‘Articulation as catalyst: how populism may help transform ethnic nationalism into nativism’

Abstract

In contemporary political sociology, the precise relationship between nationalism and populism remains a subject of intense debate. While often conflated, these concepts represent distinct political logics: nationalism is premised on the centrality of belonging to a national community and presupposes the horizontal boundaries of the said community, while populism, highlighting the centrality of belonging to ‘the people’, is predominantly defined through a vertical conflict between the people and the elite. Using data on Greece from the ISSP 2023 National Identity and Citizenship module, this study examines the interactive effects of these two dimensions on anti-immigrant sentiment (nativism). Employing hierarchical regression analysis, we register that (ethnic) nationalism is not inherently synonymous with heightened nativism. We then focus on the inter-penetration(s) of nationalism, nativism and populism. What if populism may act as a critical moderator? – as a force multiplier or a ‘catalyst’ that radicalizes latent ethnic identity into active nativist hostility? Our findings seem to support the thought-provoking insight that the ‘double enemy’ narrative of (mostly, but not exclusively, far-right) populist politics may be a key articulatory mechanism transforming ethnic difference into heightened nativist exclusion, with the latter operating as our dependent variable.