New Nationalisms and Changing Patterns of Conflict

The conference examines the dynamics of new nationalisms and the changing patterns of conflict and violence in the contemporary world. Nowadays we are witnessing the rise of nationalisms in a wide variety of countries around the world, including the developed ones, like the USA, France, or Hungary, and developing ones, like Brazil, the Philippines, or Sudan. Nationalism is not new but in recent years there has been a resurgence of national, ethnic and political mobilization which is exclusivist and inward-looking, and which makes it stand out from its predecessors. It is a product in part of new socio-political circumstances, among them, new digital tools of mobilization and communication and new political agendas. Today’s “new nationalisms” are characterized by the rise of populism, authoritarian political style, mass mobilization through social media, proliferation of fake news and conspiracy theories, consolidation of identarian politics and fundamentalisms, mobilization of sentiments based on anger and hatred, and the use of brutality and genocide against stigmatized minorities. The purpose of this conference is to explore changing aspects of nationalism, especially in relation to collective identity formation, and their relationship to the new patterns of conflict. Of particular interest is the decline of interstate war and great power geopolitical contestation, and the rise of ethnic, religious, or value-based local conflicts, which have often been de-legitimized as acts of criminality, insurgency, and terrorism, but which have gained trans-regional or global significance. The conference will provide opportunity to critically examine and share experiences on the causes and consequences of conflict, security threats, social risks, dilemmas of nuclear proliferation, puzzles of populist nationalisms, dynamics of ethnic insurgencies, and consequences of large-scale violence. The themes do not insist on upholding the “newness” of the contemporary “new nationalisms” and “new conflicts”, but they consider it as a working hypothesis to re-examine foundational concepts in political sciences, such as nation, state, and violence within their current contexts. The discussions will be carried on both metaphysical and practical levels, and many will attempt to furnish possible strategies as well as theoretical implications for the future.

Day 1: 21 September

Opening Keynote Speech - Steven Ratuva (University of Canterbury, New Zealand)

UTC 10:30-10:50 (20 min. including discussion)

Session 1 - Populism, authoritarianism and manipulation of truth

UTC 11:00-13:00 (2 hours)

Chair: Rosalie Arcala Hall (University of the Philippines Visayas, Philippines)

Discussant: Sergio Aguilar (Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Brazil)

 (1) Hamdy Hassan (Zayed University, United Arab Emirates) - “Populist" Transformations and the Crisis of Governance in Africa: From State Building to the Death of Politics

 (2) Mariana Janot (Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Brazil) - The Third Authoritarian Wave: New Nationalism and the Military in South America

 (3) Halime S. Atalay (Istanbul Medipol University, Turkey) - Trivialisation of the Truth and Vulgarising Discourse of Daily Life

 (4) Ito Ryuta (Hiroshima University, Japan) - Why Does Nationalism Cause War? A New Defensive Realist Theory Based on Neuro-biological and Psychological Research on Tribalism

Session 2 - Ethnicity, religion, gender, and changing forms of identity politics

UTC 13:30-15:30 (2 hours)

Chair: Yasmin Calmet (Federal University of Fronteira Sul, Brazil)

Discussant: Aminul Mohd Karim (Independent University, Bangladesh)

 (1) Huma Khwaja (University of Lucknow, India) - Religious Nationalism in India - A Threat to Democratic Values

 (2) Hala Thabet and Hamdy Hassan (Zayed University, United Arab Emirates) - Politics of Ethnicity and Governance in Sudan: Prospects for the Post al-Bashir Period

 (3) Shaimaa Moheyeldin (Cairo University, Egypt) - Ethnicity and Conflict in Africa: The Case of South Sudan

 (4) Samuel Ritholtz (Oxford University, United Kingdom) - Gendered Violence, Moral Order, and Social Control during Colombia’s Paramilitary Incursion

Day 2: 22 September

Session 3 - Insurgency, terror and crime - local disputes and transnational patterns of violence

UTC 11:00-13:00 (2 hours)

Chair: Sergio Aguilar (Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Brazil)

Discussants: Jovanie Espesor (Mindanao State University, Philippines), Yasmin Calmet (Federal University of Fronteira Sul, Brazil)

 (1) Marta Jaroszewitz (University of Warsaw, Poland)- Securitisation in the shadow of armed conflict: the internal othering and electoral rights of IDPs in Ukraine

 (2) Hassanein Ali (Zayed University, United Arab Emirates) - Iran and Its Violent Non-State Actors in the Arab World: An Examination of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (also possible under session II)

 (3) Hamdy Hassan and Hala Thabet (Zayed University, United Arab Emirates) - Islamic insurgency in Mozambique

Session 4 - New nationalisms and proliferation of nuclear weapons

UTC 13:30-15:30 (2 hours)

Chair: Aminul Mohd Karim (Independent University, Bangladesh)

Discussant: Rosalie Arcala Hall (University of the Philippines Visayas, Philippines)

 (1) Orion Noda (King's College London, United Kingdom) - Nukes and Nationalism: Brazil’s PROSUB and the Question of Status

 (2) César Rodrigues (Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Japan) - I want my nukes: nuclear proliferation, regime survival and nuclear nationalism in North Korea

 (3) Christopher K. Lamont (Tokyo International University, Japan) - Libya’s Nuclear Nationalism and Status-Seeking: From Ambition to Abandonment

 (4) Radomir Compel (Nagasaki University, Japan) - South Africa's Apartheid policy and nuclear development in late 1960s

Closing Keynote Speech - Bertrand Badie (Sciences Po, France)

UTC 15:50-16:10 (20 min. with discussion)