Beyond the technology of power: Foucault and nationalism today

Abstract

Foucault's intellectual legacy is vast, spanning a wide range of fields and analytical concerns. However, he has very little to say about one of the most important phenomena that has shaped modern world – nationalism. This article argues that the social dynamics of modernity and the transformation of collective subjectivities cannot be adequately understood without addressing processes of nation-formation. Since nationalism operates as the dominant organisational, ideological, and micro-interactional infrastructure of late modernity, the article examines what Foucault's fragmentary reflections on nationhood can contribute to understanding the contemporary social world. The article offers a critical assessment of poststructuralist approaches that conceptualise nationalism primarily as a grand metanarrative and it traces how Foucauldian analytical tools have been adapted and extended to engage with the realities of a deeply nation-centred global order. The article identifies key strengths and limitations of Foucauldian perspectives on nationalism and advances an alternative theoretical framework to explain its enduring potency. This framework emphasises the expanding coercive capacities of social organisations, their intensifying ideological penetration, and their increasing envelopment of micro-level solidarities.

Keywords

Foucault nationalism nation-states power ideology solidarity

Introduction

Michel Foucault has made a major and lasting contribution to many different strands of contemporary scholarship.¹ He has written extensively and powerfully on numerous key topics, including discipline, surveillance, power, knowledge, truth, medicine, the body, biopolitics, sexuality, ethics, governmentality, war, violence, language and the self. However, surprisingly, he had very little to say about the social phenomenon that has dominated the world over the last two hundred years and permeates the contemporary social life – nationalism. In this article I focus on this staggering lacuna in Foucault's work and argue that without engaging with the historical and global processes of nation-formation one cannot adequately understand the transformation of modern subjectivities. Since I see nationalism as the hegemonic form of modern subjectivity today, I explore the relevance of Foucault's analytical framework in that context. More specifically, this article aims to reconstruct Foucault's views on nationhood, to offer a critical appraisal of this perspective, and then to provide an alternative interpretation that is centred on the role of coercive-organisational capacity, ideological power, and the micro-interactional dynamics of everyday life.

Metanarratives and nationalist subjects

Poststructuralism and other anti-foundationalist perspectives have been firmly associated with the deconstruction of grand narratives of modernity. From Barthes, Lyotard, Deleuze, Guattari to Derrida, poststructuralists have challenged all totalising metanarratives which aimed to provide universalist accounts of social change. More than any other poststructuralist scholar, Michel Foucault developed powerful analytical tools to deconstruct the dominant explanatory paradigms of knowledge and historical transformation. His wide-ranging contributions have dissected nearly all hegemonic narratives of the modern age, including the liberal humanist, the Marxist/socialist, the scientific/positivist, the civilisational, the theological/religious, and the general Enlightenment paradigm (Foucault, 2003, 1990, 1988, 1982, 1978, 1977, 1973, 1970, 1965). In his understanding, none of these totalising approaches can explain the contingent dynamics of historical change. The Enlightenment's teleology of reason and linear progress makes no room for unequal power relations and the social construction of diverse realities. As the historical record is complex, fragmented and multidirectional, and as all knowledge claims are socially and culturally situated, human historical experience cannot be explained through deterministic and causal models. Hence, instead of universalist explanation, poststructuralism offers permanent deconstruction of metanarratives. The later Foucault in particular focuses on the dissection of different knowledge claims and how very diverse systems of thought and language produce distinct subjects and prevailing norms. Rather than attempting to explain the ‘economics of untruth’, he is interested in studying the ‘politics of truth’ (Barrett, 1991).

The trajectory of historical change over the last fifty years or so has largely followed the pattern identified by many poststructuralists. The grand narratives that sustained the modern project have experienced profound crises and large-scale de-legitimisation. The imperial civilising missions that justified European settler colonialism have unravelled with the waves of decolonialisation in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The rise of various social movements has undermined the dominance of patriarchal norms, racist hierarchies and heteronormative sexualities, thus substantially damaging religious and conservative meta-narratives. The breakdown of authoritarian state socialism in Eastern Europe has dented the legitimacy of the socialist/Marxist narrative. The chronic economic crises, the periodic financial collapses and the rise of a billionaire oligarchical caste have also broken trust in the capitalist and liberal narratives. The continuous and unprecedented destruction of the environment has undermined belief in unlimited growth and progress. The ever-increasing lack of trust in all institutions, together with the proliferation of social media, has led to the decline of epistemic authorities and of belief in the value of scientific knowledge.

While Foucault and other poststructuralists were right that many grand narratives of modernity have failed or have lost much of their popular support, this has not been the case with all metanarratives. Although many modernist metanarratives have been undermined, others have grown in their place, including techno-libertarianism, transhumanism, accelerationism, conspiracist populism, pluriversality, effective altruism, climate justice, and so on. As human beings are meaning-oriented creatures, they cannot dispense with the narrative understanding of the social world and will constantly create and follow new interpretative horizons, some of which are likely to have teleological features.

Furthermore, as metanarratives are rooted in specific ways of life and are often institutionalised through durable social structures, their influence cannot simply evaporate without being replaced with some meaningful alternatives. Instead, it is more likely that the decline of some metanarratives will give birth to other big stories. However, what is just as important is that some older narratives can be reformulated and reinvigorated in the new historical conditions, so that they can expand rather than decline in the contemporary world. One such metanarrative of modernity is nationalism. Rather than experiencing decline, as predicted by many social and political theorists, the influence and reach of nationalism has expanded dramatically, so that it has become the dominant operative ideology of the early twenty-first century world (Malešević, 2025, 2019, 2013, 2006).

Many poststructuralists perceive nationalism as a product of Enlightenment that follows a similar trajectory to that of other modernist metanarratives: emergence in the wake of the French Revolution, development and expansion in the nineteenth century, and then inevitable decline and de-legitimisation in the twentieth century. For poststructuralists, all nationalist projects offer teleological narratives of nationhood that are centred on imaginary cultural homogeneity and the mythology of shared descent. As poststructuralists emphasise the fragmentary, relational and contingent character of collective and personal identities, they aim to deconstruct such nationalist discourses (Calhoun, 1997). Furthermore, many poststructuralists see nationalism as a relatively marginal offshoot of the broader Enlightenment project and believe that with the decline of this grand modernist project nationalism is bound to lose its influence too.

Foucault rarely focuses on nationhood and nationalism per se, and when he does so, as in ‘Society Must be Defended’ (2003 [1976]), his reflections centre on broader issues such as state formation or technologies of power and control. In this context, Foucault sees the nation as a phenomenon that has developed in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries as a new subject of history. While before the French Revolution only the nobility constituted a nation, by the nineteenth century nationhood expanded to include many other social strata.

It is what a historian of the period calls a ‘society’. A society, but in the sense of an association, group, or body of individuals governed by a statute, a society made up of a certain number of individuals, and which has its own manners, customs, and even its own law. The something that begins to speak in history, that speaks of history, and of which history will speak, is what the vocabulary of the day called a ‘nation’. (Foucault, 2003, 134)

Nevertheless, for Foucault, the nation is not a cultural entity but primarily a political relationship between sovereign people that stand in opposition to the royal prerogatives of power. In this context, he understands the process of nation-formation through the prism of state-building. While initially the nation lacks clearly defined parameters of existence, once the state is developed, the nation acquires its full form. Hence in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, ‘the nation is by no means something that is defined by its territorial unity, a definite political morphology, or its systematic subordination to some imperium. The nation has no frontiers, no definite system of power, and no State’ (Foucault, 2003, 134). By the mid-nineteenth century, nationhood is defined by its relationship with the state:

First, that the nation is not essentially specified by its relations with other nations. What characterizes ‘the’ nation is not a horizontal relationship with other groups (such as other nations, hostile or enemy nations, or the nations with which it is juxtaposed)…[but]…a vertical relationship between a body of individuals who are capable of constituting a State, and the actual existence of the State itself. (Foucault, 2003, 223)

He understands the development of a nation as a modern political subject through the prism of other social divisions such as class and race: ‘It is this notion, this concept of the nation, that will give rise to the famous revolutionary problem of the nation; it will also give rise to the notion of race, and finally, to the notion of class’ (Foucault, 2003, 134). Thus, for Foucault nationhood is a modern phenomenon defined by the existence of the sovereign state and it is only when the structure of the state in firmly in place that nationhood becomes a social process that shapes the dynamics of class, race and other social cleavages.²

Foucault is particularly interested in the genealogy of national and racial discourses as they transform from a revolutionary weapon into a mechanism of state control. As he puts it:

The discourse of race struggle was the first form of a revolutionary discourse in the West. But little by little, it was reorganized by the State. What was originally a discourse of political struggle, of the war between nations or races, was transformed into a discourse of national unity, of purity, and finally, of State racism. (Foucault, 2003, 216)

The defining feature of early nationalism, the struggle for popular sovereignty, has gradually been reconfigured and appropriated by the state. The popular revolt against the monarchical power was ultimately transformed into a coercive instrument of political unification and national homogenisation. As Foucault (2003, 81) emphasises:

Whereas the discourse of races, of the struggle between races, was a weapon to be used against the historico-political discourse of Roman sovereignty, the discourse of race (in the singular) was a way of turning that weapon against those who had forged it, of using it to preserve the sovereignty of the State, a sovereignty whose lustre and vigour were no longer guaranteed by magico-juridical rituals, but by medico- normalizing techniques. Thanks to the shift from law to norm, from races in the plural to race in the singular, from the emancipatory project to a concern with purity, sovereignty was able to invest or take over the discourse of race struggle and reutilize it for its own strategy. State sovereignty thus becomes the imperative to protect the race.

Hence, Foucault conceptualises nations as historical formations that developed as a mechanism of popular resistance to the feudal order. However, eventually nationhood became a tool of state power whereby the state apparatuses use the framework of national homogeneity to suppress internal differences and political discontent. In this understanding, nationalism is a product of Enlightenment that operates as a technology of state power. The discourse of national homogeneity, mythical shared past and social unity emerge as the institutional straitjacket that obliterates cultural diversity in the name of shared national destiny.

As Foucault wrote very little on this topic, several commentators have attempted to reconstruct his understanding of nationhood and nationalism (Chatterjee, 2019, 1993; Ferrier, 2020; Kelly, 2004; Zake, 2002). They all explore different concepts that Foucault analysed such as the state power, population, biopolitics, subjectivity, governmentality, and racism in order to identify some similar processes that equally apply to the genealogy of nationhood and nationalisms. The three key topics dominate this commentary and give us more sense about Foucault's view of nationalism: a) the transformation from the juridical sovereignty of kings to nationalist governmentality; b) the construction and reproduction of the nationalist subjects; and c) nationalism as a technology of power.

In ‘Society Must be Defended’ (2003) Foucault is clear that the Enlightenment project of popular sovereignty emerges in direct opposition to the notion of royal sovereignty. However, as Chatterjee (2019, 1993) and Ferrier (2020) emphasise with the development of modern apparatuses of the state, this emancipatory project gradually transforms into disciplinary power and eventually into the biopolitical apparatus. With governmentality and biopolitics the focus shifts from the law and territorial control towards governing life of the population including its growth, norms, health and the right to live. In this context nationalism is a byproduct of this biopolitical regime. The national population is an object and an instrument of power rather than being only the subject of sovereignty. Once in full motion nationalism operates as an indispensable component of governmentality.

In contrast to some Marxist accounts that see nationalism as a form of false consciousness produced by ideological manipulation, for Foucault the national subject is constituted through the process of power relations, discursive struggles and governmentality. As Zake (2002, 239) points out, national subjects are forged through the mechanisms of bio-power: ‘Nationalisms often use bio-power to create various institutions such as the national family, schools, the army and police, individual, medicine and hygiene, and administration of collective bodies’. However, as the biopolitical regime must differentiate between those who live and die, it inevitably generates internal divisions within the nation and in relation to other nations. As national subjects are constructed as the norm, all Others are defined as the sources of deviation, contamination or death. The national subjects exist through inclusion, exclusion and surveillance.

For Foucault, nationalism has less to do with culture, identity or ideology, and much more with the technology of power. The genealogy of nation-formation indicates that the discourses of nationhood and state develop historically as a set of practices that produce and govern populations and legitimise forms of political community. Nationhood has no essence, but it constitutes subjects as members of the nation, and it operates as a marker that differentiates between the insiders and outsiders. As Ferrier (2020, 44) argues: ‘while one's national identity and attitude toward the social body would appear to be a subjective position, the surrounding political discourse fits national identities into histories (or legends) of war, strife and injury that also make truth-claims bearing upon that subjectivity, and as Foucault points out, operationalizes these discursive claims to a political discourse that divides and identifies “us” and “them”’. Thus, nationalism relies on the myths of continuous past to regulate populations, generate and maintain loyalty and justify violence against the Others. It is a technology of power and control.

The commentators also identify some blind spots in Foucault's understanding of nationalism including his Eurocentric bias where the focus is almost exclusively on the Western European history and France in particular while neglecting the rest of the world (Chatterjee, 2019, 1993; Ferrier, 2020); his overly structuralist view that mostly ignores agency in constructing and implementing different national projects (Ferrier, 2020; Kelly, 2004); and his lack of attention to the role of colonial and imperial legacies in the contraction of modern nation-states and nationalisms (Chatterjee, 2019, 1993; Kelly, 2004). While all these criticisms are correct, they do not go far enough in probing Foucault's key arguments about nationhood and nationalisms.

The missing link: Nationalism and the social

In Foucault's understanding, nationalism is almost exclusively a project of the state. He differentiates between the short period of popular struggle for liberation that is associated with the ordinary people before the establishment of nation-states, and much longer period when nationalism operates as the technology of state power. The initial rebellion against the monarchy that was characterised by contingency and discontinuities becomes codified as a narrative of national unity and purity that glorifies the mythical national past. Hence social action that has taken place in the past transforms into a biopolitical discourse that orders the parameters of belonging, exclusion, inclusion and surveillance.

While Foucault is right that once in place nation-states rely on their coercive powers to establish and maintain the boundaries of membership and to police the population under their control, the influence of nationalism in the contemporary world goes far beyond the state apparatuses. Firstly, as scholars of quotidian nationalism emphasise the reproduction of nation-centric categories and practices is just as much a practical accomplishment of civil society groups, social movements and ordinary individuals as it is of the state power (Fox, 2025; Fox and Miller-Idriss, 2008; Skey, 2011). As Fox and Miller-Idriss (2008) show convincingly, in the contemporary world nationhood is constructed and maintained through routine, every day, conversations, via specific consumerist practices and everyday use of national symbols, through informal daily rituals that enact the nation. The global popularity of nationalism stems in large part from the active, every day, engagement of ordinary individuals in the reproduction of nation-centric realities. These practices range from overt displays of national flags at the sporting events, to singing national anthems at the international beauty pageants, to using national symbols as a fashion statement, to posting ‘patriotic’ images and quotes on social media, to depicting a particular food as ‘our national cuisine’ or enjoying dancing or singing to the music from ‘our national heritage’ among many others (Malešević, 2025, 2013; Skey, 2011).

These common practices can operate in tune with the state-imposed promotion of nation-centric content such as the display of flags during the national holiday, celebrating the ‘national treasures’ in tourist advertisements or promoting the national brands over the foreign products in the government sponsored campaigns (Billig, 1995; Malešević, 2013, 2006). However, they can also act subversively and challenge a particular vision of nationhood that is promoted by the state authorities. In this context, the strikes organised by the trade unions or political demonstrations against the current government regularly feature national flags and national anthems that are used to legitimise the protestors membership in the national community while also attempting to delegitimise the regime as lacking national solidarity. Since Foucault only focuses on nationalism as a top down and state-imposed phenomenon, he cannot account for this multiplicity of nationalist experiences. Nationalism is not only a project of the state; in contemporary world it is just as much a project of the society.

Secondly, Foucault is right that nationalism should not be conceptualised primarily as a cultural phenomenon but as a form of politics. As Gellner (1997, 74) noted long time ago, there is a sharp discrepancy between the self-image of nationalism and its sociological reality. Most nationalists speak in the idiom of unique and irreplaceable Gemeinschaft while in fact they create yet another uniform and standardised Gesellschaft – ‘a mobile anonymous society simulating a cosy a closed community’. In other words, although nationalist projects invoke cultural categories such as the preservation of heritage, safeguarding of collective traditions, linguistic purism, or the recreation of specific customs, it is the political goals that dominate – the creation of independent state, unification of two separate territories, the expansion or restriction of citizenship rights, the assimilation of different groups or the expulsion of minorities or immigrants. However, none of this is to deny that the cultural idioms can play significant roles in the legitimisation of nationalist projects. This is what is missing in Foucault's view of nationalism.

Similar to other poststructuralist thinkers, Foucault dismisses the role of ideology in power struggles (Malešević, 2006, 63–69). He argues that this concept is analytically unsustainable, as it is typically used either in a positivist or a Marxist sense. While the positivists deploy a science/non-science categorisation and see ideology in opposition to truth, Marxists understand ideology as a form of false consciousness or superstructure that is determined by the economic base (Foucault, 1980: 118). Foucault contests both views arguing that knowledge and power are deeply intertwined and as such ‘no power can be exercised without extraction, appropriation, distribution or retention of knowledge’ (Foucault, 1977: 27). Hence, instead of ideology, he operates with the concept of discourse that he finds less totalising, non-positivist and more focused on tracking the relationship between power and specific ideas and practices.³ In this context, Foucault (2003) does not explore the social dynamics of nationalist ideology but analyses the historical transformation of nationhood as it shifts from the idea of king as representing the body of the nation, towards nation as a sovereign people, and ultimately to the nation as embodied in the biopolitics of state power.

Nevertheless, since nationalism is first and foremost an ideological project, one cannot provide a comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon if the concept of ideology is discarded. Foucault is not an exception here. As Larrain (1994, 292) rightly argues, despite their nominal rejection of ideology poststructuralists regularly reintroduce this concept through the back door. By dismissing the true/false dichotomy poststructuralists cannot make a claim that their analyses have more validity than the views of conspiracy theorists or anybody else. The relativisation of knowledge undermines the possibility for rational debate and assessment of cogency of specific claims (Bevir, 1999, 70). This is particularly relevant for the study of highly potent and pervasive ideologies such as nationalism. If one treats nationalism as just one of many equivalent discourses existing in the political space, it is almost impossible to identify the extent of its normalisation, naturalisation and routinisation in everyday life.⁴ As I have argued elsewhere, nationalism is the dominant operative ideology of modernity, as it simultaneously provides the legitimacy for the hegemonic form of territorial rule in the contemporary world (the nation-states) while also maintaining unprecedent popular appeal in everyday life (civil society, locality, kinship and friendship networks) (Malešević, 2025, 2019, 2013).⁵

Thirdly, Foucault's understanding of nationhood and nationalisms is overly macro-historical while paying very little attention to the micro-interactional dynamics. Foucault is right that nationalism is a historical phenomenon shaped by changing structures of governance and the organisational shifts from the rule of kings towards popular sovereignty and eventually biopolitics. However, nationalism could not develop, exist and proliferate without being embedded in the micro-interactional world. While the state institutions play crucial roles in the reproduction of nation-centric realities and create disciplined and governed national subjects, nationalism also entails active micro-level agency. It is precisely because human beings are reflexive, meaning-oriented, emotional and cognitive creatures, that they are actively involved in constructing, reifying and replicating nationalist ideas and practices. Nationalist subjectivities develop and operate through networks of micro-level solidarities. Nationalism is not just reproduced by everyday banal practices of individuals; it is also deeply grounded in the emotional and moral attachments of small group dynamics.

It is no accident that human beings regularly experience nationhood in face-to-face interactions with significant others, including their family members, close friends, neighbours, peers and romantic partners. These micro-interactional settings are the corner stone for building any nationalist project. Being national is not an individual or personalised experience; it is inevitably a communal affair. Anthony Cohen (1996) differentiates between personal and official nationalism, arguing that nationalism is not just a state-led project, as formulated above by Foucault, but is shaped by unique individual experience. National symbols attain distinct subjective meanings as human beings use national narratives and symbols to make their own identity projects.

Nevertheless, both Foucault and Cohen miss what is distinct about nationalism's appeal – its micro-group dimension. Nationalism would have no allure if it was only state-imposed ideology or a highly personalised form of lived experience. This ideological project is so pervasive because it successfully brings together the micro-interactional solidarity of small and emotionally bound groups with the meaningful macro-narratives of belonging, a shared glorious past and common destiny. As humans find a sense of moral responsibility, deep emotional attachments, and feelings of ontological security in such small groups, the large-scale social organisations must find a way to tap into this micro-universe. Nationalism has proved to be such a potent ideological doctrine and practice precisely because it successfully penetrated this micro-interactional world. At the core of this process is the transformation of collective subjectivities (Malešević, 2025, 2019, 2013).

Nationalisms and the transformation of subjectivities

Foucault's view reflects in part how nationalism was commonly perceived in the second half of the twentieth century. At that time, most scholars understood nationalism as a phenomenon that has reached its peak in the nineteenth century and was bound to decline or even disappear in the near future.⁶ This misperception was largely based on giving too much significance to the nationalist movements in the nineteenth century and underestimating the long-term trajectory of this social phenomenon. Nevertheless, nationalism was far from being the foremost ideology in the nineteenth century. This was still a world dominated by empires and patrimonial kingdoms. The nationalist ideas were mostly confined to small networks of upper- and middle-class activists. Imperialism, religious worldviews and local attachments still easily trumped nationhood, as the overwhelming majority of ordinary populations still identified largely in terms of locality, kinship or religion (Anderson, 1983; Breuilly, 1993; Gellner, 1997, 1983; Malešević, 2025, 2019).

It is only in the twentieth century that nationalism became a prevailing ideological doctrine both globally and domestically. In the global context, the nation-states gradually replace empires and nationalism takes the place of imperialism, civilising missions, and the divine authority of monarchs doctrine as the principal mode of political legitimacy. With the post-WWII de-legitimisation of imperial projects and the subsequent waves of decolonisation, the nation-state was codified internationally as the only legitimate form of state organisation. The ideas of ‘national sovereignty’ and ‘self-determination of peoples’ are the foundational principles of the UN charter.⁷ Since the 1950s onwards, most international organisations have been governed by the same principles that privilege nation-states over all other forms of polity.

Furthermore, as the neo-institutionalist researchers from the Stanford School have demonstrated convincingly, the nation-state structure has been replicated as the dominant form of governance throughout the world. The isomorphic features of the nation-state model have been standardised and gradually adopted as a global norm. This includes not only the dominant model of governance but also more specific practices, ranging from uniform constitutional orders that emphasise human rights, and popular sovereignty, to standardised and compulsory mass-scale educational systems with fixed and state-approved curricula, the development centred economic policies, uniform welfare provisions and standardised population control measures, rationalised record-keeping and data collection through fixed census intervals, and the formal regulation of citizen's rights, among many others (Meyer et al., 1997, 152–3; Meyer et al., 1992).

For neo-institutionalists these isomorphic changes were the result of shared cultural scripts that have gradually been adopted all over the world. While neo-institutionalism has been rightly criticised for its culturalist bias, it has still provided a wealth of evidence as to the long-term structural transformations that have taken place globally. The most noticeable pattern here is the hegemonic role that the nation-state has acquired as an organisational model. Since the very existence of this sort of organisation is legitimised through the ideology of nationalism, the global expansion of this model predictably fosters the proliferation of the nation-centric understanding of social reality (Malešević, 2025, 2019).

In domestic terms, nationalism gradually transforms from being a middle to upper class ideology to becoming a social glue that brings together very different sections of societies. This relatively protracted process was in part fostered by structural changes, including the standardisation of vernaculars, introduction of compulsory primary education, increased literacy rates, urbanisation, secularisation, the development of industrialised economies that generated increased social and spatial mobility within societies, and the imposition of the military draft, among many other structural developments (Anderson, 1983; Breuilly, 1993; Gellner, 1983). Ultimately nationalism became a cross-class, cross-gender, cross-generational and society-wide ideological project.

The consequence of this long-term societal transformation is the extraordinary popularity of nationhood in the contemporary world. The periodic surveys and public polls taken all around the world clearly indicate that huge majorities in populations across all nation-states express a strong feeling of national pride and identification with their nation. For example, the Eurobarometer data shows that on average 73 percent of EU citizens, across all member states, categorise their national identity as the most important form of collective identification (Eurobarometer, 2021). Similarly, the World Values Survey, Gallup, and other global public polls regularly record exceptionally high levels of respondents who are very proud or quite proud of their nation-state. These numbers are usually over 80 percent for most countries (Beauchamp, 2014; Duina, 2018; Gallup, 2021). For instance, a recent Gallup survey of the US population found that over two-thirds of respondents are either extremely or very proud of to be American (Gallup, 2021).

While Foucault has recognised the significance of state power in reproducing this nation-centric vision of the world, this in itself is not enough to account for the extraordinary potency of nationalism in the contemporary world. Even if state power is so omnipotent, it is still not clear why nationalism, and not some other ideological project, has acquired such a hegemonic position today. In my previous work, I have argued that to understand the potency of nationalism today, it is necessary to zoom in on the three historical and ongoing processes that foster modern subjectivities: the ever-increasing coercive capacity of social organisations, the successful penetration of ideology across specific and territorialised social orders, and the organisational and ideological envelopment of micro-level solidarities (Malešević, 2025, 2019, 2013).

The coercive capacity of social organisations

Foucault's approach to nationalism is most effective in tracing its development and growth within the framework of state power. There is no doubt that once nationalism becomes the dominant normative doctrine of modern states, its influence dramatically expands. As the nation-states possess the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence over their territories and also regularly monopolise the control of taxation, judiciary and education, they can successfully monitor and shape nationalist projects (Anderson, 1983; Gellner, 1983; Malešević, 2025, 2013). The historical trajectory of state power indicates a relatively cumulative expansion of coercive capacity. As Tilly (1992) and Mann (1993) show, the historical prerequisite for the rise of coercive powers of states was the development of science and technology, the growth of transport and communication networks, the institutionalisation of regular censuses, the centralisation of authority, the expansion of police, military and civil service, among many other factors. All these changes have contributed to the expansion of the infrastructural and despotic powers of modern states. Once the nation-states attain this coercive capacity, they can foster nationalist projects through the variety of institutional channels.

However, the state is not the only entity that possesses such coercive-organisational powers. Many other large-scale social organisations, including multinational private corporations, religious institutions, social movements, labour federations, paramilitary groups, and terrorist networks, possess substantial coercive-organisational capacities (Malešević, 2022, 2017, 2010). Before the nation-states acquired the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, many other social organisations possessed substantial military or police forces. For example, at its peak in the 1850s, the East India Company had around 260,000 soldiers and up to 25,000 police personnel, which made it larger than the nineteenth century British Army (Heathcote, 1995). Today, the largest private miliary contractors also maintain huge numbers of armed personnel. For instance, in recent years G4S had 533,000 employees and Triple Canopy employed more than 94,000 individuals (Harrington, 2023). Despite being motivated by profit maximisation, such private military organisations regularly emphasise their nationalist credentials, while their personnel consistently emphasise their patriotic commitments as being central to their professional roles (Franke and von Boemcken, 2011; Pattison, 2014). As the coercive capacity of social organisations has experienced a substantial increase over the last two and half centuries, this was also reflected in the institutional and societal dominance of nationalism in the contemporary world.

The ideologisation of nationhood

Nationalism is first and foremost an ideological project. It is a meta-ideology that can accommodate highly diverse political orientations. Hence, historically nationalism was aligned with liberal ideas in the aftermath of the Franch and American revolutions, was fully integrated into the eugenic, imperial and racist projects of early twentieth century fascism and Nazism, and was just as central to the left-wing postcolonial movements that spread in the second half of the twentieth century.

Furthermore, regardless of their different normative ideological frameworks, all modern states rely on nationalism for their political legitimacy. For example, Laos, Mauritania, and Finland have all very different political systems – state socialism, Islamism and liberal democracy respectively. However, on the operative level, all three states rely on nationalist ideas and practices to justify the existing social order. The penetration of nation-centric idioms and habits in the public sphere is so intense precisely because ideologisation is not only a top-down phenomenon but also a bottom-up experience shaped by civil society and many other non-state actors.

As Foucault dismisses the concept of ideology in favour of discourse, he cannot fully capture the extent of the ideological penetration of nationalism within modern social orders. In contrast to discourses, which are typically fragmentary, often internally incoherent and messy systems of meaning, ideological power possesses more totalising ambitions. Nationalism is a relatively structured and coherent meta-ideology that offers grand vistas of collective liberation, national salvation, and the pursuit of collective justice, liberty, fraternity, and equality (Malešević, 2025, 2019).

Fully to understand how nationalism operates, one has to explore its organisational foundation and its societal dissemination in everyday life. The development of ideological infrastructure, such as the standardisation of vernacular languages, the introduction of compulsory educational systems, the growth of society-wide mass media, increased literacy rates and the establishment of national institutions (i.e., museums, theatres, concert halls, national academies, etc.), have all fostered the ideological homogenisation of citizens.

At the same time, nationalist ideologisation is equally fostered through non-state agency and informal networks. These nation-centric actions can range from voluntary associations promoting ‘national heritage’, to fire brigades or local community groups organising parades, memorial walks and other ceremonies for national holidays, to sharing nation-centric jokes and the casual stereotypes about other nations during communal barbeques, to participating in national folk dances or national food festivals, among many other everyday activities (Fox, 2025; Fox and Miller-Idriss, 2008; Skey, 2011). The persistence and proliferation of nation-centric ideas and practices is dependent on the continuous ideologisation that is enacted by a variety of formal and informal social organisations.

Nationalism and micro-solidarities

Although coercive-organisational capacity and ideological penetration are the central pillars of nationalism's tenacity, they are not enough to maintain its societal influence. What is just as important is the diffusion of nationalist idioms and practices within the interpersonal domain. Nationalism has been exceptionally successful precisely because it is not only something that operates in the public sphere, but it also successfully permeates the private sphere. While Foucault (2003, 1980) has written extensively about the ways power is produced, circulated, internalised and normalised in everyday life, he does not engage much with the emotional dynamics of micro-interactions that sustain nationalism. The success of nationalist ideology stems in large part from its ability to mimic interpersonal relations, such as deep comradeship, friendships, family ties, or romantic partnerships. As human beings are emotional creatures who feel safe, secure and fulfilled in regular micro-interactions with their significant others, nationalist ideologies work best when able successfully to imitate these micro-bonds. Thus, nationalist language and practices regularly deploy kinship and friendship metaphors such as ‘our only motherland’, ‘we have to sacrifice for our fatherland’, ‘we fight for our Lithuanian brothers and sisters’, or ‘we protect our Argentinian comrades’.

The micro-level solidarities of face-to-face groups are built on deep emotional attachments and a sense of moral responsibility (Collins, 2004; Turner, 2007). In modern social orders, these emotionally and morally meaningful interactions are often embedded in wider narratives and social practices that portray nations as extended families and macro-networks of friends. While social organisations devise different ways of tapping into the emotional and moral power of micro-solidarities, this process is not necessarily instrumental. Rather this is a structural byproduct of those social orders that have acquired a hegemonic position in the contemporary world, namely nation-states.

In this context, the ongoing ‘translation’ of micro-solidarities into nationalist narratives is often a routine practice enabled by the dominance of nation-centric institutions and everyday social practices. In other words, the abstract principles of nationalism penetrate and embed everyday micro-solidarities by becoming attached to tangible social practices. The networks of micro-level solidarities turn ideological symbols into routine practice. Hence, nationalist ideas and practices are neither natural nor inevitable forms of collective identification; they become normalised and naturalised only once they are deeply woven into the mundane practices of everyday life.

Conclusion

Michel Foucault's intellectual legacy spans a remarkable range of fields and topics. Yet, one striking absence runs through his work – the lack of substantive engagement with nationhood and nationalisms. As I have emphasised in this contribution, one cannot adequately understand the social dynamics of modernity and the transformation of collective subjectivities without grappling with the phenomenon of nation-formation. Since nationalism operates as the organisational, ideological, and micro-interactional backbone of late modernity, I have analysed what Foucault's fragmentary insights about nationhood can tell us about the world today. This article has provided a critical assessment of the poststructuralist view of nationalism as a grand metanarrative and it has explored how the Foucauldian analytical framework has been developed further to deal with the realities of the contemporary nation-centric world. I identified some strengths and weaknesses of the Foucauldian perspective, and then I articulated an alternative theoretical account to explain the potency of nationalism today. This alternative approach examines the impact of nationalism through the prism of ever-increasing coercive capacity of social organisations, their ideological penetration, and their envelopment of micro-level solidarities. I briefly explored how nationalist ideas and practices become grounded, sustained, and reproduced, in the everyday lived experiences of billions of people throughout the world.

Foucault is often described as a radical social thinker who has successfully challenged established narratives of how social order develops and works. He rejected traditional categories of analysis and offered highly unconventional methodologies centred on disrupting existing interpretations of social reality. This radical project was able to demonstrate how truth, knowledge and self are not natural or neutral but are produced through complex systems of power. Nevertheless, this project was not radical enough as it completely disregarded the most important source of social power in modernity – nationalism. Although Foucault dissects how power operates through institutions, knowledge, and population management, he could not see how all these entities and many others are deeply embedded in nation-centric ideas and social practices. Hence instead of providing an archaeology and genealogy of nationalism's hegemonic power in the contemporary world, Foucault's radicalism stops at the borders of nation-states.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Siniša Malešević

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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