"Nation", of course, is often closely associated with Race or Culture, and with Tradition associated with the ostensible superiority that a statolater associates with the dominant race or culture is to be 'offered' to 'inferior' peoples, usually at the cost of their subjection and exploitation, and often contrary to the will of those of other nations. That the tradition is obsolete or otherwise controversial outside of one's State and its dominant people matters little. An attempt may be made to recreate or even fabricate some lost era of national glory, such as the Roman Empire under Benito Mussolini or the First or Second Reich under Adolf Hitler. Mythologization of history typically plays a vital role in statolatry. In more recent times, Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath dictatorship attempted to attribute to itself the glories of ancient despotisms such as those of Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar in what is now Iraq.
Statolatry could be a part of the doctrine of almost any political ideal, but especially under Fascism or national socialism. It is probably least consistent with Liberal and libertarian ethics that hold that national entities and cultural affiliation are at best voluntary associations.
Claims of any national superiority on grounds of Race have caused militaristic regimes to wage wars that end in catastrophic defeat when leaders who attempt to exploit the supposed inferiorities, cultural or 'racial', of their intended victims.
An earlier, less elaborated, use of the word is in a 1931 encyclical by Pope Pius XI.) This encyclical criticizes Fascist Italy as developing "a pagan worship of the state" which he called Statolatry. It did not elaborate much further on the word as it used only once.