National identity and political autonomy: Collective agency, marginalized groups, and the nationalist mobilizational infrastructure

Post-nationalists argue that nationalism is morally indefensible and should be replaced by non-national forms of solidarity. This article challenges this argument by showing that, under prevailing international norms, nationalism remains a structurally important resource for territorially concentrated groups contesting domination. The article makes three central claims. First, because international law and political practice recognize “peoples” as the primary bearers of self-determination rights, groups seeking autonomy face strong incentives to frame their claims in national terms. Second, drawing on contemporary cases, the article shows that nationalist discourses perform two functions: it forges internal solidarity for collective action, and it renders grievances legible to external audiences through globally recognized narratives. Third, the article introduces the concept of nationalist mobilizational infrastructure (NMI) to theorize this dual function and argues that categorically delegitimizing nationalist narratives risks restricting the interpretive resources through which marginalized actors articulate and gain attention for their claims. The article concludes that moral evaluation of nationalism must be contextual and trade-off-sensitive, attentive both to the harms nationalism can produce and to the constrained alternatives available to those who invoke it.