In several countries of the Global North, right-wing parties are successfully mobilizing public support, influencing political debates and introducing arguments and rhetorics that draw on xenophobia, populism and ethnocentrism, ostensibly with a purpose to amplify the “national order of things” (Malkki 1992). This thesis addresses this development by providing an ethnography, based fieldwork, of the Swedish social movement Folkets Demonstration, which arranges anti-government manifestations on squares most usually in Stockholm. Drawing on classical theories on performance by Victor Turner and Erving Goffman, I investigate how the demonstrations of the movement facilitate the construction of a collective identity of “the people”, which also includes exploring the world view of the demonstrators. As I argue, through the socio-emotionality of the demonstrations, the movement conducts a cultural performance of national cohesion vis-à-vis the Swedish national community, cosmologically perceived as on the edge of an apocalypse due to immigration and the alleged cosmopolitanist agenda of the government. In addition, I argue that the demonstrations can be understood as strategically managed towards idealized performances of democracy. Hence, the demonstrations can be considered regressive-utopian performances of a national-democratic community, furthermore embedded in a polarization between “the people” and “the elite” and through which the collective identity of “the people” is constructed.

This thesis explores the dialectical relationship between humanitarianism and neo-nationalism, as it is reified through the rhetoric of the Swedish aid organization Right Hand Aid. It initiates an inquiry of the organization and provides a new example of how humanitarianism is used for legitimizing and depoliticizing purposes. The analysis is based on research questions concerning how humanitarianism is appropriated and instrumentalized to suit the organization’s neo-nationalist agenda for ”aid on site” and against reception of refugees, and what the consequences of this rhetorical fusion are. The theoretical framework is composed of theories on humanitarianism (politics of life, utilitarian rationality and humanitarian iconography), neo-nationalism (economic chauvinism), eurocentrism and depoliticization. The bulk of the empirical material consists of written and visual sources, which is why textual analysis has constituted the main method. This has been complemented by semi-structured interviews with RHA representatives. The thesis argues that RHA’s neo-nationalist agenda is depoliticized by the appropriation of humanitarianism, which from a global perspective implies depoliticization of a primordialist, eurocentric stance towards the global flows of aid and people, hence reifying the power relationship between the global north and the global south.

The Polish Independence Day march in Warsaw in November 2017 drew a flurry of international media attention for its shocking mass display of far-right nationalism, connections to neo-Nazi groups, and feature of openly racist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, and homophobic slogans. However, the dangerously “othering” nationalist ideologies expressed in Poland during this demonstration are far from unique. Over the past 20-30 years, eerily similar nationalist movements have simultaneously emerged across Eastern Europe and the West. Paradoxically, the nation-state has perhaps never had less agency as increasingly global capitalism continues to encroach upon the dominance of the nation itself. I argue that this trend of new nationalist movements indicates a departure from the traditional definitions of nationalism that requires a distinct category, which I refer to as neo-nationalism. In Chapter 1, I differentiate neo-nationalism from conventional understandings of nationalist politics and provide a working definition of neo- nationalism in the twenty-first century. I aim to show that a contextualization of these neo- nationalist movements alongside increasingly global capitalism is essential to understanding the othering natures of neo-nationalist ideologies and their paradoxical nature – both national and transnational, both shocking and entirely banal. I illustrate this by returning to the case of modern Poland, employing a visual rhetorical analysis from a Marxist-feminist perspective in order to demonstrate the manifestations of particular and dangerous dynamics of othering in Polish neo- nationalism. I refer to these dynamics as “capital-isms,” such that they are the “shocking” expression of what are in fact pervasive prejudices brought to the surface by the changing conditions of global capitalism. In Chapter 2, I examine the rhetoric surrounding the Polish Independence Day march in 2017 to highlight the paradoxes and power mechanisms at play in Polish neo-nationalism. I follow with an exploration of the rhetoric employed by the Polish far- right nationalist party, Law and Justice, with particular contextualization with regard to its relationship with the European Union in Chapter 3. Finally, I conclude this thesis by considering the implications of this research for the study of neo-nationalism going forward. / M.A. / The Polish Independence Day march in Warsaw in November 2017 drew a flurry of international media attention for its shocking mass display of far-right nationalism, connections to neo-Nazi groups, and feature of openly racist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, and homophobic slogans. However, the dangerously “othering” nationalist ideologies expressed in Poland during this demonstration are far from unique. Over the past 20-30 years, eerily similar nationalist movements have simultaneously emerged across Eastern Europe and the West. In this thesis, I theorize the Polish far-right nationalism on display at the Independence Day march as part of a broader trend of neo-nationalist movements, which I demonstrate are paradoxical in nature. After establishing the defining characteristics of neo-nationalism as a phenomenon, I highlight these paradoxes through an analysis of Polish neo-nationalist rhetoric. Furthermore, by placing this rhetoric within its socioeconomic and historical contexts, I demonstrate that the “shocking” display of far-right nationalism in the march is an expression of what are in fact pervasive prejudices brought to the surface by the changing conditions of global capitalism.

在西方的政治發展研究中，呈現在傳統與現代之間的掙扎所造成的「認同危機」被認為是政治體系需要解決的問題之一，然而，在二次大戰結束後，許多殖民地相繼成立新興民族國家，認同危機已經不只是面對發展主義模式中的傳統╱現代的掙扎問題，而是更進一步地擴展到殖民關係對國家認同構成的影響，當時代進入今日的全球化世界中，認同危機更進一步擴展到文化侵略的後殖民問題。台灣處在多重殖民的歷史中，認同問題在八０年代解嚴以後成為一新興的社會思潮，過去「中國人」鐵板一塊的國家認同之板塊逐漸轉變為「台灣人」以及其他分歧的認同，本文嘗試用新國家主義研究途徑，以國家能力的轉變作為解釋國家認同變遷的切入點，希望能提供另一扇研究與解釋台灣認同問題的窗口。本論文擬透過歷史研究、資料蒐集與統計分析等研究方法進行問題探討，章節架構分為下述三大部分。第一部份介紹國家能力影響國家認同的學說與指標；第二部分計畫從國際因素、財政經濟因素與制度調控因素作為探討台灣國家能力之指標，說明國家能力指標如何影響台灣國家認同；第三部分為說明台灣的國家能力在國家認同變遷中扮演非常重要的影響力。預期的研究成果除了在學術上將西方的理論嘗試用來解釋台灣的情勢外，還希望能提供台灣的社會、國家與企業一個重新看待台灣國家認同變遷的新情勢與其原因。 / From the perspective of political development in the West, “Identity Crisis”, a struggle between tradition and modernization, is thought one of the problems in the political system which should be solved. However, the trend of national-state establishment after W.W.Ⅱ has made “Identity Crisis” not only a problem mentioned above, but also confusion over national identity through a process of omnipresent influence exercising by the preoccupied-country on the colony, in a larger sense. Moreover, when globalization proceeds, “Identity Crisis” is spread again into the postcolonial context indicated by culture-invasion. The history of Taiwan is multi-colonial, so the identity issue has become a new social thought after the martial law was declared ended in 1980s’. The Chinese identity, which was thought a monolithic bloc in the past, now switches into the Taiwanese identity and others. This dissertation tries to use the neo-statism approach to explain the change of identity in Taiwan in a hope to provide another window to the studies on the identity problem in Taiwan. This dissertation, which aims to analyze the identity problem in Taiwan by history review, data collection and statistics, is structured into three parts. The first is to introduce the theory and indexes of state capacity influencing national identity. The second is to use three indexes, factors of international environment, factors of finance and economics, and factors of system-control, to show how state capacity influences national identity in Taiwan. The last part is to elaborate on the influence of the state capacity of Taiwanese government play an important role in the face of national identity transition. This dissertation not only hopes to apply western theories to Taiwan’s situation, but also hopes to provide the society, the government, and the industry a view on developments and reasons of the changing national identity in Taiwan.