Populist Nationalism, Anti-Europeanism, Post-Nationalism, and the East-West Distinction

The understanding of populist nationalism as a reactionary, atavistic and irrational phenomenon is deemed to be a partial and restrictive explanation, which does not shed light on the distinctly modern political critique of representative democracy as articulated in populism (in spite of the symbolic violence and illiberal discourses of intolerance and xenophobia used by these movements). What is more, a rigid distinction between East and West in terms of political culture should be problematized (thus making the notion of the convergence of East with West problematical), as populism is endemic in modern democracy in general. Further, populist nationalism in Eastern Europe should be understood as articulating a particular experience with modernity, rather than as constituting a return to the non-modern past.