ABSTRACT
Understanding nationalism is complex. Is it an instinct, a strategy or an ideology? Is it primarily ethnocultural or civic, or always some combination of the two? Are we dealing, in Japanese, with minzoku or kokumin as the object of nationalism, or both, and what are the differences between these conceptions? Can we ever talk about a single ‘nationalism’ in a state such as Japan, or are we dealing with multiple, overlapping and, often, conflictual strands of nationalism within the political borders of one state? Contemporary states are nearly always multi-ethnic. In some instances tensions between the dominant majority and ethnocultural minorities or disadvantaged peripheral regions are expressed in the form of a breakaway or separatist tendency that takes on nationalist forms.
