Nationalists gently touch on civil unrest (8)
I believe the answer is:
patriots
'nationalists' is the definition.
(I know this)
'gently touch on civil unrest' is the wordplay.
'gently touch' becomes 'pats' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'on' means one lot of letters goes inside another (as in clothing 'on' a person).
'civil unrest' becomes 'riot' (rioting is a type of civil unrest).
'pats' going around 'riot' is 'PATRIOTS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for patriots that I've seen before include "Lovers of their country" , "Country-lovers" , "More than one loyalist" , "They act from love of fatherland" , "loyalists" .)