary to understand nationalism. You always have to have this kind of historical perspective somewhere, but, you know, I do understand there are limits of, you know, once you start digging deeply into, you know, every day context, it's just that I think it's enough to recognize that this is a product of historical change, you know, what has taken place. So the fact that people act in a particularly nation-centric way, this is only because of historical legacies, otherwise that wouldn't happen, you know, so it's, yeah. Yeah, just even getting to the context I talked to earlier, being in a Polish diaspora context, I could certainly say, what does it mean to be Polish-American for one generation, say the first, is a little bit different than the one in the third generation, even though, of course, there's some continuities, but there's also change and change in innovations in that. It's almost like we have to constantly reinvent, it's not like from scratch, but you probably get what I mean. No, no, I think that's a very good example. It shows you how, I mean, this transgenerational transformation, it doesn't happen in Vakium, you know, so there is a historical context here, you know, that you have to take into account, and with immigrant population, that's always the case, you know, the first generation tries to assimilate. This is, it's not very easy, you know, it's struggling with it. It has, you know, the second generation, usually fully assimilated. Third generation is discovering roots, so it's like quite, you know, common. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and what kind of adds to the complexity now is with, like, the information revolution, now it's almost like, now the immigration or the diaspora communities can have more communications with what we call the old country in English slang, and then also even other fellow diaspora communities. Now I'm communicating with Polish communities all over the world, and we're kind of seeing the commonalities, the differences, and, you know, and what's the contrast between the diaspora and the old country and Poland directly, and so forth. So it's kind of interesting this, these very different going. That's a new phenomenon in a way. Obviously, the new technologies have allowed, you know, kind of speedy access to information, and, you know, continuous communication before, you would obviously have to write letters, you know, which would take weeks to arrive, and, you know, the links could never be as strong as they are today. I mean, you can maintain these transnational networks instantly and daily, and you can see people as we see each other in the zoom now, you know, kind of all every day. So that's, we do live in a different world. It world has become much more complex, and, you know, there's access to information instantly, which affects nationalism, definitely, yes. And then in the civilizational field, there was SNI Stadth, who also invented the field of multiple modernities, like how modernity differs from the European to the Asian context, and there was one, they were, I believe he was talking about the Indian, the Hindu diaspora, and there was one, there were these different perspectives, and one was transnationism, where it was kind of like they wanted to focus on like a core Hindu identity among all Hindu communities around the world. So that kind of gets like, so it's not quite traditional nationalism as we would traditionally understand it or deliner, but it is kind of, it's a similar dynamic, but it's also like it also transcends borders. So this is kind of another interesting dynamic. I think it is definitely important. I mean, I just, that's work was used also by scholars of nationalism, especially the one that I mentioned, a Tsukwe Chia, the Japanese scholar, she was applying initially, I think, you know, in one of her earlier books, the multiple modernities, paradigm in order to understand how nationalism operates in different national, you know, kind of regional context, if you like, or civilizational context. But you're right, and we do have a kind of brewbaker, it's also written extensively on diaspora, the impact of diaspora on national politics, and traditionally, the diaspora has been associated with more right wing, you know, kind of organizations, and, you know, from, I don't know, from, I mean, every community can think of, has a diaspora somewhere, especially in the conflict. I mean, I was recently working something on Sri Lanka, and in, you know, the way on how Tamil diaspora was so influential, you know, sending money and resources during the war in Sri Lanka. And even today, you know, after the Blost War, they are still very influential in, you know, propagating the cause. And many wars, I mean, as you know, it's also as a scholar of war. I mean, I depend on a funding, and support from the Asperer. I mean, it's not, I mean, even in Ukraine today, Ukraine in the Asperer is a significant actor, I mean, in this conflict, it's present, it's organized, it's, and that has been the case in many, I think, conflicts. Yeah, I was about to say, the Ukrainian community here in the Detroit areas, but very active in, especially organizing humanitarian aid for Ukraine and just trying to, and also just keep like the public aware of what's going on in Ukraine and so forth. So yeah, it's just, it's just kind of interesting, 'cause again, we always think of nationalism as, you know, it's just confined to the borders, but it also, it transcends borders at the same time. So it's, and this even goes back to even, well, even to the Irish in the 19th century, the Irish diaspora in America was very active in the early findings of the Irish Republican Army. And then of course, again, back to the Nazis, they were the ones who also wanted to incorporate all the German diaspora communities, the vulks, the witches, they called them, but also all the Germanic people like the Scandinavia and so forth into like this huge, you know, new order that would dominate the world. I mean, that's true in a way, and it is interesting if you look historically as scholars like Jeppe Larson, he, from Mr. Vamsteadam, he traced all these kind of intellectual networks that you see in early 19th century, even before, throughout Europe, you know, so you have intellectuals who developed these national ideas together. So in that sense, you can say, nationalist was from the very beginning, a transnational or global or European, at least, and then spread all over the world movement, because they were sharing these ideas and the French revolution also inspired intellectuals everywhere and you have movements that spread throughout and to India, to anywhere. So yes, this nationalist was always a global movement that's in a way, maybe paradoxical, but that's the way how it developed in terms of ideas and terms of organization. Now, nationalism is also understood as an ideology and what role does ideology or ideal, in the more wider sense, idealential factors have in nationalism. - Yeah, so nationalism, as I said for me, is both ideology and a form of social practice, but the ideological aspect is about, you know, justifying certain ideas, promoting certain, this does of what society should look like, implementing these goals, legitimizing certain course of action, promoting particular doctrines. So from, again, very early on, if we go again back to French-American revolutions, they're very clearly defined what these ideas represent. So the idea of the republic, in some respect, you know, republic and nationalism are very tied. I mean, it's very, even today we have more keys, which I have a nationalist idea, but initially this was a very much a republican project. It was about sovereignty that had to be given to people, rather than to monarch, you know, to dynasty. So ideas play the crucial role in that sense of justifying, legitimizing this project and also envisaging, you know, what the better world would look like. So, you know, French nation, one meant to be a nation of all, you know, so all citizens, although ultimately, was quite middle class project, you know, it took very long time for this, from a lot of people in France to identify as French, as has been the case everywhere else. So there is always that stratifying element, but the ideology was very important, you know, for justifying a nationalism in my theoretical approach, I emphasize not just the original course of organizational power, which is kind of a crucial, but also the ideological kind of penetration, ideological penetration of society, you know, so initially nationalism emerges as an idea associated with intellectuals, upper middle class people, secret societies, you know, who promote these ideas throughout Europe, students, again, what's a great student's going to Odessa and Paris studying and bringing these ideas and majority of people in what is Greece today were peasants who had no idea of what nation would represent. And the record of the church was very much against this idea, even today, the church is representative of the Greek nationalism, then it was, you know, nationalism was seen as something liberal, something secular, something pagan, something, you know, threatening to the whole idea of Christianity. And the record of the church was very much associated with reviving Byzantine project, you know, a Christian version of it, so today things have changed very much. So you can see how these ideas shift, and that's why we have to analyze nationalism as an ideology because it keeps changing, you know, it's never fixed, it's never stable. Sometimes there's more secular, on other occasions, it could be more religious or something else, or more linguistic, you know, regardless of what symbols are, you know, in some nationalism's languages, crucial, another like nationalism in a religion might be an important marker and territory or so. So yes, ideology plays a crucial nationalism is ideology, it's not only ideology, but it is ideology, definitely, yeah. - Now you did mention religion in the Greek context, but overall how does religion and nationalism tend to over relate to one another? Now you said sometimes nationalism is more secularism. You kind of saw that like, for example, in Italy because the papacy was a major thorn in the side of the idea of United Italy, and then also in France, of course, you had, you know, the French Revolution, the Republic, but then also later on Charles Marra, who we mentioned, even though he was personally agnostic, he said, no, the Catholic Church is like the pillar of French identity and so forth. And of course, game back to Poland, the Catholic Church, the Catholic faith has been a major pillar of its national identity and the Russian Orthodox Church too in Russia. How did these two overlaid? - Yeah, so obviously again, another huge topic to discuss, but just to put it simply, and I have a chapter in the book where I kind of tried to use the example of Ottoman Empire in Turkey to see, you know, what happens with this issue between nationalism and the religion. And, you know, what I'm trying to argue, not only this book, but in other books, is that in a pre-modern world, religion is much more powerful. Religion is the dominant way of life. It is the way of how people, you know, kind of understand this world and the other world. It is also the way of how hierarchies are legitimized. It is a way through which kind of state justifies their existence. I mean, if it's an empire, it evokes the divine origins of kings or some other religious interpretation, but the focus is very much on kind of religious family rather than being, you know, ethnic or national concept. In Islam, that's very clear with Umah, you know, it's a religious community. If we look at the pre-modern Europe, there were always references to Christendom rather than Europe, you know, that was the kind of the more, much more important, I.D.M. So it's really only with modernity that religion becomes a kind of more integrated with national projects. All these examples that you list in the Poland, in Catholicism, Russia and orthodoxy, and in Ireland also Catholicism played a crucial role as a cultural marker. So in a sense, once we live in a national world, once the world becomes nationalized, then religion becomes more of a symbol rather than a way of life. So that's the thing. It can be very aggressive symbol, you know, especially in the context of conflicts, but it's not life changes, you know, rather than having a kind of aristocratic world and world of commoners, which was the pre-modern world, where, you know, even though they had a common religion, they had lived very different lives. They didn't marry, there was nothing in common. You know, in a world of where nationalism is dominant source of legitimacy, you have a kind of political equality. I mean, that's the idea of French American pollution, you know, equality of citizens. So obviously it might not be economic. There's profound inequalities, but in terms of idea that we are all the sovereignty belongs to people, therefore that has certain implications that we, you know, we are all of equal moral worth, which wasn't the case before a modernity. So in that context, religion really becomes less prominent in everyday life. It becomes marker of nationhood. And, you know, so in Poland, in 13th century, Poland, religion is much more important than anything else, but it changes. You know, eventually in modern Poland, religion is a marker of polishness, while that was before just something that aristocrats could use, you know, in Schlauch, you know, the kind of fairly large aristocratic class, but still aristocratic class, not others, not commoners. And in that sense, you know, religious symbols, are quite important in the context when they can be used as markers for conflict. Because they always, if you look at Iran and Azerbaijan, they're both Shia, I mean minority, they are also Azaris, substantial number of population in Iran are Azaris. So you would think, so you have Azaris on both sides of the border, but they often are in conflict with each other. So religion here doesn't really matter, doesn't play such a role. Religion language is more important because Azaris in Iran's are mostly simulated and CDC themselves as a part of the Iranian state. In other contexts, the region matters. You know, as it did in Poland because of the neighbors who were not Catholic, as it did in Ireland because of the protestant British empire, Serbs and Croats, obviously religion matter. They speak the same language, but the region was the point of difference. So in that sense, the religion becomes a cultural marker, a really national marker, rather than a way of life. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember there were two scholars, Anthony D. Smith wrote a book on how religious symbols, particularly from the Bible, played a role in nationalism. And Derek Hastings, of course, also did that. And Derek Hastings, I remember, he said that in many ways, Serbian Catholics would relate more to Croatians and then Croatian Orthodox would relate more to the Serbian. So that's how the religious marker played a role in distinguishing ethnic identities in the Balkans. Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, Smith has this book chosen people. You know, which looks at that kind of biblical and other motives around which the whole idea of nation as being this unique exceptional project, which we, we, we, we, we, had religious overtones, you know, and we have that obviously. I mean, Russian nationalism was built initially on the idea of the third or wrong. Yeah. You know, so it has that, you know, and many nationalisms have that idea of chosen people. I mean, Smith was initially looking, obviously, at the Israeli state and, you know, Jewish ness has been chosen people, but there are other myths of chosenness everywhere. Everybody has different, you know, American exceptionalism is also form of chosenness. It's just differently framed. You know, so, so we will find that across different contexts. Yes. And, and, and religion in a, in a modern context becomes that marker, you know, that market that divides groups. Yes. Yeah. Now, you did mention Benedict Anderson and he came up with the concept of nations as imagined communities. Could you kind of explain this and what are your own thoughts on that idea? No. Yes. So it is interesting because that I remember when I brought him to give a few talks in Dublin when he was alive. And we, you know, we were corresponded and I spent some time with him in Brazil. It's a, it's a, so he was really nice, nice person. And much of his college was kind of people didn't pay attention so much to his work on Asia. He's been, he was an excellent scholar of East Asia. And that book, Imagin Community's became best seller. He said to me, he was sold in 400,000 copies in Japan alone, which is unheard of for an academic book. But so it was, you know, it kind of was probably the most influential, definitely the most influential book written on, you know, within the nationalism studies, you know, that had such a fine. But it's interesting, even though it sold so many copies, I don't think that many people actually read the book in any hall. So there was a tendency to focus just on that title, Imagin Community's, which was great title. And I think other scholars have been quite often pointing, I think your memories in Jenkins pointing out that people often misunderstood that Imagin Community's means imaginary communities. And that's not what the book is about. Book is about visualizing, in a particular way. You know, and that's what Ben Anderson emphasized, is, you know, that all groups, communities which are larger than face to face interaction, you know, are, are imagined communities. In the sense they abstract communities, communities that you have in your head rather than, you know, in the face to face. So for him, nation is one, but also so is class or religion, you know, they are also groups that are, you know, can be millions or in case of India, China, billions of people. So they are, you imagine 99% of members of your nation because you will never meet them. I mean, there's no, you know, chance for this meeting, but you still have that sense of communion. And that's why he emphasized the imaginary aspect of it. So it is about visualizing, conceptualizing nation, not about kind of, it's not about fabricating. So that's the important element. He's not, he's kind of quite sensitive about this, you know, he understood the power of nationalism. And I, in the book, I have this chapter looking at the conspiracy theory is how they change through time. And I'm sort of playing a little bit with his concept, trying to show how imagined communities have existed before, but mostly as religious communities. And then it's really in the modernity that we see nation becoming the dominant form of imagined, you know, community. Now let's get into your other major area, like which is war and organized violence. What is the connection between nationalism and war? You do have a couple of chapters talking about this. And also you have several books talking about this, but could you just summarize your views on this really? Yes. So in my books on war and violence, I do have, you know, kind of reference to nationalism in some chapters. And in this book, yeah, I have, I think, three chapters dealing with either soldiers or war or kind of commemorations of conflicts, defeats and victories. And one of the chapters, kind of, I mean, generally speaking, you have these approaches that say that nationalism leads to war, you know, kind of excessive feelings of nationalism leads to war and often, especially kind of traditional historiography tended to interpret, let's say, war will won in these times in some other conflicts. But I think a lot of social science has moved more in the direction of nationalism is more a consequence of war, rather than being cause of war. So once you have a conflict, then, you know, then there's more homogeneity happening and institutions are able to kind of impose particular narratives of nationhood and protract the conflicts can lead to that. I often try to develop again a different perspective saying that nationalism and war in modernity develop in parallel so they can overlap and in times of conflicts, because both of them have been expanding and growing, you know, you see why they can gel. And often that happens. As soon as there is a conflict, you see media immediately, you know, displaying these images that we are all familiar with. And I think if you remember Billings' banal nationalism opens up with that, you know, sense that any country that has a, you know, military is there to kind of defend, you know, the nation. So we have that image. We are very much reminded daily that we are members of specific nation and in times of conflict, it's easy to mobilize population because we think in these national categories. So war and nationalism are quite kind of interesting and modernity that tend to be very much linked. But if you look historically, there is no link. The further you're going time because war has been around much longer than nationalism. Some war had some other sources, you know, dynastic conflicts are very different and, you know, conflicts of resources or whatever that we can look at historically, a religious war or whatever. In this book, I have, as I said, a few chapters dealing with specific forms, like soldiers, I'm trying to compare soldiers and civilians and their attitude to nationalism and sort of trying to dispel some myths because we presume that combatants in particular are always, you know, driven by nationalist feelings. But what I try to show in the book is really civilians who carry nationalist torch, if you like. And then combatants often fight for much, you know, for their own fellow combatants, for their family members. So what matters is that how do you kind of use this emotional and moral commitment that people have to frame it as a national project? And that's what states do. They nationalize micro solidarities. So in a sense, we all have micro solidarities. But, you know, these social organizations, we can tap into this and make it into a national project. So that's one of the chapters, yeah. That reminds me of how, after World War I, a lot of the far right or fascist groups, they tried to use the, well, the front line solidarity, the socialism of the front line is, I believe, it was Spangler who coined that term. Well, it was one of the far right writers who did. But that was kind of their emphasis. And that was a contrast to the communist socialism of the workers, so to speak. Yeah, that's a good example. Because here you have a attempt of two very different ideological movements trying to tap into the same feelings. The people, obviously, the people who fought in the first war had these strong feelings of attachment to their comrades that they fought with. So the idea is, how do you frame that ideologically? For some of them that ended up as a fascist movement, as brown shirts and blue, you know, later on shirts and some ended up as a worker's movement and all of that. But the key issue really is ability of specific social organizations to tap into something that matter to people. The significant others, the family members, the friends, the comrades, you know, from the trenches. And that is something that has been happening. you know, since nationalism became such a powerful ideology. And it even reminds me in the Russian context, the communists, of course, they use T over each for comrades, but the Russian fascists or far rights in the emigrate, they use Serratnik, which also means comrades, but it's more military context, but they wanted to emphasize that comradeship over the communist form of comradeships. So it was, so again, it kind of shows a little bit of how how interesting and complex this is. It is interesting because you need to frame it differently, but you still need to tie into the sense of brotherhood. You know, so you need the kinship metaphor. And that's what I also emphasize in the book, you know, how ideology in general nationalism, especially has to rely on these kinship metaphors of kinship, you know, brothers and sisters and I mean, you know, religious ideologies do that Uma is a form of, you know, brotherhood and, you know, Christian brothers, so Hindu brothers, you know, in St. George brothers, whatever. So that has to be ancestorhood. I mean, feminism also uses the term sisterhood, you know, which is again, tapping into the micro world and projecting that into a large scale, for millions of people, you know, so I think ideologies, they have to be very successful to do that. They all do that, but not all of them are successful, only in sense of that. Now, there's also been a lot of debate, especially since the 1990s, that nationalism was supposed to be on the wane because of globalization, but you kind of have argued and you even had an entire book, rounded nationals about this, that actually globalization and nationalism actually are not necessarily mutually exclusive. They can actually grow and parallel to use our earlier term, terminology and another context. Yes. As I mentioned, you know, so the nationalism starts off initially through these intellectual networks and middle class movements. It is already kind of pan-European project, you know, in at least in this part of the world. And then later on, you know, there is always that reference to the others. So so nationalist movements, we talked about diaspora, they are located outside the country, they are influencing their watching what's going on. Often nationalist movements collaborated together. I mean, even today, more radical far right groups are very much attending each other conferences and congresses and you know, work with each other and all of that. So so that link was never broke. So globalization or different ways of globalization. So we have globalization early 20th century as you know, late 19 early 20th century and then you know, once let's say starting from 19th and seem to be now halted at least for time being. And we had kind of a lot of especially sociologists like Uribeck and Anthony Giddens and and and Zignabam and they were all writing in the 90s and early 21st century making reference to that. The national nationalism is gone. The globalization is taken over. People have become more individualized, more cosmopolitan. I wrote about this, you know, against this view 20 years ago saying that's not, you know, nationalism is growing. If you look at the surveys, if you look at the way how, you know, national ideas are a present in the public sphere, you know, in text books in schools, blah, blah, blah. So so that people identify more in national terms rather than less and in globalization did the opposite. The globalization actually allowed them. We've talked about, you know, provided means for communication and transport to people to become more nationalized rather than less. So so once you know what's out there, you become more protective of what, you know, you're not to mention migration, influencing perceptions of the world and everything else. So yes, I mean globalization was always there, I think, as a factor that's strength and nationalism rather than the weekend. I mean, it also can interpret this economically as well. Obviously, you know, a liberalizing economies and a open labor force. So there's a struggle between immigrant labor and domestic labor. There are less protections. So that can galvanize conflict, which has happened particularly in North America and Europe. And so far, I part, they said benefited in part from the kind of very harshly neoliberal economies that have created globalization as we know it. So none of these things have been surprising to me in the direction they took. And you know, we have to look at nationalism first and foremost as a global phenomenon rather than something that happens in one place. Now overall speaking in the year 2026, what is kind of the state of nationalism? I know that's a big product, big topic, but just kind of what's if you could summarize it, what's the state of nationalism? I mean, obviously since I wrote that book, "Round of Nationalism", you know, there were always reference to this idea of new nationalism, you know, suddenly, but I made a point in the book, the concept of new nationalism has been used for the past hundred years. And every time there is a kind of way of aggressive nationalism, people say, "Oh, this is something new, we've never seen it before." So my point was that nationalism never went away. It was always there, it was growing, but it may not necessarily be aggressive. So we usually don't pay attention to nationalism that is banal in every day and then that is kind of within the confines of the, you know, weather-liberal democracy or some other political order, but you know, it's deemed to be kind of normal, natural, just within escalates, in one form or another, where far right now dominates. And then we say, "Oh, there is new nationalism suddenly." So in a sense, obviously, now we live in a world which, which where far right nationalism has become much more aggressive, much more visible, more institutionalized, the rhetoric that was, you know, only maybe 15, 20 years ago, something that we would never hear from politicians now has become a public discourse, you know. And that's kind of very different. There is also more reference to imperial language which we didn't have before, you know, people were saying, "Not only that nationalism has gone, but even more so empires, they've been dead and buried." But now we have a kind of this, joining national and imperial rhetoric and practice, I mean, Russia, obviously, with invasion of Ukraine, justification was both nationalist and imperialists at the same time. We see that with Trump and Greenland and, you know, behavior in different parts of the world, which is not using humanitarian justification, which was the case, let's say, with Bush and Blair in Iraq, but is using no justification whatsoever, say, "We need it." And you have that, I mean, you can say, "Thirkey, Israel, I mean, other powerful states do as they please, you know, which isn't necessarily how world looked like 20 years ago." So, so in that sense, I think nationalism is very strong, but it has become conjoint with some imperial rhetoric with some kind of far-right discourses. It's worrying, you know, we'll see what will happen. Now, what does the future hold for nationalism in your own view based on your own research, both for this book, but also what you've done over your career? No, I think nationalism will continue. I mean, as you could see in this book, I have, you know, scenarios for the future, but long-term future, what might happen once, I mean, as I said, because national and national states are not having been with us for a very long time, they will not stay forever. I mean, nothing stays forever. So, it's very likely we'll end up with a very different world in the long-term future, but not in the short-term future. In short-term, future nation-states seem to be kind of very, very powerful. It doesn't seem to be an easy replacement for them. People are not particularly keen on having empires, even, you know, Russian Ukraine is a really good example of that because this kind of imperial rhetoric you could use in 19th century with relative ease, now it doesn't work. I mean, even if you occupy, you know, as much as Ukraine as you want, the people Ukrainians will not feel Russian. That's not possible anymore. Maybe it was possible, you know, 200 years ago, it's not possible any longer. So, in a nationalized world, these kinds of imperial occupations cannot last. That's, you know, they can last for a short period of time, but not for long period of time. I mean, you can look at any war that has been fought, you know, for territory recently, you know, the last 20, 30 years, and there was no success, unless you ethnically clients the whole population, that seemed to be done. So, we live in a highly nationalized world, a nation-centric world where nation states dominate and legitimize their existence in blocking some kind of nationalism. And that is unlikely to change anytime soon, you know. So, if nationalism can become, as it is now, quite right-wing, but this is a pendulum, so you can go the other way around as well. I mean, it's not inevitable that, you know, we might see what's going to happen in 10 years from now. You know, you might have a different, you might have some kind of more leftist version of nationalism, a liberal version of nationalism. So, it's hard to predict, but, you know, nationalism will not go away for any time soon. And for as long as your career has been, what advice would you give to scholars studying nationalism? How should the scholarship of nationalism move forward in your view? Yeah, I think, I mean, a lot of scholarship can has focused, I mean, either it has come from different disciplines. So, it is kind of historians, study, the sociologists, comprehensive geistarchists, sociologists, political scientists, the international relations, scholars and so on. But I think there hasn't been enough of this, you know, attempt to do, I mean, I can think of a recent book which is good in that respect written by historian. I don't know if you've seen Eric Storm, a nationalism world history. So, that's one of the recent books that has been published. published, which looks at nationalism as a global phenomenon. And I think that's a good way to do this, to look at it, because a lot of scholarship nationalism has been Eurocentric inevitably. So because we've studied Europe more and scholars of nationalism have emerged in Europe. So we don't know enough about rest of the world. We know perhaps a bit more about obviously Latin North America, but maybe less about Asia and very little about Africa nationalism, particularly long-term developments. So I think that kind of global perspective would help better in understanding the logic of way how nationalism has been developing and will develop in the future. More comparative scholarship-- a lot of scholarship, particularly historical, had tended to focus on single country. That's never good for nationalism studies. So we need more comparative research, I think. Also, doing simultaneously every day, agency, stuff, and structural research would help us. So there's so much room, I think, for new scholars to study this. And we also always need new theoretical tools. And I think that I think new young scholars would benefit from entering this field, which will not die any time soon. Well, this has been a very interesting discussion. And we could probably discuss this for days and-- but do you have any final thoughts, maybe, cover anything in the book that we didn't get to in the main discussion? No, I mean, I think we did cover a lot in a sense. Maybe we did mention this link between nationalism and conspiracy theories, which is one for me. It was interesting because I wrote that chapter, as initially, is an article during the COVID. And then I was reading a lot of how people responded and how conspiracy theories were articulated during the previous pandemics and generally in wars and other calamities. You have a very similar rhetoric. So it is interesting for me that in a world in which we live today, which, as you said, rightly, it's very connected. And conspiracy theories can be very global. They don't have to be national. But they're often even these global become nationalized. So even these frames, which are open to everybody, you end up-- because we live in the world of nation states, even these globalized conspiracy theories become nationalized. So that, for me, was an interesting example of how powerful nation states are and nationalists discourse. Well, thank you very much, Steven, for organizing this. And for your very thoughtful questions and comments, and engagement, and everything. Thank you. Yep. It was a joy to have you on. We always like to end our interviews by asking, I guess, what are you working on now? And I know you're almost always working on something. Yes, yes. As I said to you, so I have usually one book on nationalism and one on war. So I'm working on war now. I'll be a new book, a war in social order in the contemporary world. I'm hoping to finish this by September. I cannot promise anything. So we'll see. Well, maybe we can head me back on to discuss it. But I know I'll definitely be getting a copy for myself for it, because I always love reading your books. And Sonisha Malsovich, thank you for joining us on the new book's network. Thank you. Thanks, Steven. [MUSIC PLAYING]