[Book Review]: "Varieties of Nationalism: Communities, Narratives, Identities"

Abstract

In this short but intriguing and much-needed book, Harris Mylonas and MayaTudor provide a guide and framework for how to conduct rigorous comparativeand cumulative research into the various consequences of nationalism throughtime and across countries. Noting that the nationalism scholarship lacks foremostthe conceptual clarity that characterizes other fields of comparative study likedemocratization (rather surprisingly given nationalism’s enduring relevancearound the world), the authors systematically break down the concept of nation-alism into the five most significant dimensions identified in the literature – “eliteand popular fragmentation of national communities; ascriptiveness and thicknessof national narratives; and salience of national identities” (11) – and review someof the influential works in the literature that causally link each of these dimen-sions with a diverse range of outcomes such as regime type, refugee policies,state capacity, political stability and others. They conclude by encouraging scho-lars to explicitly situate their research puzzle along one of the five identifieddimensions of nationalism (62) and to define and operationalize that dimen-sion(s) “in a clear, consistent manner” (14). Only in this way, the authorscontend, can meaningful comparative and cumulative knowledge in the nation-alism scholarship be built…