Conventionally, nationalism has been distinguished between an ethnic and a

civic variant. Civic nationalism is based on citizenship and the ability of

individuals to join the nation, whereas ethnic nationalism is based on the myth of
common descent and is thus less inclusive (Kohn, 1944). While this is historically
useful, it offers little guidance today.1 French nationalism might have been more
civic, allowing for more generous rules of citizenship than the more ethnic
concept of the German nation, but still France has the highly successful Front
National that excludes Muslims from the core nation or at best offers them a
subordinate place. Today, the key marker of nationalism is its level of inclusion
and exclusion, which might be based on the concept of decent, but can equally
be grounded in narratives of being natives or holding a particular set of values.
This exclusion could also be labeled nativism, defined by Cas Mudde to hold that
‘states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the native group (‘the
nation’) and that non-native elements (persons and ideas) are fundamentally
threatening to the homogenous nation-state’ (Mudde, 2016).

We can thus categorize nationalism along two axes (Figure 1), the level of
inclusion and exclusion, as well as whether nationalism is endemic or virulent.
This allows us for a more precise identification of nationalism as a force that
threatens the status quo versus a more established nationalism that might
display exclusionary features, but lacks the virulent and potentially violent
dimension.

Figure 1. Conceptualizing nationalism