Suzume no tojimari (2022) depicts the coming-of-age road trip of a teenage girl through abandoned places, in order to save Japan from giant earthquake worms, and to confront her own past of 3/11. With hyperrealistic visuals and references to Shinto mythology and folklore traditions, the movie constructs a correlation between human misbehavior and natural disasters. This narrative indicates the restoration of a mythological unity of Japanese land, people, and culture to prevent earthquakes, and to overcome personal and social issues, echoing Japanese national conservative discourse. By doing so, the movie puts moral responsibility to the individual to cope with disasters and decline.

This article examines recent developments in three key areas of nationalism research that integrate emotions into theoretical frameworks and empirical analysis. First, it explores studies that revisit historical nation-building through the lens of the history of emotions. Second, it discusses how the “affective nationalism” literature has shifted the focus of banal nationhood reproduction from mental representations to emotions. Third, it reviews efforts to theorize the emergence of intense national emotions in certain periods and their role in political mobilization and change. The article highlights critical advancements across these areas, particularly in linking emotions to meaning through narratives, expanding research from national centers to the frontiers, and challenging the illusion of national harmony by emphasizing power dynamics and dialectical change. The conclusion suggests future research directions, including investigations of national emotions within diasporic communities and digital networks.

Contention about representations of history and the purposes of History education has long surrounded Japanese History textbooks. From 2012, the ascent of powerful nationalist Prime Minister Abe Shinzō raised questions about possible political pressures on textbook content. This article analyzes recent market-leading junior high school and high school History textbooks to discover how pedagogical format and content related to controversial topics or national identity have changed since 2012. It finds that leading junior high school textbooks have largely maintained their representation of controversial topics, while developing investigative, analytic pedagogical approaches. Coverage of some aspects of ethnic and cultural diversity within Japan has increased. Following the implementation of a new curriculum from 2022, some high school textbooks for the new compulsory subject “Integrated History” facilitate a more analytic, “disciplinary” pedagogy than previously evident in compulsory high school History. Nonetheless, an “enhancing collective memory” approach to History pedagogy remains central throughout secondary education. These developments suggest that power over History education in Japan is distributed between a range of actors. The state, the market, and social pressures all influence the content of History textbooks in Japan.

Iran is one of the most stigmatised countries of the twenty-first century: having been sanctioned by the US since 1979, the Islamic Republic was declared part of the ‘axis of evil’ by President George W. Bush in 2002, and from 2006 onwards, it has been subject to multilateral, comprehensive and wide-reaching economic sanctions. In June 2025, this discursive and economic attack on Iran transitioned to direct military bombardment. For the United States and its allies, Iran is a pariah state. This stigmatisation of Iran is an example of the kinds of practices that contribute to the social construction of the international order, whereby some countries are designated as ‘inside’ and others as ‘outside’ the community of established states. Needless to say, Iran has been placed firmly in the ‘outside’ category ever since 1979. At the same time as accepting and even at times embracing this ‘outsider’ status, however, Iran has also sought to raise its own international standing and to be accepted as an ‘insider’.

It is often suggested that one way to reduce affective polarization is to remind citizens of a common in-group identity – such as the national one – to bridge partisan divides. Yet, to our knowledge, such a causal link has only been found in the United States, and even there, it has not been tested by exposure to the most common national symbol: the flag. Thus, we still do not know if such implicit yet ubiquitous reminders of national identity, rather than those that explicitly invoke national pride, are able to reduce affective polarization. In order to fill this research gap, we conducted a survey experiment in Sweden and Denmark in 2023/2024, two countries where national flags are omnipresent yet often ‘unwaved’. Using two versions of subtle flag treatments, our results show that in Sweden, subjects who were primed with a picture of the national flag showed lower levels of affective polarization measured as social distancing, but not in terms of trait stereotyping or party dislike. This effect was not mediated, however, by the strengthening of explicit national identity attitudes, such as national pride. These results suggest that flags need indeed not be explicitly waved in order to work their unifying magic.

This article examines the perceived discrimination of immigrants – a group for whom experiences of discrimination can be damaging for their long‐term commitment and identification with the national core group. Taking its point of departure in the literature on national identity, the article argues that perceived discrimination should be strongest among immigrants in host national societies with an exclusive self‐image. This hypothesis is examined by use of multilevel regressions on cross‐national survey data from 18 Western European countries. It is found that where exclusive attitudes are widespread in the host population, the percentage of immigrants who perceive themselves to be part of a group discriminated against is significantly greater, all else being equal. In addition, there is a cross‐level interaction effect of host national inclusivity and ethnic minority identity which suggests that individual‐level determinants of perceived discrimination do not ‘work’ in the same way in normatively different contexts. In terms of the implications of these findings, the article points to the importance of contextualising individual‐level accounts of perceived discrimination, with particular focus on the power of a society's attitudinal milieu to affect individual feelings of inclusion and exclusion.

This study explores the prioritization of urban identity over national identity in the context of the global city. Scholars have extensively discussed the fragmentation of national identity among individuals in the globalized world, and the relative proliferation of other communal identities, whether more cosmopolitan or place-based. As globalization gradually erodes the cultural distinctiveness of nation states, cities are revealed as arenas within which inhabitants nurture a particular collective character, which is used as an attractive source of local, communal belonging. Global cities, in particular, are a compelling case to inquire into the interplay between national and urban identity. Due to their relative independence vis-à-vis the state, the global city can promote the values shared by inhabitants while constituting significant competition for nation-based self-determination and providing a unique source of urban identity that is simultaneously cosmopolitan and place-based.

In this paper we ask whether city-zens living in highly globalized cities are more likely to prioritize their urban identity over their national identity. Utilizing the GaWC Index of cities’ globalization levels, we analyze the results of an original survey conducted among residents of six European cities: Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Utrecht and Glasgow. Our empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that in globalized cities a higher level of globalism accords with a more explicit tendency to prioritize urban identity over national identity. In conclusion, we interpret this evidence as an identities trade-off that challenges the coexistence of urban and national identities within globalized cities, discussing its implications for future studies of contemporary politics.

The nation and the Church are never far apart in Europe. The Westphalian state-system defined allegiance and loyalty to the state as correlates of religious conformity. The re-emergence of religious conflict in Europe is the paradoxical result of globalization and individualization. The new social meaning of faith compels courts, governments, and the general publics to re-examine the old stability pacts between the national Churches and states. The belated secularization of the state is the likely outcome.

This article reflects on the significance of Ukraine’s European choice—a series of pro-European political choices that both Ukraine’s citizens and its political elites gradually committed to, and which crystallized during and after the 2013 Euromaidan protest. Russia refused to accept Ukraine’s European choice, starting the first wave of aggression against Ukraine as soon as the Euromaidan won in early 2014, and ultimately launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. As Ukrainians defend their European choice, important lessons can be drawn from their resistance to Russia’s aggression. We identify three lessons for Europe and three lessons for political science.

Despite the increased social significance currently attached to national identity, little is known about how national group attachment may correlate with the decision to donate to domestic versus international charities. The current study brings together literature on national identity and charitable giving to empirically validate a model of charitable ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism. The substantive study is based on an online survey administered to a sample of 1004 UK respondents. The findings indicate that internationalism leads to an increased preference for international charities and a negative inclination towards domestic alternatives. Conversely, nationalism leads to a preference for domestic charities, but a surprisingly non-significant view on international causes. This study adds to the limited empirical research on charitable choice, specifically international giving, and has implications for fundraisers of both domestic and international charities. The work also provides valid and reliable scales for the assessment of charitable ethnocentrism and charitable cosmopolitanism.