5 Nationalism

Nationalism — the doctrine that humanity is divided into nations, each entitled to its own self- governing state (the nation-state ideal) — is the most powerful political idea of the modern era: maker of states (decolonization), breaker of states (Yugoslavia), and currently resurgent (great- power identity politics, populism, border walls). Variants: civic nationalism (membership by citizenship and shared institutions — the French republican model) vs. ethnic nationalism (membership by blood, language, culture — the German romantic model); banal nationalism (Billing's everyday flags and weather maps); and the postcolonial nation-building project. IRconsequences: self-determination claims (UN Charter and ICCPR's peoples' right — and its collision with sovereignty and uti possidetis borders: Kashmir, Palestine, Kosovo, and the cautious world norm against secession), irredentism, minority questions, and the tension between nationalism and globalization/cosmopolitanism. Nepal: an instructive case of civic-ethnic contest— the panchayat-era slogan of "one language, one dress" melting under the 1990–2015 recognition of multiplicity (mother tongues, proportional inclusion, identity federalism: provinces named and contested); the citizenship debates as the boundary-drawing of the nation; and "nationalism" as the recurring vocabulary of Nepali politics itself (and of Nepal–India disputes — nationalism as both identity and instrument).