Beyond the civic–ethnic distinction
Moral community and the sociology of nationhood as an analytical framework
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24216381 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Türkay Salim Nefes (0000-0002-0294-2064, The Institute of Public Goods and Policies (IPP), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Madrid, Spain) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-09-29 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociological Research Online (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1360-7804 • E-ISSN: 1360-7804 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/13607804261486198 |
| OpenAlex | W7214804882 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 12 |
The civic–ethnic distinction has long structured debates on nationalism, yet its value has been questioned. This article revisits that framework through a comparison of Ernest Renan’s What is a Nation? and Ziya Gökalp’s What is Turkism? Despite their distinct contexts, both reject race and geography as foundations of nationhood and contest language and religion as straightforward ‘natural’ bases. Their key divergence lies in how national cohesion is generated and sustained. The article contributes to critiques of the civic–ethnic distinction by developing an original comparative framework for analysing nationhood, moral community and inclusion beyond classificatory labels, opening new lines of inquiry into the mechanisms through which nationhood is conceptualised and reproduced.
Ernest Renan · inclusion · language and nation · moral community · National Unity · Nationalism · nationhood · race and nation · religion and nation · Ziya Gökalp · Cultural History and Identity Formation · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Nationalism and Cultural Identity
The Sociological Foundations of Turkish Nationalism
Problems With Sociology Education in Turkey on Its 100th Anniversary
The Relationship between Perceived Security Threats and Negative Descriptions of Armenians in Turkish Politics (1946–1960)
Demographic engineering in the late Ottoman empire and the Armenians
Towards a Decolonial and Anti‐Racist Analysis of the Nation‐State and Nationalism
TheBalkanWars and the rise of the reactionary modernist utopia in youngTurk thought and the journalTürk Yurdu[Turkish Homeland]
The myth of the civic nation
Challenging the Civic/Ethnic and West/East Dichotomies in the Study of Nationalism
Not So Civic
Ziya Gökalp's adaptation of Emile Durkheim's sociology in his formulation of the modern Turkish nation
On the Roles of Institutions and Agency in Nationalism and the Relations between Them
Decolonizing the civic/ethnic binary
| Highly cited | No |
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