CEU - Nationalism Studies Program

Upcoming online talk by César Jiménez-Martínez (London School of Economics): Politics and National Promotion: Nation Branding and State Power in Latin America

📆18 March at 4pm (GMT)
🛜 Join via this link (no registration required): https://tinyurl.com/2zdykhhb

The event is organized by the Loughborough University Nationalism Network (LUNN).

Abstract: While literature on nation branding has been dominated by instrumental approaches (e.g. Anholt, 2007), a growing subset of works has critically interrogated this practice (e.g. Aronczyk, 2013; Kaneva, 2023). This latter set of works portrays nation branding as part of a neoliberal takeover that commodifies national identities, and reduces nations to units of economic production, symbolic goods to be traded and its inhabitants as mere consumers rather than citizens. These insights are very relevant but remain tethered to neoliberal rationalities, largely overlooking the political dimensions of nation branding. This paper takes the discussion on a different direction and suggests that approaching nation branding from the perspective of state power can be a more productive framework. Theoretically, it draws on discussions on symbolic power, nationalism, and promotional culture. Empirically, it relies on more than a decade of research on 10 nation-states from Latin America (Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Peru), including interviews, campaign analyses, and news coverage. The examination of these cases reveals that, rather than simply being an instrument of market logics, nation branding is a manifestation of state attempts to monopolise the communication and representation of the nation, consolidating what Maldonado et al (2025) call the ’neoliberal-state''. Nation branding therefore emerges as a highly political practice, entangled with the agendas of domestic elites. Instead of merely being a matter of national ‘images’, nation branding becomes an instrument of partisan struggles, as well as a target of local resistance. Reductionist economic perspectives consequently need to be challenged, in order to approach nation branding as a practice at the intersection of statecraft and stagecraft, opening new avenues for discussions about identity struggles, democracy and symbolic and material inequalities.

Special Issue: Class and Migration: Interrogating Class Across Borders, co-edited by Nationalism Studies Professor Szabolcs Pogonyi.

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Apply now to our Summer University course, organized by Nationalism Studies faculty Szabolcs Pogonyi and Jelena Dzankic from the European University Institute!

The main aim of the summer course "Contestations of citizenship in times of global democratic backsliding" is to examine if, when and how citizenship regimes are used by authoritarian and illiberal governments as a means of weakening the rights of undesired populations and to include targeted groups to strengthening the legitimacy and the power of the government. In addition to exploring citizenship policies at the time of democratic decline, the course will also investigate the micro-politics of citizenship by looking into how individuals use, respond to, hijack or ignore these policies. Throughout the course, cases from developed countries will be discussed along with cases from the Global South including India, the Middle East and South America.

The application deadline is March 1. More information on the link below.

Contestations of Citizenship in Times of Global Democratic Backsliding | CEU summer course Image Course date July 6–10, 2026 Location Budapest Application deadline March 01, 2026 For all applicants April 15, 2026 For all applicants except for those applying for scholarship and/or visa ECTS Credits 2.0 Course delivery In-person SUN Packages Fee-Paying Tuition Waiver Partial Scholarship F...