Abstract
Abstract: The present article explores Hannah Arendt's critique of nationalism and the nation state and examines its lasting political relevance in the context of the current surge of anti-Muslim ethnic nationalism in Europe. Its primary contention is that the juxtaposi- tion between Western European civic nationalism and Central and Eastern European tribal nationalism introduced by Arendt in The Origins of Totalitarianism is misleading, insofar as it implies that Arendt endorses the former type of nationalism and rejects the latter one.
Arendt's other works, as well as some other passages from The Origins of Totalitarianism, reveal that Arendt ultimately rejects all types of nationalism, as well as the European model of nation state, against which she juxtaposes the American model of a decentralized federal republic.