The central political tenet of ethnic nationalism is that
ethnic groups are entitled to
self-determination. The outcome of this right to self-determination may vary, from calls for self-regulated administrative bodies within an already established society, to an
autonomous entity separate from that society, to the institution of
ethnic federalism within a multi-ethnic society, to establishing an independent
sovereign state removed from that society. In international relations, it also leads to policies and movements for
irredentism to claim a common nation based upon ethnicity, or for the establishment of an
ethnocratic (mono-ethnocratic or poly-ethnocratic) political structure in which the
state apparatus is controlled by a politically and militarily dominant ethnic nationalist group or a group of several ethnic nationalist groups from select ethnicities to further its interests, power and resources. In scholarly literature, ethnic nationalism is usually contrasted with
civic nationalism. Ethnic nationalism bases membership of the nation on descent or heredity, often articulated in terms of common blood or kinship, rather than on political membership. Hence,
nation states with strong traditions of ethnic nationalism tend to define nationality or citizenship by
jus sanguinis (the law of blood, descent from a person of that nationality), and countries with strong traditions of civic nationalism tend to define nationality or citizenship by
jus soli (the law of soil, birth within the nation state). Ethnic nationalism is, therefore, seen as exclusive, while civic nationalism tends to be inclusive. Rather than allegiance to common civic ideals and cultural traditions, then, ethnic nationalism tends to emphasise narratives of common descent. Some types of ethnic nationalism are firmly rooted in the idea of ethnicity as an inherited characteristic, for example
black nationalism or
white nationalism. Often ethnic nationalism also manifests in the
assimilation of minority ethnic groups into the dominant group, for example as with
Italianisation. This assimilation may or may not be predicated on a belief in some common ancestry with assimilated groups (for example with
Germanisation in the Second World war). An extreme version is
racial nationalism. Recent theories and empirical data suggest that people maintain dual lay beliefs about nationality, such that it can be both inherited biologically at birth and acquired culturally in life.
Role in discrimination In 2018,
Tendayi Achiume, a UN Special Rapporteur on
racism, released a UN Human Rights Council report which states that "more than 75% of the world's known stateless populations belong to minority groups" and highlights the role of ethnonationalism in the international deprivation of citizenship rights. In the report, Achiume re-stated that international human rights law prohibits citizens from discriminating against non-citizens on the basis of their race, descent, national or ethnic origin and she also stated that citizenship, nationality, and immigration laws which discriminate against non-citizens are violations of international law. She also noted the role of laws restricting marriage rights with respect to certain national, religious, ethnic or racial groups, which she said were "often deployed by states to preserve notions of national, ethnic and racial "purity"." Achiume called ethnonationalist politics the "most obvious driver of racial discrimination in citizenship and immigration laws" and driven by populist leaders defining nations "in terms of assumed blood ties and ethnicity". In the 19th and 20th centuries, European colonial powers used ethnonationalism to justify barring colonial subjects from citizenship, and in Europe,
Jews and
Roma were excluded from citizenship on the same grounds. Today, migrants are a frequent target of ethnonationalist rhetoric related to "ethnic purity and religious, cultural or linguistic preservation". Even countries with proud histories of immigration have fallen prey to the vilification of "certain racial, religious and national groups" on prejudicial grounds. Achiume called the case of the
Rohingya Muslims a "chilling example", with the Burma Citizenship Act of 1982 discriminating based on ethnicity and rendering many Rohingya stateless. The violation of the rights of
Afro-Caribbean British citizens from the "
Windrush generation" is a pertinent example of similar prejudice in the developed world but states all over the world use misinformation to portray "certain racial, national and religious groups as inherent threats to national security" and justify stripping or denying rights. Extreme forms of ethnic nationalism, as in the case of
Myanmar and its government's
persecution of the
Rohingya, have been identified as causes of various
genocides and episodes of
ethnic cleansing. In his 2005 book
The Great Game of Genocide, historian
Donald Bloxham argued that the
Armenian genocide "represents a clear logic of ethnic nationalism when it is carried to its absolute extreme in multinational societies." ==Other nationalist variants==