There are many theories of nationalism but what I teach is the distinction established in the early 19th century between revolutionary nationalism and romantic nationalism. First lets define them. Revolutionary nationalism is a contractual nationalism born during the French Revolution following the first steps taken by American revolutionaries. It is contractual between anyone could join the French Nation by swearing on the Constitution. It was a collective group based on shared ideals. It is an inclusive nation in which anyone can join but also anyone can leave or be stripped away of one’s nationality. On the other hand, the Germans under occupation by Napoleon, developed an anti-French kind of nationalism. It’s called romantic nationalism because it takes the sense of antural belonging and feelings of the German romantic movement of that same period. The main idea is that with Romantic nationalism, you are naturally part of the nation thanks to objective and natural elements (at the time it was mainly language and the culture you were born in), it is an exclusive nation with strong barriors to prevent joining it. In this theory, it’s difficult to join a nation and impossible to leave it as you’ll naturally always be part of the nation you were born in.

So that’s the first step in why nationalism doesn’t have that good of a rep in Europe, because the concept was born of violence and distinction. As nationalism swept over Europe as the main political theory, it shattered empires through revolutions to free peoples from the Ottoman’s (in Greece 1830), from the Dutch (Belgium 1833), from the Prussians (western german nationalism in 1848), from the Austrians (1848 all over the empire and Hungarians in 1867) and finally after World War 1. For French, the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 was also linked to nationalism as Prussia unified the German states under its control through aggression against Austria first then against France.

Already in the 19th century, there were critics of nationalism as a means to more war and more fracture of Europe. It is in the 1830 that the first idea of United States of Europe that would unite Europeans was publicised. But it isn’t the most successful criticism of nationalism, that came in the second half of the 19th century through international socialism and communism, but also anarchy.

Those radical ideas simply changed the axioms of politics. As States were more and more defined by their nation (either through being created by the nation itself to gain independence like Belgium and Greece, or through forced assimilation like France and Germany after 1870 through the Kulturkempf or mandatory public education in a set language), they became Nation-states, the core principle of statecraft even today. The socialists and communists were not all like that but a big part was for international communism. They considered the Nation to be a wrong identity basis for the creation of a state and the class according to Marxist principles to be the real definition of citizens of a state. So they flat out rejected nationalism as they called their official meetings « internationals ». This idea failed however in 1914 as workers tried to keep the peace between France, Germany and Britain through workers’ cooperation and the refusal to go into a nationalistic war where workers of the same class would be called to fight. The idea failed because the war did happen and in some countries like France, there was « union sacré » (sacred union) where the workers united with everymember of the nation to bring the nation to victory. In Germany however, with a less strong nation, the sacred union only worked for a time and in 1918 socialists tried a revolution and a few socialist republics emerged, in Bavaria for example. But of course the most important socialist republic was the USSR, the first country without a geographical or ethnic name. It followed the idea of revolutionary nationalism and the spent its whole existence pretending nationalism didn’t exist before finally realising in the 1970s that many ethnic groups started using violence to access recognition for their nation through language, ethnic leaders instead of Moscow leaders etc. The violence even turned to pogroms in the Caucasus. The Anarchist rejected even the idea of State and thus the idea of nation attached to it as they aim at auto-organized small units of collective life and decision making.

Nation-state = one nation, one territory, one state. We’ll come to that later.

So for now, we have nationalism that was linked already in the mid 19th century to violence between Europeans, and a new mindset based on class instead of Nations, while nations became to nation-states through forced assimilation or revolution.

Now, before we get to the big moment that completely changed nationalism’s rep in the Western world, it’s important to keep in mind that by the end of the 19th century, nations in Europe were somewhat between the classic Revolutionary and Romantic nationalism. Ernest Renan made a foundational speech in 1882 defining nations as a group with a collective memory of strong events (good or bad) and the will to form a political project together. It’s is a mix of both theories as people are in a contractual relation with the nation, they perpetually reaffirm their part in this nation as Renan says it « is an everyday plebiscit ». But this contract is based on cultural elements that you are born in, that are thrust upon you. Still today, nation-states are more or less in the middle, between those two versions of nationalism.

Now in the 1930s with Nazism, the idea of purely ethnic romantic nationalism emerged. It spread to other countries and of course lead to th Second World War and more importantly to genocide and concentration camps. The Nazis returned to the Romabtic nationalism of their ancestors and turned it into something even more natural, not only language but blood, pure blood. In other words, they created ethnic nationalism to supercede cultural nationalism. That’s the first idea why ethnic nationalism and white nationalism have a terrible rep, they were designed and implemented by Nazis in Europe, which is why today those terms are mainly used by neo-nazis in Europe and the US. The Nazis pushed the idea of Nation-state to extremes. After having established a blood-related definition of nation, they took over the state completely and then turned to the final idea : one territory. Theorized by geographer Ratael as Lebensraum, the vital space, it basically established a rational basis for genocide and ethnic cleansing. A nation needs a vital space to be able to fully emerge and reach its full potential. Within the mindset of ethnic nationalism, this justified the Nazis in conquering Europe and more importantly in massacreing Jewish and Slavic populations to the East as they were considered below the pure German nation and as a hindrance to the German nation as it aimed at reaching its full potential.

After WW2, in Europe nationalism had a terrible reputation and became completely linked to Nazis and the extreme to which they pushed the theory. This rejection of nationalism is what pushed decentralisation policies but more importantly European federalism best examplified through the burgeoning European Union. The idea was to bring nationalism back to an inclusive and more open definition while creating European institutions that would supercede nations. Basically, nationalism was blamed for WW2 after the Nazis pushed it to a genocidal extreme. However, even if in the 1990s with a new wave of genocidal nationalism in the Balkans that lead to ethnic cleansing, European countries are still closely attached to their nations and nationalism still prevails. It is considered that only the extreme lefties or europhiles imagine anything beyond nations as nationalism is the basis for our nation-states. The past century however dialed it down a bit and while we still grow up in nationalistic symbols and history, only the more extremes on the right are attached to stricter definitions of nationalism, and most of these stricter definitions reach « ethnic nationalism » with an idea of blood purity or even of incompatible natural distinctions based on religion (islamophobia), skin color (white nationalism) or culture (xenophobia).

That’s why nationalism has such a bad rep, because we saw it reach its extreme quite easily and the history of the concept has been written in blood. But its bad reputation isn’t as strong as you think, there are still strong nationalist parties and groups in Europe. Even to some extent many « reasonable » parties still are nationalistic even if they paint it differently (French president Macron tried to put forward the idea of patriotism rather than nationalism but it boils down to the same thing, being proud of ones nation-state).

The term nationalism is really easily linked to the words « ethnic » and « white » but this union is quite litteraly Nazism as Nazis pushed the definition of nationalism to these extremes.

So TL:DR nationalism is a spectrum and the Nazis and later in the Balkans it was pushed to its genocidal extreme through ethnic nationalism. So now, even though the Western world is still very nationalistic in its culture, people tend to be wary of nationalism that can easily get to use an extreme definition, which is still used by racist, xenophobic or simply neo-Nazi groups. We tend to be nationalistic without saying we are to not be associates with those groups, so the word nationalism has been used mostly by those extreme groups who aren’t ashamed of the extremes nationalism can get to.