“Mass-man's” nationalism in the post-modern age

The prevalent belief of the last few decades, that nationalism and national identity are the products of an intellectual elite's ideas having been coopted by a cynical political elite, had led scholars to believe that nationalism would wither away with the rise of democracy and education. This “withering away” never materialized. Today, national identity remains the key marker of political identification. The popular notion of the 1970s popularized by Jurgen Habermas that Germans limit themselves to Verfassungs Patriotismus devoid of a historically understood national consensus was swept away by the short-lived waves of popular nationalism when Germany reunited on the basis of a historic national identity. In fact, the growing internationalization of modern politics has resulted in the progressive alienation of the population from many political institutions leading to an even greater reliance on “national” identity.