Nation-state
A
nationâ"state is a specific form of
state, which exists to provide a
sovereign territory for a particular
nation, and which derives its
legitimacy from that function. The state is a
political and
geopolitical entity; the nation is a
cultural and/or
ethnic entity. The term "nationâ"state" implies that they geographically coĂŻncide, and this distinguishes the nationâ"state from the other types of state which historically preceded it. If successfully implemented, this implies that the
citizens share a common language, culture, and values â" which was not the case in many historical states. A world of nationâ"states also implements the claim to
selfâ"determination and
autonomy for each nation, a central theme of the
ideology of
nationalism.
It is possible to infer an "ideal nationâ"state" from existing nationâ"states, and from the claims of nationalist movements. This ideal model cannot be implemented in the
real world, but it has influenced most existing nationâ"states. They cannot be understood without reference to that model. It also explains how they are different from their predecessor states.
Political science uses the term "nationâ"state" for most existing sovereign states, even though some of them deviate from this ideal model. The national identity may have been imposed from above, the national unity may be largely fictional, but the model is still effective in describing the specific characteristics of the nationâ"state.
In this "ideal nationâ"state", the population consists of the nation, and
only of the nation. Every member of the nation is a permanent resident of the nationâ"state, and no member of the nation resides outside it. There are no indigenous ethnic or cultural minorities. In order to maintain this state of affairs, there is no
immigration and no
emigration. Consequently there are no immigrant minorities either, and no members of the nation live as an immigrant minority in another state. The state not only houses the nation, but protects it, and its
national identity. It has specific policies for this purpose, which are absent in non-nationâ"states.
No nationâ"states exactly correspond to this model, but
Iceland is often seen as approaching it. Although the inhabitants are ethnically related to other Scandinavian groups, the national culture and language are found only in Iceland. There are no crossâ"border minorities â" the nearest land is too far away.
Japan is traditionally seen as a good example of a nationâ"state, although it includes minorities of the ethnically distinct
Ryƫkyƫ peoples in the south,
Koreans,
Chinese,
Filipinos and
Brazilians, and on the northern island of
HokkaidĆ, the indigenous
Ainu minority; see also
Japanese Demographics and
Ethnic issues in Japan. Not coĂŻncidentally, both Iceland and Japan are insular nations.
Deviations from this "ideal"
The ideal nationâ"state, by definition, is inhabited by one ethnic group, who speak one language, have one culture, and share one religion. The population, in other words, is
homogeneous. In many existing states, that is far from the case. Nevertheless, for the purposes of
history,
political science, and
international law, they are considered a nation-state.
Switzerland is constitutionally a confederation of
cantons, and has four official languages, but it is also has a âSwiss' national identity, a national history, and a classic national hero,
Wilhelm Tell. The national unity and identity may be disputed by autonomist movements, but unless a nationâ"state is approaching disintegration, the usage is to treat it as a nationâ"state. Similarly, the
Republic of Ireland was until recently inhabited almost entirely by ethnic Irish, but the national territory is not considered complete by nationalists because it does not include the province of
Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, it is still generally regarded as a nationâ"state.
In practice, the border of a nationâ"state never corresponds exactly to the distribution of the national group. Sometimes that is impossible, because population is ethnically mixed, down to the level of individual streets or buildings. Where part of the national group lives in a neighbouring nationâ"state, it is usually called a
national minority. In some cases states have reciprocal national minorities, for instance the
Slovaks in
Hungary and the
Magyars (ethnic Hungarians) in
Slovakia.
National minorities should not be confused with a national
diaspora, which is typically located far from the national border. Most modern diasporas result from economic migration. The existence of an
Irish diaspora does not make the
Republic of Ireland any less of a nationâ"state, and does not affect Northern Ireland, since few emigrants go there anyway.
The possession of
dependent territories does influence the status of a nationâ"state. A state with large
colonial possessions is obviously inhabited by many ethnic groups, and does not conform to the ideal of a singleâ"culture state. However, in most cases, the colonies were not considered an integral part of the
motherland anyway, and were separately administered. Some European nationâ"states have dependent territories in Europe.
Denmark contains virtually all ethnic
Danes and has relatively few foreign nationals within it. However, it exercises
sovereignty over the
Faroe Islands and
Greenland. If these are considered separate nations, then Denmark is not a classic nationâ"state.
Conflicting nationalisms
Iceland not only has clear borders, it is inhabited by people who are either immigrants or selfâ"identify as Icelandic. In many nationâ"states, all or part of the territory is claimed on behalf of more than one nation, by more than one nationalist movement. The intensity of the claims varies: some are no more than a suggestion, others are backed by armed
secessionist groups.
Belgium is a classic example of a disputed nationâ"state. The state was formed by secession from the
United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830, and the
Flemish population in the north speaks Dutch. The Flemish identity is also ethnic and cultural, and there is a strong
separatist movement. The
Walloon identity is linguistic (Francophone) and
regionalist. There is also a unitary
Belgian nationalism, several versions of a
Greater Netherlands ideal, and a
Germanâ"speaking region annexed from
Prussia in 1920, and reĂ€nnexed by Germany in 1940â"1944.
In the case of very large states, there are many competing claims and often many separatist movements. These movements usually dispute that the larger state is a âreal' nationâ"state, and may refer to it as an
empire. There is no objective standard for assessing which claim is correct â" they are competing political claims. Large nationâ"states certainly need to define the nation on a broad basis.
China, for example, uses the concept of "
Zhonghua minzu" â" "a Chinese people" â" although it also officially recognises the majority
Han ethnic group, and no fewer than 55
national minorities.
The fact that a nationâ"state has a disputed territory in this way, does not make it any less of a nationâ"state. However, if large sections of the population reject the national identity, the
legitimacy of the state is undermined, and the efficiency of the government is reduced. That is certainly the case in Belgium, where the interâ"communal tensions dominate politics. If legitimacy fails completely, the usual result may be a
civil war, which either leads to reëstablishment of national unity, or to the creation of one or more new states.
The origins and early history of nationâ"states are disputed. A major theoretical issue is: "which came first â" the nation or the nationâ"state?" For nationalists themselves, the answer is that the nation existed first, nationalist movements arose to present its legitimate demand for
sovereignty, and the nationâ"state met that demand. Some "modernisation theories" of nationalism see the national identity largely as a product of government policy, to unify and modernise an already existing state. Most theories see the nationâ"state as a 19
thâ"century European phenomenon, facilitated by developments such as mass
literacy and the early
mass media. However, historians also note the early emergence of a relatively unified state, and a sense of common identity, in
England,
Portugal and the
Dutch Republic.
In France,
Eric Hobsbawm argues, the French
state preceded the formation of the
French people. Hobsbawm considers that the state made the French nation, and not French nationalism, which emerged at the end of the 19
th century around the
Dreyfus Affair period. At the time of the 1789
French Revolution, only half of the French people somehow spoke French, and between 12% to 13% spoke it "fairly", according to Hobsbawm. During
Italian unification, the number of people speaking the
Italian language was even lower. The French state promoted the unification of various dialects and languages into the
French language. The introduction of
conscription and the
Third Republic's 1880s laws on public instruction facilitated the creation of a national identity, under this theory.
The theorist
Benedict Anderson argues that nations form "
imagined communities", and that the main causes of nationalism and the creation of an imagined community are the reduction of privileged access to particular
script languages (e.g. Latin), the movement to abolish the ideas of
divine rule and
monarchy, as well as the emergence of the
printing press under a system of
capitalism (or, as Anderson calls it, "printâ"capitalism"). The "stateâ"driven" theories of the origin of nationâ"states tend to emphasise a few specific states, such as
France and its rival
England. These states expanded from core regions, and developed a national consciousness and sense of national identity ("Frenchness" and "Englishness"). Both assimilated peripheral regions (Wales, Brittany, Aquitaine and Occitania); these areas experienced a revival of interest in the regional culture in the 19
th century, leading to the creation of autonomist movements in the 20
th century.
Some nationâ"states, such as Germany or Italy, came into existence at least partly as a result of political campaigns by
nationalists in the nineteenth century. In both cases, the territory was previously divided among other states, some of them very small. The sense of common identity was at first a cultural movement, such as in the
Volkisch movement in Germanâ"speaking states, which rapidly acquired a political significance. In these cases, the nationalist sentiment and the nationalist movement clearly precede the unification of the German and Italian nationâ"states.
The idea of a nationâ"state is associated with the rise of the modern system of states â" often called the "Westphalian system" in reference to the
Treaty of Westphalia (1648). The
balance of power, which characterises that system, depends for its effectiveness upon clearly defined, centrally controlled, independent entities, whether
empires or nationâ"states, which recognise each other's sovereignty and territory. The Westphalian system did not create the nationâ"state, but the nationâ"state meets the criteria for its component states (assuming that there is no disputed territory).
The nationâ"state received a philosophical underpinning from the era of
Romanticism, at first as the ânatural' expression of the individual peoples (
romantic nationalism - see
Fichte's conception of the
Volk, which would be later opposed by
Ernest Renan). The increasing emphasis on the ethnic and racial origins of the nation during the 19
th century led to a redefinition of the nationâ"state in ethnic and racial terms.
Racism, which in
Boulainvilliers's theories was inherently
antipatriotic and antinationalist, joined itself with
colonialist imperialism and "continental imperialism", most notably in
panâ"Germanic and
panâ"Slavic movements
[ See Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) ]. This relation between racism and nationalism reached its height in the
fascist and
Nazi movements of the 20
th century. The combination of ânation' (âpeople') and âstate' expressed in such terms as the
Völkische Staat and implemented in laws such as the 1935
Nuremberg laws made fascist states such as early
Nazi Germany qualitatively different from nonâ"fascist nationâ"states. Obviously,
minorities, who are not part of the
Volk, have no authentic or legitimate rĂŽle in such a state. In Germany, neither
Jews nor the
Roma were considered part of the
Volk, since German
nationality law defined âGerman' on the basis of German ancestry, which is still largely the case.
In recent years, the nationâ"state's claim to absolute
sovereignty within its borders has been much criticised. A global political system based on
international agreements, and supraâ"national
blocs characterized the postâ"war era. Nonâ"state actors, such as international
corporations and
nonâ"governmental organizations, are widely seen as eroding the economic and political power of nationâ"states, leading to their eventual disappearance. [
1]
Explaining the classical work of
Grotius, Legal Scholar L. Ali Khan, in his book
The Extinction of Nation-States (1996) traces the origin of nationâ"states in the shared and universal human aspiration to "live in intimate communities free from all forms of foreign domination". Accordingly, religious and secular empires were dismantled to make room for the emergence of the nationâ"state.
[[Image:Ăsterreich-Ungarns Ende.png|thumb|220px|right|Division of the Austro-Hungarian Empire into nation states in 1918
]]
In Europe, in the eighteenth century, the classic non-national states were the multi-ethnic
empires, (the (
Austro-Hungarian Empire, the
Russian Empire, the
Ottoman Empire), and smaller states at what would now be called sub-national level. The multi-ethnic empire was a
monarchy ruled by a king,
emperor, or
Sultan. The population belonged to many ethnic groups, and they spoke many languages. The empire was dominated by one ethnic group, and their language was usually the language of public administration. The ruling
dynasty was usually, but not always, from that group. This type of state is not specifically European: such empires existed on all continents. Some of the smaller European states were not so ethnically diverse, but were also
dynastic states, ruled by a royal house. Their territory could expand by royal marriage, or merge with another state when the dynasty merged. In some parts of Europe, notably
Germany, very small territorial units existed. They were recognised by their neighbours as independent, and had their own government and laws. Some were ruled by
princes or other hereditary rulers, some were governed by
bishops or
abbots. Because they were so small, however, they had no separate language or culture: the inhabitants shared the language of the surrounding region.
In some cases these states were simply overthrown by nationalist uprisings in the 19th century. Some older nation-states, such as England and France seem to have grown by accretion of smaller entities, before the 19th century. Liberal ideas of
free trade played a role in German unification, which was preceded by a
customs union, the
Zollverein. However, the
Austro-Prussian War and the German alliances in the
Franco-Prussian War were decisive in the unification. The
Austro-Hungarian Empire and the
Ottoman Empire broke up after the
First World War, the
Russian Empire became the
Soviet Union after the long
Russian Civil War.
Some of the smaller states also survived: the independent principalities of
Liechtenstein,
Andorra, and
Monaco, and the republic of
San Marino. The
Vatican City is not a survival, although there was a larger
Papal State. In its present form, it was created by the 1929
Lateran treaties between
Italy and the
Catholic Church.
New states, new characteristics
Nation-states have their own characteristics, differing from those of the pre-national states. They have a different attitude to their territory, compared to the
dynastic monarchies: no nation would swap territory with other states simply, for example, because the king's daughter got married. The nation-state promoted economic unity, by abolishing internal
customs and tolls, see
Zollverein. It promoted cultural unity, and a uniform national language, through
language policy. The nation-state typically has a more centralised and uniform administration then its imperial predecessors, reflecting a less diverse population. (The internal diversity of, for instance, the
Ottoman Empire was very great). After the triumph of the nation-state, regional identity was subordinate to national identity, in regions such as
Alsace-Lorraine,
Catalonia,
Brittany,
Sicily,
Sardinia and
Corsica. The cultural divergence at the border became sharper: in theory, a uniform French identity extends to the
Rhine, and on the other side there is a uniform German identity. To enforce that model, both sides have divergent
language policy and educational systems, although the linguistic boundary is in fact well inside France, and the
Alsace region changed hands four times between 1870 and 1945.
Existing nationâ"states differ from the ideal as defined above in two main ways: the population includes minorities, or the state does not enclose the entirety of the nation within its territory. Both factoes (they are both present) have led to violent responses by nationâ"states, and nationalist movements.
Minorities
The nationalist definition of a
nation is always exclusive: no nation has open membership. In most cases, there is a clear idea that surrounding nations are different. There are also historical examples of groups within the nationâ"state's territory who are specifically singled out as "outsiders", such as Jews and the Roma in Europe. Negative responses to minorities within the nationâ"state have ranged from
assimilation to
extermination. Typically, these responses are effected as state policy, though nonâ"state violence in the form of
mob violence such as
lynching or
pogroms often takes place. However, many nationâ"states do accept specific minorities as being in some way part of the nation, and the term "national minority" is often used in this sense. The
Sorbs in Germany are an example: for centuries they have lived in Germanâ"speaking states, surrounded by a much larger ethnic German population, and they have no other historical territory. They are now generally considered to be part of the German nation, and are accepted as such by the Federal Republic of Germany, which constitutionally guarantees their cultural rights. Of the thousands of minorities and underlying ethnic nationalities in nationâ"states across the world, only a few have this level of acceptance and protection.
Irredentism
The response to the nonâ"inclusion of territory and population may take the form of
irredentism, demands to annex "unredeemed" territory and incorporate it into the developing nationâ"state, as part of the national
homeland. Irredentist claims are usually based on the fact that an identifiable part of the national group lives outside the state's border, in another nationâ"state. However, they can include claims to territory where no members of that nation live at present, either because they lived there in the past, or because the national language is spoken in that region, or because the national culture has influenced it, or because of geographical unity with the existing territory, or for a wide variety of other reasons. Past grievances are usually involved (see
Revanchism). It is sometimes difficult to distinguish irredentism from
panâ"nationalism, since both claim that all members of an ethnic and cultural "natio" belong in one specific state. Panâ"nationalism is less likely to ethnically specify the nation. For instance, variants of
panâ"Germanism have different ideas about what constituted
Greater Germany, including the confusing term
Grossdeutschland â" which implied the inclusion of huge Slavic minorities from the
Austroâ"Hungarian Empire.
Typically, irredentist demands are at first made by members of nonâ"state nationalist movements. When they are adopted by a state, they result in tensions, and actual attempts at annexation are always considered a
casus belli (a cause for war). In many cases, such claims result in longâ"term hostile relations between neighbouring states. Irredentist movements typically circulate maps of the claimed national territory, the "greater" nationâ"state. That territory, which is often much larger than the existing state, plays a central rĂŽle in their propaganda. For examples, see below (See Also).
Irredentism should not be confused with claims to overseas
colonies, which are not generally considered part of the national homeland. Some French overseas colonies would be an exception:
French rule in Algeria did indeed treat the colony legally as a
dĂ©partement of France, unsuccessfully. The US was more successful in HawaiÊ»i.
*
Benedict Anderson,
Imagined communities, ISBN 0860913295
*
Hannah Arendt,
The Origins of Totalitarianism, (1951)
*
Fichte,
Addresses to the German Nation (1807-1808)
*
Ernest Gellner,
Nations and Nationalism (1983)
*
Eric Hobsbawm,
Nations and Nationalism since 1780 : programme, myth, reality (1990)
*
L. Ali Khan,
The Extinction of Nationâ"States (1996)
*
Ernest Renan,
Qu'estâ"ce qu'une nation? (1882)
*
Saskia Sassen,
Global Cities (1991)
*
State*
Cityâ"state*
Nation*
Nationalism*
Expansionism*
Nonâ"Intervention*
Sovereignty*
Ethnic group*
Secession*
Cultural identity*
National personification*
PrimordialismIrredentism
*
Greater Albania*
Greater China*
Greater Finland*
Greater Germany, an expression of
panâ"Germanism; compare
panâ"Slavism*
Greater Greece, expressed in the policy of
Megali Idea*
Greater Hungary*
Greater India*
Greater Iran*
Greater Israel*
Greater Macedonia*
Greater Mongolia*
Greater Morocco*
Greater Netherlands*
Greater Romania*
Greater Serbia*
Greater Somalia*
Greater Syria*
From Paris to Cairo: Resistance of the Unacculturated (Identity and the Nationâ"state)
*
Do Nationâ"States matter anymore? (student paper).
