Typologies and phases in nationalism studies: Hroch's A-B-C schema as a basis for comparative terminology

Abstract

The study of nationalism encompasses so many themes that scholarly communication between different subfields has become difficult. Scholars might facilitate comparison by acknowledging different types of nationalism, but an overview of various taxonomies of nationalism shows that binary taxonomies have a problematic normative subtext, while most non-binary taxonomies have failed to reach a broad audience. Miroslav Hroch, who intended his A-B-C phases to schematize non-state national awakening, also devised a taxonomy of nationalism. Hroch's work has influenced nationalism scholars mostly through its phase theory of how individual national movements develop over time. While other phase theorists have proposed similar schema, Hroch's work has attracted such a wide audience that it provides scholars with a solution to the problem of inter-disciplinary communication: it offers a useful terminology for classifying and describing various sorts of nationalism.