Nationalism

Nationalism is a shared group feeling in the significance of a geographical and sometimes demographic region seeking independence for its culture and/or ethnicity that holds that group together. This can be expressed as a belief or political ideology that involves an individual identifying with or becoming attached to one's nation. Nationalism involves national identity, by contrast with the related concept of patriotism, which involves the social conditioning and personal behaviors that support a state's decisions and actions.

From a political or sociological perspective, there are two main perspectives on the origins and basis of nationalism. One is the primordialist perspective that describes nationalism as a reflection of the ancient and perceived evolutionary tendency of humans to organize into distinct groupings based on an affinity of birth. The other is the modernist perspective that describes nationalism as a recent phenomenon that requires the structural conditions of modern society in order to exist.

American nationalism

American nationalism is a form of nationalism found in the United States, which asserts that Americans are a nation and that promotes the cultural unity of Americans.

American scholars such as Hans Kohn have claimed that the United States government institutionalized a civic nationalism based on legal and rational concepts of citizenship, and based on a common language and cultural traditions, rather than ethnic nationalism. The founders of the United States founded the country upon classical liberal individualist principles rather than ethnic nationalist principles. American nationalism since World War I and particularly since the 1960s has largely been based upon the civic nationalist culture of the country's founders. However prior to 1914, American nationalism in practice had strong ethnic nationalist elements – including nativism and efforts to exclude immigrants, African Americans, and others from receiving political power as citizens. American nativist ethnic nationalism found a basis in early leaders of the United States – such as George Washington who believed that immigration could have a deleterious effect on the country's national character, as well as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson who opposed immigration from absolute monarchies because they believed that such immigrants would bring the antidemocratic beliefs of their countries to the United States. Discriminatory immigration policies by the U.S. government continued until 1965 with the Immigration and Nationality Act that abolished the existing ethnic quota system and replaced it with an ethnic-blind system. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s resulted in American civic nationalism prevailing over ethnic nationalism, as legal barriers preventing African Americans from attaining full citizenship were removed, officially enfranchising African Americans as equal citizens as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

Irish nationalism

Irish nationalism asserts that the Irish people are a nation. Since the partition of Ireland, the term generally refers to support for a united Ireland. Irish nationalists assert that rule from London has been to the detriment of Irish interests.

History

Early development

Generally, Irish nationalism is regarded as having emerged following the Renaissance revival of the concept of the patria and the religious struggle between the ideology of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. At this early stage in the 16th century, Irish nationalism represented an ideal of the native Gaelic Irish and the Old English banding together in common cause, under the banner of Catholicism and Irish civic identity ("faith and fatherland"), hoping to protect their land and interests from the New English Protestant forces sponsored by England. This vision sought to overcome the old ethnic divide between Gaeil (the native Irish) and Gaill (the Normans) which had been a feature of Irish life since the 12th century.