Russia is a large, diverse, and complicated country whose far-flung regions maintain their own histories and cultures, even as President Vladimir Putin increases his political control. Powerful, autocratic regimes still need to establish their legitimacy; in Russia, as elsewhere, developing a compelling national narrative and building a sense of pride and belonging in a national identity is key to maintaining a united nation. It can also legitimate political power when leaders present themselves as the nation's champions. Putin's hold thus requires effective nation building-- propagating the ever-evolving and often contested story of who, exactly, is Russian and what, exactly, that means. Even in the current autocratic system, however, Russia's multiethnic nature and fractured political history mean that not all political symbols work the same way everywhere; not every story finds the same audience in the same way. The message may emanate from Moscow, but regional actors--including local governments, civic organizations, and cultural institutions--have some agency in how they spread the message: some regionalization of identity work is permitted to ensure that Russian national symbols and narratives resonate with people, and to avoid protest. This book investigates how nation building works on the ground through close studies of three of Russia's ethnic republics: Karelia, Tatarstan, and Buryatia. Understanding how the project of legitimating nationalism, in support of a unified country and specifically Putin's regime, works in practice offers crucial context in understanding the shape and story of contemporary Russia.

Provides a detailed analysis of the Chinese Communist Party's discourse in the post-Tiananmen period which emphasises stability, and which has been used by the Party to legitimate its authority.

This book discusses how rulers cultivate their identity for their own self-justification and esteem.

It is one of our most honored clichés that America is an idea and not a nation. This is false. America is indisputably a nation, and one that desperately needs to protect its interests, its borders, and its identity. The Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump swept nationalism to the forefront of the political debate. This is a good thing. Nationalism is usually assumed to be a dirty word, but it is a foundation of democratic self-government and of international peace. National Review editor Rich Lowry refutes critics on left and the right, reclaiming the term “nationalism” from those who equate it with racism, militarism and fascism. He explains how nationalism is an American tradition, a thread that runs through such diverse leaders as Alexander Hamilton, Teddy Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ronald Reagan. In The Case for Nationalism, Lowry explains how nationalism was central to the American Project. It fueled the American Revolution and the ratification of the Constitution. It preserved the country during the Civil War. It led to the expansion of the American nation’s territory and power, and eventually to our invaluable contribution to creating an international system of self-governing nations. It’s time to recover a healthy American nationalism, and especially a cultural nationalism that insists on the assimilation of immigrants and that protects our history, civic rituals and traditions, which are under constant threat. At a time in which our nation is plagued by self-doubt and self-criticism, The Case for Nationalism offers a path for America to regain its national self-confidence and achieve continued greatness.

The importance of legitimacy is widely recognised in the literature on international and regional organizations, not least for compliance with their decisions. How such organizations claim and sustain their legitimacy, however, has been insufficiently analysed and understood. Through a range of conceptual chapters and case studies, this volume examines the legitimation practices of international and regional organizations. It examines how internationalorganizations justify and communicate their legitimacy claims, and how these practices differ between organizations. It also considers the implications of this analysis for global and regional governance.

Nationalism is one of modern history’s great surprises. How is it that the nation, a relatively old form of community, has risen to such prominence in an era so strongly identified with the individual? Bernard Yack argues that it is the inadequacy of our understanding of community—and especially the moral psychology that animates it—that has made this question so difficult to answer. Yack develops a broader and more flexible theory of community and shows how to use it in the study of nations and nationalism. What makes nationalism such a powerful and morally problematic force in our lives is the interplay of old feelings of communal loyalty and relatively new beliefs about popular sovereignty. By uncovering this fraught relationship, Yack moves our understanding of nationalism beyond the oft-rehearsed debate between primordialists and modernists, those who exaggerate our loss of individuality and those who underestimate the depth of communal attachments. A brilliant and compelling book, Nationalism and the Moral Psychology of Community sets out a revisionist conception of nationalism that cannot be ignored.

First published in 2003, Decentring the Indian Nation examines the various centrifugal forces apparent in recent Indian politics. After achieving independence in 1947 India’s elite opted to build a modern nation-state. This idea was carefully nurtured during the fight for freedom from British rule by the dominant Congress movement. In recent years, the idea of a centralised state has been challenged from a number of directions. Strong regional political movements have questioned the assumption that India’s federal system requires a dominant centre. The related trend of identity-based mobilisation has challenged settled notions of Indian national identity. The authors discuss the idea that as a nation, India is becoming ‘decentred’, and consider the implications of this idea for the development of the Indian polity. This book will be of interest to students of politics, geography and development.

Exploring the manifold relationships between religion and public administration, this topical book conceptualises and theorises the diverse influence of religions on the functioning of public administrative systems across the globe.

This book presents an argument for establishing environmental human rights as the legitimate possession of both present and future generations. It uses these rights - to clean air, water, and soil - to make an argument for justice across generations, that is, for recognizing the obligation that present generations have to preserve the environment and natural resources for future generations.

This volume meditates on the various meanings of legitimation and expands on the notion that language can be used to gain or preserve it by demonstrating the added impact of other modes in specific examples of political and institutional discourse. The book draws on a multilayered framework that builds on and integrates work from both critical discourse analysis and social semiotic traditions, as well as the work of philosophers such as Habermas, Weber, and Rousseau, to show how it might be applied in practice to analyse and understand myriad forms of discourse. The volume focuses on examples from political campaign spots, which highlight various modes, including images, film, oratory, and color, but are also of global relevance and scale, highlighting their unique and complex position at the nexus between legitimation and multimodality. Offering a new analytical framework for understanding legitimation across a range of discursive contexts, this book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in discourse analysis, multimodality, political science, psychology, design, and education.