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Political Concepts
A Working Paper Series of the Committee on Concepts and Methods
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| Matthias vom Hau, "How to Identify Nationalism?," December 2008 |
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| Abstract | | Social research on nationalism is marked by the relative absence of theoretical advances. The “noncumulative nature” of the field is to a large extent driven by fundamental disagreement about what is to be explained. A crucial step to overcome such a lack of knowledge accumulation is thus a self-reflexive methodology that closely aligns conceptualization and measurement. This paper proposes three major approaches to the conceptualization of nationalism—as (1) a set of political behaviors, (2) a collective sentiment, or (3) a form of ideology or discourse. It is argued that their respective strengths and weaknesses depend on the specific research question asked. The choice of an analytical perspective, however, has major ramifications for the choice of feasible measures. The second part of the paper surveys plausible (and less plausible) measurement strategies for these conceptualizations of nationalism. |
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C&M
The Committee on Concepts and Methods
International Political Science Association (IPSA)
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