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Siniša Malešević, "Nationalism as a Way of Life: The Rise and Transformation of Modern Subjectivities" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

May 4, 2026

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Siniša Malešević

Siniša Malešević, comparative historical sociologist and author, discusses how nationalism shapes everyday life and modern subjectivity. He explores nationalism as ideology and practice, its embedding in institutions and diasporas, links with war and comradeship, and how globalization and contemporary politics transform and sustain national imaginaries.

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INSIGHT

Bridge Between Structuralism And Agency

Nationalism studies split into structuralist (long-term economic, cultural, military) and agency-focused (everyday, discursive) approaches.
Malešević proposes an inductive middle-range position that takes useful elements from both perspectives.

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ANECDOTE

Diaspora Bonds Strengthened By Instant Tech

Malešević highlights how digital tech changed diaspora ties, allowing instant transnational networks and daily contact.
He contrasts this with letter-writing past and notes Zoom-style communication makes old-country links stronger than ever.

insights

INSIGHT

Religion Shifted From Way Of Life To National Marker

In premodern societies religion served as the dominant communal ordering, but modernity turns religion into a national marker rather than a comprehensive way of life.
Malešević uses the Ottoman/Turkish and Polish cases to show religion's shift to symbolic national identity.

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Author Background and Research Motivation

01:33 • 1min

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Defining Nationalism as Ideology and Practice

02:53 • 2min

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Nationalism Across the Political Spectrum

04:42 • 1min

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Normalisation and Everyday National Subjectivity

05:58 • 9min

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Positioning in Nationalism Scholarship

14:35 • 5min

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Structuralist vs. Agency Perspectives

19:25 • 6min

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Everyday Nationalism and Historical Context

25:02 • 2min

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Diaspora, Transnational Networks, and Nationalism

Nationalism as Ideology and Its Penetration

31:18 • 2min

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Religion and National Identity

33:36 • 10min

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Anderson's Imagined Communities Revisited

43:41 • 3min

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Nationalism and War: Parallel Development

46:30 • 5min

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Comradeship, Front-Line Solidarity, and Ideological Framing

51:07 • 1min

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Globalization and the Resilience of Nationalism

52:23 • 3min

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Contemporary State of Nationalism

55:40 • 3min

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Future Trajectories of Nationalism

58:17 • 2min

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Advice for Nationalism Scholars

01:00:24 • 2min

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Conspiracy Theories and Nationalisation

01:02:24 • 2min

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Current Projects and Closing Remarks

Identity's Ideology presents Siniša Malešević’s early theoretical intervention in nationalism studies, engaging both modernist and ethnosymbolist perspectives to propose a restrained modernist account. The book argues for the importance of organizational and coercive historical legacies in shaping national formation, while acknowledging cultural continuities. It critiques overly deterministic readings that neglect pre-modern organizational structures and emphasizes the role of state-building and war in nation-making. By situating nationalism within comparative historical sociology, Malešević offers a nuanced theory that bridges macro-structural explanations and cultural factors. The work contributed to debates on how to balance past and present factors in accounting for national identity formation.

#55025

Nationalism as a Way of Life

The Rise and Transformation of Modern Subjectivities

Siniša Malešević

Siniša Malešević’s Nationalism as a Way of Life analyzes the global rise and transformation of nationalism, arguing it operates as both a multi-faceted meta-ideology and an embedded organizational practice shaping everyday life. Drawing on comparative historical sociology and case studies across time and space, the book traces how national categories became normalized and how nationalism became the dominant modern subjectivity. It examines the ideological penetration of societies, the embedding of national categories in institutions, and the micro-interactional processes that reproduce national belonging. Malešević situates his approach between structuralist and agency-focused perspectives, offering an inductive middle-range theory applied to soldiers, diasporas, religion, and conspiracy narratives. The work is aimed at scholars and readers seeking a comprehensive account of why nation-states and nationalisms exert such pervasive influence in the contemporary world.

#69387

Why Humans Fight

Social Dynamics of Close-Range Violence

Siniša Malešević

Why Humans Fight examines the proximate social dynamics that produce close-range violence, combining empirical case studies with comparative historical sociology to explain how collective violence emerges and is organized. Malešević analyzes the interplay between individual motivations, micro-level interactions, and broader organizational structures that facilitate combat and coercion. The book argues that patterns of fighting are shaped by social institutions, rituals, and political contexts rather than being reducible to innate human aggression alone. It integrates theory with historical evidence to illuminate why groups engage in sustained violence and how social orders adapt. The work has been influential in sociology and war studies for reframing violence in relational and organizational terms.

#93196

Grounded Nationalisms

A Sociological Analysis

Siniša Malešević

In Grounded Nationalisms, Siniša Malešević challenges claims that globalization and modernity would erode national attachments, arguing instead that nationalism persisted and even strengthened through institutional embedding and everyday practices. Using comparative historical sociology, the book traces how national categories are reproduced across social organizations and how banal nationalism is normalized in daily life. Malešević combines structural and micro-level analysis to show how national sentiments are mobilized by states, diasporas, and social movements. He emphasizes the organizational roots of nationalism alongside ideological and cultural factors. The book contributes to debates about modernity and globalization by demonstrating the resilience and adaptability of national identities.

While nationalism is a term that is often associated with instability, violence, extremism, terrorism, wars and even genocide, in fact most forms of nationalism are nonviolent.

Beyond politics, it is a set of discourses and practices that shape economic, social, legal, and cultural life all over the globe.

Siniša Malešević's Nationalism as a Way of Life: The Rise and Transformation of Modern Subjectivities (Cambridge University Press, 2025) explores the global rise and transformation of nationalism and analyses the organisational, ideological, and micro-interactional mechanisms that have made it the dominant way of life in the twenty-first century.

In a series of case studies across time and space, the book zooms in on three key forms of lived experience: how nationalism operates as a multi-faceted meta-ideology, how national categories have become organisationally embedded in everyday practices and why nationalism has become the dominant form of modern subjectivity.

The book is aimed at readers interested in understanding how nation-states and nationalisms have attained such influence in contemporary world.

Siniša Malešević is Professor of Comparative Historical Sociology at the University College, Dublin, and Senior Fellow at CNAM, Paris. He is the author of the award winning books Grounded Nationalisms (Cambridge, 2019) and Why Humans Fight (Cambridge, 2022). His work has been translated into fourteen languages.
Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar with research areas spanning Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War Studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, and Russian and East European history. He is currently the Book Review Editor for Comparative Civilizations Review.

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