Longing for a national container. On the symbolic economy of Europe's new nationalism

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses how to explain the rise of a new nationalism in Europe. It begins by problematizing the inconsistencies in the current culturalist, socio-economic, and socio-political approaches. It then makes Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social space fruitful for a sociological explanation of neonationalism by removing it from the conceptional framework of national container societies. It finally shows that the transnational opening of national societies is accompanied by profound processes of symbolic appreciation and depreciation of economic, cultural, and social ‘capital’ that the inhabitants of the national container possess.

KEYWORDS:

• Nationalism
• right-wing populism
• transnationalization
• Pierre Bourdieu
• cultural capital

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 See Gouldner (1957/1958), who introduced the distinction ‘cosmopolitans’/‘locals’ to sociology early on to examine the different types of loyalties of actors in organizations.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Klaus Kraemer

Klaus Kraemer is full professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Graz, Austria. His main areas of research are economic sociology, sociology of money, and sociology of modern capitalism.