Is economic nationalism an ideology?

As I do the preliminary reading for a dissertation on ideology, I have to make some tough choices about what counts as an ideology and what doesn't. A book I just finished, Ideology: A Very Short Introduction, calls nationalism a "thin ideology" because it has

... an identifiable morphology but, unlike mainstream ideologies, a restricted one. ... It does not embrace the full range of questions that the macro-ideologies do, and is limited in its ambitions and scope. Take nationalism, an ideology that concentrates on the exceptional worth of a nation as the shaper of human identity while often emphasizing its superiority over other national entities, and that justifies the demands a nation can make on the conduct of its members. The point is that it does little else (p. 98, emphasis in original).

So under that definition, is the economic nationalism of some Congressional Democrats mentioned in this Slate story a paper-thin ideology?

There is an important distinction to be made between economic populism and economic nationalism. Many of Tuesday's Democratic victors stressed familiar populist themes: the little guy against the big guy; corporate misbehavior; and tough times faced by working people. Al Gore ran in 2000 as an economic populist and so, implausibly, did John Kerry in 2004. Raising the minimum wage (which Republicans stupidly failed to do before the election) is a classic populist position. Opposing Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is another. But in places where Democrats made their most-impressive inroads this year, one heard a distinctly different message of economic nationalism. Nationalism begins from the populist premise that working people aren't doing so well. But instead of blaming the rich at home, it focuses its energy on the poor abroad. The leading economic nationalist today is probably Lou Dobbs, who on nights other than Election Night natters on against free trade, outsourcing, globalization, and immigration on CNN.

By the way, if you click through to the ideology book mentioned above and are intrigued, note that Amazon is having a buy three, get one free deal. I was very satisfied with my first Very Short Introduction and have four more (Human Evolution, The Brain, Intelligence, and Psychology) coming Thursday.