Ideologies of racial nationalism: The method in their madness

Abstract

This paper critically analyzes the means–ends rationality inherent in three ideologies of racial nationalism. Although such an instrumental rationality may be based on an irrational racist nationalist mythology that exploits the emotive power of mythic narratives and images of race and nation, nationalist ideology also appeals to people's reason and their need to rationalize or legitimize relations of political inequality and domination. In this sense nationalism offers a simple but compelling Machiavellian logic with mass appeal to quite ‘normal’/rational people, like many of the adherents to German, Afrikaner and African nationalism. Moreover, in all three of these cases the exploited and oppressed mass publics largely consented to the self-serving ideological demands of authoritarian party elites. Through the applied critique, this analysis seeks to expose the seductive logic of nationalist ideologies, and its effectiveness in forging a mutually destructive nexus between mass consent and elite power.