I would like to read up to date works about Political Theory applied to nationalism. Which ones would you consider indispensable? I am already aware of David Miller's entry on Nationalism in the "Oxford Handbook of Political Theory" and Canovan's "Nationhood and Political Theory". Any further suggestions?
Thank you ;)
Cas Mudde's definition of populism can help understand certain types of nationalism in that populism propagates an idea of the good people against a corrupt elite, and identity can play a role in how populist narratives and propaganda are framed. Here are some sources that may be of interest:
Akkerman, A., Mudde, C., & Zaslove, A. (2014). How Populist Are the People? Measuring Populist Attitudes in Voters. Comparative Political Studies, 47, 1324–1353. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414013512600
Mudde, C. (2007). Populist radical right parties in Europe. University Press.
Mudde, C., & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). Populism: A Very Short Introduction (2nd ed. edition). Oxford University Press.
See also Mudde's work on the far-right:
Mudde, C. (2019). The Far Right Today (1st edition). Polity.
Hi! I'd recommend to check out the works of professor John J. Mearsheimer, well-known political scholar from the US and expert on modern nationalism. Read his articles, books, even interviews with him. He says that nationalism (especially the desire to create a nation-state) is probably the most important political force of our era. Here's one of his articles: Article Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order
By the way, it's not easy to find works describing "universal" nationalism, because these movements need to appeal to nation's history, culture and tradition. But if you want to read some most influential sources, I'd check these names: Charles Maurras, Otto von Bismarck, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the Jünger brothers, Roman Dmowski, Alain de Benoist, Jan Mosdorf, Jose Antonio Primo de Riviera, Yukio Mishima etc.
To be honest, Margaret Canovan's 1996 book is more balanced and fairminded than much that has been penned about populism in the past 15 years. The tone of recent work about populism by academics placed political theorists borders on the paranoid and hysterical rather than anything that offers a valid understanding of either the phenomenon or the concept.
I strongly recommend Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin's National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy (2018). It is more political science analysis explaining the trends. Take a look at Matthew Goodwin's Values, Voice and Virtue (2023), which goes deeper into the issue of values that shape populist thinking in the UK context.