The acceleration of climate change has revealed a presumably surprising link between environmental discourse and nationalist
movements that immediately caught researchers' attention. Since the early 2000s,
so-called eco-nationalism has been studied from
different angles and in different contexts. However, outside of a European and predominantly democratic context, the impact of
eco-nationalism remains understudied. This project addresses this gap in the literature by comparing the convergence of environmental
rhetoric and nationalism in the legitimation strategies and national identity construction of three different political regimes in
predominantly Chinese-dominated societies: China, Singapore, and Taiwan. Through a comparative perspective and a qualitative research
design, this project intends to shed new light on the emergence of green nationalism - a form of nationalism that supports
national sustainability - under authoritarian, hybrid, and democratic regimes, respectively China, Singapore, and Taiwan. The aim, then,
is to understand the extent to which nations of different political systems in the Sinophone world cultivate and possibly co-opt
environmental discourses in order to achieve broader goals of national identity and international legitimacy. From a theoretical
point of view, the project will focus on the concept of green nationalism and a constructivist perspective of "imagined
communities" – a term coined by Benedict Anderson (2006). Foregrounding on the relationship between environmental discourses and
claims to legitimacy, the project aims to fill a gap in the literature on the impact of green nationalism outside of the European
context and in different political regimes, a topic that has not previously been explored in the literature.
Web site: https://repi.phisoc.ulb.be/fr/membres/corps-scientifique/postdoctorant-e-s/virginie-arantes