Atlas / Claim checks / Nationalism is inherently right-wing.
Is nationalism right wing? The claim, measured
“Nationalism is inherently right-wing.”
Measured against Romantic Nationalism and National Socialism
Distance is measured across six independent axes, each running from −10 to +10, out of a maximum separation of 49.0. How the scoring works →
Strongest case for the claim
The most destructive nationalisms of the twentieth century were coded far right on culture and membership, and contemporary European nationalism is concentrated in parties that also oppose immigration and social liberalisation.
Strongest case against
Nationalism entered European politics as the enemy of dynastic empire, allied with republicanism and constitutionalism. Mazzini, the Irish, Polish and Greek independence movements, the anti-colonial movements of Asia and Africa, and Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party are all nationalist and all coded left of centre on culture. The variable that does the work is the membership rule, not the fact of national feeling.
What the coordinates show. Nationalism is not a position on this map at all. It is a claim about the correct unit of political community, which can be attached to almost any set of coordinates. The organisations in this dataset that call themselves nationalist span thirteen points on economics and ten on membership — most of both axes.
Axis by axis
A single distance figure is a headline. Which axes carry the gap is the story, and it is usually what the claim is really about.
| Axis | Mazzini, Young Europe | NSDAP | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | +03 | +02 | 1 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | −03 | +09 | 12 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| AU · Organisation of power | −03 | +10 | 13 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +02 | +09 | 7 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| ID · Rule of membership | +03 | +10 | 7 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| CH · Method and tempo | +06 | +09 | 3 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
The evidence, so you need not take our word for it
Every score above carries a rationale and at least one artefact a third party can check. These are the cells that matter most to this claim.
Mazzini, Young Europe · CU −03
Coded −3: republican, anticlerical and committed to education.
- Programme textYoung Italy's programme required national education alongside political independence.
NSDAP · CU +09
Social order was to be reconstituted on racial hierarchy, with women's role restricted by policy and all autonomous civil association dissolved.
- Documented act or statuteMarried women were pushed out of the professions from 1933 and awarded the Mother's Cross for childbearing from 1938.
- Documented act or statuteYouth, professional and leisure organisations were merged into party bodies under the Gleichschaltung laws of 1933–34.
Mazzini, Young Europe · AU −03
Coded −3: a democratic republic with universal suffrage.
- Documented act or statuteThe Roman Republic of 1849 abolished the death penalty and granted universal male suffrage.
NSDAP · AU +10
Every independent institution was either abolished or absorbed within eighteen months of taking office. There is no lower-scoring case available.
- Documented act or statuteThe Enabling Act of March 1933 transferred legislative power to the cabinet.
- Documented act or statuteAll parties other than the NSDAP were banned by July 1933.
What this does not settle
Where the disagreement is about which features define a word, no coordinate system resolves it. Two people with these figures in front of them can disagree indefinitely and both be reasoning correctly. What the measurement does is narrow the argument to what the word should mean, which is smaller than settling it and more than nothing.
This page states both cases because the atlas is not in the business of settling arguments by assertion. Where the underlying dispute is conceptual rather than factual, that is said plainly rather than resolved.
Full comparisonLearn the method behind this
These checks all use the same procedure, and it runs on paper without any dataset.
Check it yourself
The interactive atlas holds 319 organisations on six independent axes with the evidence for every score. Paste any claim that equates two political things and it will find them and report the measurement.