For the 2018 Israeli legislation, seeNation-State Bill. For the government simulation browser game, seeNationStates.
Portrait of "The Ratification of theTreaty of Münster", one of the treaties leading to thePeace of Westphalia, where the concept of the "nation state" was born
Anation-state is a political unit in which thestate (a centralized political organization ruling over a population within a territory) and thenation (a community based on a common identity) are congruent.[1][2][3][4] It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant national orethnic group.
Anation, sometimes used in the sense of a commonethnicity, may include adiaspora orrefugees who live outside the nation-state; some nations of this sense do not have a state where that ethnicity predominates. In a more general sense, a nation-state is simply a large, politically sovereign country or administrative territory. A nation-state may be contrasted with:
Anempire, a political unit made up of several territories and peoples, typically established through conquest and marked by a dominant center and subordinate peripheries.
Acity-state, which is both smaller than a "nation" in the sense of a "large sovereign country" and which may or may not be dominated by all or part of a single "nation" in the sense of a common ethnicity or culture.[5][6][7]
Aconfederation, a league of sovereign states, which might or might not include nation-states.
Afederated state, which may or may not be a nation-state, and which is only partially self-governing within a largerfederation (for example, the state boundaries ofBosnia and Herzegovina are drawn along ethnic lines, but those of theUnited States are not).
This article mainly discusses the more specific definition of a nation-state as a typically sovereign country dominated by a particular ethnicity.
The relationship between a nation (in the ethnic sense) and a state can be complex. The presence of a state can encourageethnogenesis, and a group with a pre-existing ethnic identity can influence the drawing of territorial boundaries or argue forpolitical legitimacy. This definition of a "nation-state" is not universally accepted. "All attempts to develop terminological consensus around 'nation' failed", concludes academicValery Tishkov.[8]Walker Connor discusses the impressions surrounding the characters of "nation", "(sovereign) state", "nation-state", and "nationalism". Connor, who gave the term "ethnonationalism" wide currency, also discusses the tendency to confuse nation and state and the treatment of all states as if nation states.[9]
For others, the nation existed first, then nationalist movements arose forsovereignty, and the nation-state was created to meet that demand. Some "modernization theories" of nationalism see it as a product of government policies to unify and modernize an already existing state. Most theories see the nation-state as a 19th-century European phenomenon facilitated by developments such as state-mandated education, massliteracy andmass media. However, historians[who?] also note the early emergence of a relatively unified state and identity inPortugal and theDutch Republic,[19] and some date the emergence of nations even earlier.Adrian Hastings, for instance, argued thatAncient Israel as depicted in theHebrew Bible "gave the world the model of nationhood, and even nation-statehood"; however, after thefall of Jerusalem, the Jews lost this status for nearly two millennia, while still preserving their national identity until "the more inevitable rise ofZionism", in modern times, which sought to establish anation-state.[20]
Eric Hobsbawm argues that the establishment of aFrench nation was not the result ofFrench nationalism, which would not emerge until the end of the 19th century, but rather the policies implemented by pre-existing French states. Many of these reforms were implemented since theFrench Revolution, at which time only half of the French people spoke some French – with only a quarter of those speaking the version of it found in literature and places of learning.[21] As the number ofItalian speakers in Italy was even lower at the time ofItalian unification, similar arguments have been made regarding the modernItalian nation, with both the French and the Italian states promoting the replacement of various regional dialects and languages withstandardized dialects. The introduction ofconscription and theThird Republic's1880s laws on public instruction facilitated the creation of a national identity under this theory.[22]
TheRevolutions of 1848 were democratic and liberal, intending to remove the oldmonarchical structures and creating independent nation-states.
Some nation-states, such asGermany andItaly, came into existence at least partly as a result of political campaigns bynationalists during the 19th century. In both cases, the territory was previously divided among other states, some very small. At first, the sense of common identity was a cultural movement, such as in theVölkisch movement in German-speaking states, which rapidly acquired a political significance. In these cases, the nationalist sentiment and the nationalist movement precede the unification of the German and Italian nation-states.[citation needed]
Historians Hans Kohn, Liah Greenfeld, Philip White, and others have classified nations such as Germany or Italy, where they believe cultural unification preceded state unification, asethnic nations orethnic nationalities. However, "state-driven" national unifications, such as in France, England or China, are more likely to flourish in multiethnic societies, producing a traditional national heritage ofcivic nations, orterritory-based nationalities.[23][24][25]
The idea of a nation-state was and is associated with the rise of the modern system of states, often called the "Westphalian system", following theTreaty of Westphalia (1648). Thebalance of power, which characterized that system, depended for its effectiveness upon clearly defined, centrally controlled, independent entities, whetherempires or nation states, which recognize each other's sovereignty and territory. The Westphalian system did not create the nation-state, but the nation-state meets the criteria for its component states (by assuming that there is no disputed territory).[citation needed] Before the Westphalian system, the closest geopolitical system was the "Chanyuan system" established in East Asia in 1005 through theTreaty of Chanyuan, which, like the Westphalian peace treaties, designated national borders between the independent regimes of China'sSong dynasty and the semi-nomadicLiao dynasty.[26] This system was copied and developed in East Asia in the following centuries until the establishment of the pan-EurasianMongol Empire in the 13th century.[27]
The nation-state received a philosophical underpinning in the era ofRomanticism, at first as the "natural" expression of the individual peoples (romantic nationalism: seeJohann Gottlieb Fichte's conception of theVolk, later opposed byErnest Renan). The increasing emphasis during the 19th century on the ethnic and racial origins of the nation led to a redefinition of the nation-state in these terms.[25]Racism, which inBoulainvilliers's theories was inherently antipatriotic and antinationalist, joined itself withcolonialist imperialism and "continentalimperialism", most notably inpan-Germanic andpan-Slavic movements.[28]
The relationship between racism and ethnic nationalism reached its height in the 20th century throughfascism andNazism. The specific combination of "nation" ("people") and "state" expressed in such terms as thevölkischer Staat and implemented in laws such as the 1935Nuremberg laws made fascist states such as earlyNazi Germany qualitatively different from non-fascist nation-states.Minorities were not considered part of the people (Volk) and were consequently denied to have an authentic or legitimate role in such a state. In Germany, neitherJews nor theRoma were considered part of the people, and both were specifically targeted for persecution. Germannationality law defined "German" based on German ancestry, excludingall non-Germans from the people.[29]
In recent years, a nation-state's claim to absolutesovereignty within its borders has been criticized.[25] A global political system based oninternational agreements and supra-national blocs characterized the post-war era. Non-state actors, such as internationalcorporations andnon-governmental organizations, are widely seen as eroding the economic and political power of nation-states.
According to Andreas Wimmer and Yuval Feinstein, nation-states tended to emerge when power shifts allowed nationalists to overthrow existing regimes or absorb existing administrative units.[30] Xue Li and Alexander Hicks links the frequency of nation-state creation to processes of diffusion that emanate from international organizations.[31]
This type of state is not specifically European: such empires existed in Asia, Africa and the Americas. Chinese dynasties, such as theTang dynasty, theYuan dynasty, and theQing dynasty, were all multiethnic regimes governed by a ruling ethnic group. In the three examples, their ruling ethnic groups were theHan-Chinese,Mongols, and theManchus. In theMuslim world, immediately after Muhammad died in 632,Caliphates were established.[33] Caliphates wereIslamic states under the leadership of a political-religious successor to the Islamic prophetMuhammad.[34] Thesepolities developed into multi-ethnic trans-national empires.[35] The Ottoman sultan,Selim I (1512–1520) reclaimed the title of caliph, which had been in dispute and asserted by a diversity of rulers and "shadow caliphs" in the centuries of theAbbasid-Mamluk Caliphate since theMongols' sacking of Baghdad and the killing of thelast Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad, Iraq 1258.TheOttoman Caliphate as an office of theOttoman Empire was abolished underMustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1924 as part ofAtatürk's Reforms.
Some of the smaller European states were not so ethnically diverse but were alsodynastic states ruled by aroyal house. Their territory could expand byroyal intermarriage or merge with another state when the dynasty merged. In some parts of Europe, notablyGermany, minimal territorial units existed. They were recognized by their neighbours as independent and had their government and laws. Some were ruled byprinces or other hereditary rulers; some were governed bybishops orabbots. Because they were so small, however, they had no separate language or culture: the inhabitants shared the language of the surrounding region.
"Legitimate states that govern effectively and dynamic industrial economies are widely regarded today [2004] as the defining characteristics of a modern nation-state."[36]
Nation-states have their characteristics differing from pre-national states. For a start, they have a different attitude to their territory compared to dynastic monarchies: it is semisacred and nontransferable. No nation would swap territory with other states simply, for example, because the king's daughter married. They have a different type ofborder, in principle, defined only by the national group's settlement area. However, many nation-states also sought natural borders (rivers, mountain ranges). They are constantly changing in population size and power because of the limited restrictions of their borders.
The most noticeable characteristic is the degree to which nation-states use the state as an instrument of national unity in economic, social and cultural life.
The nation-state promoted economic unity by abolishing internalcustoms andtolls. In Germany, that process, the creation of theZollverein, preceded formal national unity. Nation states typically have a policy to create and maintain national transportation infrastructure, facilitating trade and travel. In 19th-century Europe, the expansion of therail transport networks was at first largely a matter forprivate railway companies but gradually came under the control of the national governments. The French rail network, with its main lines radiating from Paris to all corners of France, is often seen as a reflection of the centralised French nation-state, whichdirected its construction. Nation states continue to build, for instance, specifically nationalmotorway networks. Specifically, transnational infrastructure programmes, such as theTrans-European Networks, are a recent innovation.
The nation-states typically had a more centralised and uniformpublic administration than their imperial predecessors: they were smaller, and the population was less diverse. (The internal diversity of theOttoman Empire, for instance, was very great.) After the 19th-century triumph of the nation-state in Europe, regional identity was subordinate to national identity in regions such asAlsace-Lorraine,Catalonia,Brittany andCorsica. In many cases, the regional administration was also subordinated to the central (national) government. This process was partially reversed from the 1970s onward, with the introduction of various forms ofregional autonomy, in formerlycentralised states such asSpain orItaly.
The most apparent impact of the nation-state, as compared to its non-national predecessors, is creating a uniform nationalculture through state policy. The model of the nation-state implies that its population constitutes anation, united by a common descent, a common language and many forms of shared culture. When implied unity was absent, the nation-state often tried to create it. It promoted a uniform national language throughlanguage policy. The creation of national systems of compulsoryprimary education and a relatively uniformcurriculum in secondary schools was the most effective instrument in the spread of thenational languages. The schools also taught national history, often in apropagandistic and mythologised version, and (especially during conflicts) some nation-states still teach this kind of history.[37][38][39][40][41]
In some cases, these policies triggered bitter conflicts and further ethnicseparatism. But where it worked, the cultural uniformity and homogeneity of the population increased. Conversely, the cultural divergence at the border became sharper: in theory, a uniform French identity extends from the Atlantic coast to theRhine, and on the other bank of the Rhine, a uniform German identity begins. Both sides have divergentlanguage policy and educational systems to enforce that model.
The notion of a unifying "national identity" also extends to countries that host multiple ethnic or language groups, such asIndia. For example,Switzerland is constitutionally a confederation ofcantons and has four official languages. Still, it also has a "Swiss" national identity, a national history and a classic national hero,Wilhelm Tell.[42]
Innumerable conflicts have arisen where political boundaries did not correspond with ethnic or cultural boundaries.
After World War II in theJosip Broz Tito era, nationalism was appealed to for unitingSouth Slav peoples. Later in the 20th century, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, leaders appealed to ancient ethnic feuds or tensions that ignited conflict between theSerbs,Croats, andSlovenes, as well asBosniaks,Montenegrins andMacedonians, eventually breaking up the long collaboration of peoples. Ethnic cleansing was carried out in the Balkans, destroying the formerlysocialist republic and producing the civil wars inCroatia andBosnia and Herzegovina in 1992–95, resulting in mass population displacements and segregation that radically altered what was once a highly diverse and intermixed ethnic makeup of the region. These conflicts were mainly about creating a new political framework of states, each of which would be ethnically and politically homogeneous. Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks insisted they were ethnically distinct, although many communities had a long history of intermarriage.[citation needed]
The Flemish identity is also cultural, and there is a strong separatist movement espoused by the political parties, the right-wingVlaams Belang and theNew Flemish Alliance. The FrancophoneWalloon identity of Belgium is linguistically distinct andregionalist. There is also unitaryBelgian nationalism, several versions of aGreater Netherlands ideal, and aGerman-speaking community of Belgium annexed fromGermany in 1920 and re-annexed by Germany in 1940–1944. However, these ideologies are all very marginal and politically insignificant during elections.
Ethnolinguistic map of mainland China and Taiwan[43]
China covers a large geographic area and uses the concept of "Zhonghua minzu" or Chinese nationality, in the sense ofethnic groups. Still, it also officially recognizes the majorityHan ethnic group which accounts for over 90% of the population, and no fewer than 55ethnic national minorities.
According to Philip G. Roeder,Moldova is an example of a Soviet-era "segment-state" (Moldavian SSR), where the "nation-state project of the segment-state trumped the nation-state project of prior statehood. In Moldova, despite strong agitation from university faculty and students for reunification withRomania, the nation-state project forged within the Moldavian SSR trumped the project for a return to the interwar nation-state project ofGreater Romania."[44] SeeControversy over linguistic and ethnic identity in Moldova for further details.
TheKingdom of the Netherlands presents an unusual example in which one kingdom represents four distinct countries. The four countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands are:[50]
While historical monarchies often brought together different kingdoms/territories/ethnic groups under the same crown, in modern nation states political elites seek a uniformity of the population, leading to state nationalism.[55][56] In the case of the Christian territories of the futureSpain, neighboringAl-Andalus, there was an early perception of ethnicity, faith and shared territory in the Middle Ages (13th–14th centuries), as documented by theChronicle of Muntaner in the proposal of theCastilian king to the other Christian kings of the peninsula: "if these four Kings of Spain whom he named, who are of one flesh and blood, held together, little need they fear all the other powers of the world".[57][58][59] After the dynastic union of theCatholic Monarchs in the 15th century, the Spanish Monarchy ruled over different kingdoms, each with its own cultural, linguistic and political particularities, and the kings had to swear by theLaws of each territory before the respectiveParliaments. Forming theSpanish Empire, at this time theHispanic Monarchy had its maximum territorial expansion.
School map of Spain from 1850. On it, the State is divided into four parts: – "Fully constitutional Spain", which includes Castile and the Galician-speaking territories. – "Annexed or assimilated Spain": the territories of the Crown of Aragon, the more significant part of which, except Aragon proper, are Catalan-speaking-, "Foral Spain", which includes Basque-speaking territories, – and "Colonial Spain", with the last overseas colonial territories.
The process of assimilation began with secret instructions to the corregidores of the Catalan territory: they "will take the utmost care to introduce the Castilian language, for which purpose he will give the most temperate and disguised measures so that the effect is achieved, without the care being noticed."[67] From there, actions in the service of assimilation, discreet or aggressive, were continued, and reached to the last detail, such as, in 1799, the Royal Certificate forbidding anyone to "represent, sing and dance pieces that were not in Spanish."[67] These nationalist policies, sometimes very aggressive,[68][69][70][71] and still in force,[72][73][74][75] have been, and still are, the seed of repeated territorial conflicts within the State.
Although official Spanish history describes a "natural" decline of the Catalan language and increasing replacement by Spanish between the 16th and 19th centuries, especially among the upper classes, a survey of language usage in 1807, commissioned byNapoleon, indicates that except in the royal courts, Spanish is absent from everyday life. It is indicated that Catalan "is taught in schools, printed and spoken, not only among the lower class, but also among people of first quality, also in social gatherings, as in visits and congresses", indicating that it is spoken everywhere "except in the royal courts". He also indicates that Catalan is also spoken "in the Kingdom of Valencia, in the islands of Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, Sardinia, Corsica and much of Sicily, in the Vall of Aran and Cerdaña".[76]
The nationalization process accelerated in the 19th century, in parallel to the origin ofSpanish nationalism, the social, political and ideological movement that tried to shape a Spanish national identity based on the Castilian model, in conflict with the other historical nations of the State. Politicians of the time were aware that despite the aggressive policies pursued up to that time, the uniform and monocultural "Spanish nation" did not exist, as indicated in 1835 byAntonio Alcalà Galiano, when in theCortes del Estatuto Real he defended the effort
"To make the Spanish nation a nation that neither is nor has been until now."[77]
In 1906, the Catalanist partySolidaritat Catalana was founded to try to mitigate the economically and culturally oppressive treatment of Spain towards the Catalans. One of the responses ofSpanish nationalism came from the military state with statements such as that of the publicationLa Correspondencia militar: "The Catalan problem is not solved, well, by freedom, but by restriction; not by palliatives and pacts, but by iron and fire". Another came from important Spanish intellectuals, such asPio Baroja andBlasco Ibáñez, calling the Catalans "Jews", considered a serious insult at that time whenracism was gaining strength.[71]Building the nation (as inFrance, it was the state that created the nation, and not the opposite process) is an ideal that the Spanish elites constantly reiterated, and, one hundred years later than Alcalá Galiano, for example, we can also find it in the mouth of the fascistJosé Pemartín, who admired the German and Italian modeling policies:[71]
"There is an intimate and decisive dualism, both in Italian fascism and in German National Socialism. On the one hand, the Hegelian doctrine of the absolutism of the state is felt. The State originates in the Nation, educates and shapes the mentality of the individual; is, in Mussolini's words, the soul of the soul»
And will be found again two hundred years later, from the socialistJosep Borrell:[78]
The modern history of Spain is an unfortunate history that meant that we did not consolidate a modern State. Independenceists think that the nation makes the State. I think the opposite. The State makes the nation. A strong State, which imposes its language, culture, education.
The turn of the 20th century, and the first half of that century, have seen the most ethnic violence, coinciding with a racism that even came to identify states with races; in the case of Spain, with a supposed Spanish race sublimated in Castilian, of which national minorities were degenerate forms, and the first of those that needed to be exterminated.[71] There were even public proposals for the repression of whole Catalonia, and even the extermination of Catalans, such as that of Juan Pujol, Head of Press and Propaganda of the Junta de Defensa Nacional during theSpanish Civil War, inLa Voz de España,[79] or that ofQueipo de Llano, in a radio address[80][81] in 1936, among others.
The influence of Spanish nationalism could be found in a pogrom inArgentina, during theTragic Week, in 1919.[82] It was called to attack Jews andCatalans indiscriminately, possibly because the influence ofSpanish nationalism, which at the time described Catalans as a Semitic ethnicity.[71]
«… There they will see that the Courts of the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation never had Catalan as their official language; that the kings of Aragon, even those of the Catalan dynasty, used Catalan only in Catalonia, and used Spanish not only in the Cortes of Aragon, but also in foreign relations, the same with Castile or Navarre as with the infidel kings of Granada , from Africa or Asia, because even in the most important days of Catalonia, Spanish prevailed as the language of the Aragonese kingdom and Catalan was reserved for the peculiar affairs of the Catalan county..."
"The Catalanists have recently declared that they are not Spanish, nor do they want to be, nor can they be. They have also been saying for a long time that they are an oppressed, enslaved, exploited people. It is imperative to do them justice... That they return to Phenicia or that they go wherever they want to admit them. When the Catalan tribes saw Spain and settled in the Spanish territory that is now occupied by the provinces of Barcelona, Gerona, Lérida and Tarragona, how little they imagined that the case of the captivity of the tribes of Israel in Egypt would be repeated there! !... Let us respect his most holy will. They are eternally inadaptable... Their cowardice and selfishness leaves them no room for fraternity... So, we propose to the Constituent Cortes the expulsion of the Catalanists... You are free! The Republic opens wide the doors of Spain, your prison. go away Get out of here. Go back to Phenicia, or go wherever you want, how big is the world."
The main scapegoat of Spanish nationalism is the non-Spanish languages, which over the last three hundred years have been tried to be replaced by Spanish with hundreds of laws and regulations,[70] but also with acts of great violence, such as during the civil war. For example, the statements of Queipo de Llano can be found in the article entitled "Against Catalonia, the Israel of the Modern World", published in theDiario Palentino on November 26, 1936, where it is dropped that inAmerica Catalans are considered a race ofJews, because they use the same procedures that theHebrews perform in all the nations of the Globe. And considering the Catalans as Hebrews and considering hisanti-Semitism "Our struggle is not a civil war, but a war for Western civilization against the Jewish world," it is not surprising that Queipo de Llano expressed hisanti-Catalan intentions: "When the war is over, Pompeu Fabra and his works will be dragged along the Ramblas"[71] (it was not talk to talk, the house ofPompeu Fabra, the standardizer of Catalan language, was raided and his huge personal library burned in the middle of the street. Pompeu Fabra was able to escape into exile).[83]Another example offascist aggression towards the Catalan language is pointed out byPaul Preston in "The Spanish Holocaust",[84] given that during the civil war it practically led to an ethnic conflict:
"In the days following the occupation of Lleida (…), the republican prisoners identified as Catalans were executed without trial. Anyone who heard them speak Catalan was very likely to be arrested. The arbitrary brutality of the anti-Catalan repression reached such a point that Franco himself had to issue an order ordering that mistakes that could later be regretted be avoided "."There are examples of the murder of peasants for no other apparent reason than that of speaking Catalan"
After a possible attempt atethnic cleansing,[63][71] thebiopolitical imposition of Spanish during theFranco dictatorship, to the point of being considered an attempt atcultural genocide, democracy consolidated an apparent asymmetric regime ofbilingualism of sorts, wherein the Spanish government has employed a system of laws that favored Spanish over Catalan,[85][86][87][88][72][73][89][74] which becomes the weaker of the two languages, and therefore, in the absence of other states where it is spoken, is doomed to extinction in the medium or short term. In the same vein, its use in the Spanish Congress is prevented,[90][91] and it is prevented from achieving official status Europe, unlike less spoken languages such asGaelic.[92] In other institutional areas, such as justice,Plataforma per la Llengua has denouncedCatalanophobia. The associationSoberania i Justícia have also denounced it in an act in theEuropean Parliament. It also takes the form oflinguistic secessionism, originally advocated by the Spanish extreme right and which has finally been adopted by the Spanish government itself and state bodies.[93][94][95]
In November 2005,Omnium Cultural organized a meeting of Catalan and Madrid intellectuals in theCírculo de bellas artes in Madrid to show support for ongoing reform of Catalan Statute of Autonomy, which sought to resolve territorial tensions, and among other things better protect the Catalan language. On the Catalan side, a flight was made with one hundred representatives of the cultural, civic, intellectual, artistic and sporting world of Catalonia, but on the Spanish side, exceptSantiago Carrillo, a politician from theSecond Republic, did not attend any more.[96][97] The subsequent failure of the statutory reform with respect to its objectives opened the door to the growth of Catalan sovereignty.[98]
Apart from language discrimination by public officials,[99][100] e.g. in the hospitals,[101] the prohibition until September 2023 (47 years after Franco's death) of using the Catalan language in state institutions such as Court,[102] despite being the formerCrown of Aragon, with three Catalan-speaking territories, one of the co-founders of the current Spanish state, is nothing more than the continuation of the foreignization of Catalan-speaking people from the first third of the 20th century, in full swing of state racism andfascism. It also can be pointed thelinguistic secessionism, originally advocated by the Spanish far right and which has finally been adopted by the Spanish government itself and state bodies.[93][103] By fragmenting Catalan language into as many languages as territories, it becomes inoperative, economically suffocated, and becomes a political toy in the hands of territorial politicians.
Susceptible to be classified as anethnic democracy, the Spanish State currently only recognizes theRomani as a national minority, excludingCatalans (and, of course, Valencians and Balearic),Basques andGalicians. However, it is evident to any external observer that there are social diversities within the Spanish State that qualify as manifestations of national minorities, such as, for example, the existence of the main three linguistic minorities in their ancestral territories.[104]
The most obvious deviation from the ideal of "one nation, one state" is the presence of minorities, especiallyethnic minorities, which are clearly not members of the majority nation. An ethnic nationalist definition of anation is necessarily exclusive: ethnic nations typically do not have open membership. In most cases, there is a clear idea that surrounding nations are different, and that includes members of those nations who live on the "wrong side" of the border. Historical examples of groups who have been specifically singled out asoutsiders are theRoma andJews in Europe.
Negative responses to minorities within the nation state have ranged fromcultural assimilation enforced by the state, toexpulsion, persecution, violence, andextermination. The assimilation policies are usually enforced by the state, but violence against minorities is not always state-initiated: it can occur in the form ofmob violence such aslynching orpogroms. Nation states are responsible for some of the worst historical examples of violence against minorities not considered part of the nation.
However, many nation states accept specific minorities as being part of the nation, and the termnational minority is often used in this sense. TheSorbs in Germany are an example: for centuries they have lived in German-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 ethnic and cultural minorities in nation states across the world, only a few have this level of acceptance and protection.
Multiculturalism is an official policy in some states, establishing the ideal of coexisting existence among multiple and separate ethnic, cultural, and linguistic groups. Other states prefer theinterculturalism (or "melting pot" approach) alternative to multiculturalism, citingproblems with latter as promotingself-segregation tendencies among minority groups, challenging national cohesion, polarizing society in groups that can't relate to one another, generating problems in regard to minorities and immigrants' fluency in the national language of use and integration with the rest of society (generating hate and persecution against them from the "otherness" they would generate in such a case according to its adherents), without minorities having to give up certain parts of their culture before being absorbed into a now changed majority culture by their contribution. Many nations have laws protectingminority rights.
The Greater German Reich underNazi Germany in 1943
In principle, the border of a nation state would extend far enough to include all the members of the nation, and all of the nationalhomeland. Again, in practice, some of them always live on the 'wrong side' of the border. Part of the national homeland may be there too, and it may be governed by the 'wrong' nation. The response to the non-inclusion of territory and population may take the form of irredentism: demands to annexunredeemed territory and incorporate it into the nation state.
Irredentist claims are usually based on the fact that an identifiable part of the national group lives across the border. However, they can include claims to territory where no members of that nation live at present, because they lived there in the past, the national language is spoken in that region, the national culture has influenced it, geographical unity with the existing territory, or a wide variety of other reasons. Past grievances are usually involved and can causerevanchism.
It is sometimes difficult to distinguish irredentism frompan-nationalism, since both claim that all members of an ethnic and cultural nation belong in one specific state. Pan-nationalism is less likely to specify the nation ethnically. For instance, variants ofPan-Germanism have different ideas about what constitutedGreater Germany, including the confusing termGrossdeutschland, which, in fact, implied the inclusion of hugeSlavic minorities from theAustro-Hungarian Empire.
Typically, irredentist demands are at first made by members of non-state nationalist movements. When they are adopted by a state, they typically result in tensions, and actual attempts at annexation are always considered acasus belli, a cause forwar. In many cases, such claims result in long-term hostile relations between neighbouring states. Irredentist movements typically circulate maps of the claimed national territory, thegreater nation state. That territory, which is often much larger than the existing state, plays a central role in their propaganda.
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 unsuccessfully treated the colony as adépartement of France.
It has been speculated by both proponents ofglobalization and variousscience fiction writers that the concept of a nation state may disappear with the ever-increasing interconnectedness of the world.[25] Such ideas are sometimes expressed around concepts of aworld government. Another possibility is asocietal collapse and move into communal anarchy or zero world government, in which nation states no longer exist.
Huntington began his thinking by surveying the diverse theories about the nature of global politics in the post–Cold War period. Some theorists and writers argued thathuman rights,liberal democracy and capitalistfree market economics had become the only remaining ideological alternative for nations in the post–Cold War world. Specifically, Francis Fukuyama, inThe End of History and the Last Man, argued that the world had reached aHegelian "end of history".
Huntington believed that while the age ofideology had ended, the world had reverted only to a normal state of affairs characterized by cultural conflict. In his thesis, he argued that the primary axis of conflict in the future will be along cultural and religious lines.
As an extension, he posits that the concept of differentcivilizations, as the highest rank of cultural identity, will become increasingly useful in analyzing the potential for conflict.
In the 1993Foreign Affairs article, Huntington writes:
It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.[118]
Sandra Joireman suggests that Huntington may be characterised as a neo-primordialist, as, while he sees people as having strong ties to their ethnicity, he does not believe that these ties have always existed.[119]
Historians often look to the past to find the origins of a particular nation state. Indeed, they often put so much emphasis on the importance of the nation state in modern times, that they distort the history of earlier periods in order to emphasize the question of origins. Lansing and English argue that much of the medieval history of Europe was structured to follow the historical winners—especially the nation states that emerged around Paris and London. Important developments that did not directly lead to a nation state get neglected, they argue:
one effect of this approach has been to privilege historical winners, aspects of medieval Europe that became important in later centuries, above all the nation state.... Arguably the liveliest cultural innovation in the 13th century was the Mediterranean, centered onFrederick II's polyglot court and administration in Palermo...Sicily and the Italian South in later centuries suffered a long slide into overtaxed poverty and marginality. Textbook narratives, therefore, focus not on medieval Palermo, with its Muslim and Jewish bureaucracies and Arabic-speaking monarch, but on the historical winners, Paris and London.[120]
^Michel Foucault Lectures at the Collège de France Security, Territory, Population 2007
^International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Direct Georeferencing : A New Standard in Photogrammetry for High Accuracy Mapping Volume XXXIX, pp. 5–9, 2012
^International Archives of the Photogrammetry On Borders: From Ancient to Postmodern Times. Vol. 40. 2013. pp. 1–7.
^International Archives of the Photogrammetry Borderlines: Maps and the spread of the Westphalian state from Europe to Asia Part One – The European Context Volume 40 pp. 111–116 2013
^International Archives of the Photogrammetry Appearance and Appliance of the Twin-Cities Concept on the Russian-Chinese Border Volume 40 pp. 105–110 2013
^Branch, Jordan Nathaniel (2011).Mapping the Sovereign State: Cartographic Technology, Political Authority, and Systemic Change (PhD thesis).University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved5 March 2012 – via eScholarship.Abstract: How did modern territorial states come to replace earlier forms of organization, defined by a wide variety of territorial and non-territorial forms of authority? Answering this question can help to explain both where our international political system came from and where it might be going.
^Hastings, Adrian (1997).The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 186–187.ISBN0-521-59391-3.
^Pakhomov, Oleg (2022).Political Culture of East Asia – a civilization of total power. [S.l.]: Springer-Verlag, Singapore.ISBN978-981-19-0778-4.OCLC1304248303.
^Hobsbawm, Eric (1992) [1990]. "II: The popular protonationalism".Nations and Nationalism since 1780: programme, myth, reality (French ed.).Cambridge University Press, Gallimard. pp. 80–81.ISBN0-521-43961-2. According to Hobsbawm, the main source for this subject is Ferdinand Brunot (ed.), Histoire de la langue française, Paris, 1927–1943, 13 volumes, in particular volume IX. He also refers to Michel de Certeau, Dominique Julia, Judith Revel, Une politique de la langue: la Révolution française et les patois: l'enquête de l'abbé Grégoire, Paris, 1975. For the problem of the transformation of a minority official language into a widespread national language during and after the French Revolution, see Renée Balibar, L'Institution du français: essai sur le co-linguisme des Carolingiens à la République, Paris, 1985 (also Le co-linguisme, PUF, Que sais-je?, 1994, but out of print) ("The Institution of the French language: essay on colinguism from the Carolingian to the Republic. Finally, Hobsbawm refers to Renée Balibar and Dominique Laporte, Le Français national: politique et pratique de la langue nationale sous la Révolution, Paris, 1974.
^Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers Recommendation Rec(2001)15 on history teaching in 21st-century Europe (Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 31 October 2001 at the 771st meeting of the Ministers' Deputies)
^Source: United States Central Intelligence Agency, 1983. The map shows the distribution of ethnolinguistic groups according to the historical majority of ethnic groups by region. Note this is different from the current distribution due to age-long internal migration and assimilation.
^Pastoureau, Michel (2014). "Des armoiries aux drapeaux" [From coats of arms to flags].Une histoire symbolique du Moyen Âge [A symbolic history of the Middle Ages] (in French) (du Seuil ed.). Ed. du Seuil.ISBN978-2-7578-4106-8.
^Connor, Walker (1978). "A Nation is a Nation, is a State, is an Ethnic Group, is a...".Ethnic and Racial Studies.1 (4):377–400.doi:10.1080/01419870.1978.9993240.
^Sales Vives, Pere (2020).L'Espanyolització de Mallorca: 1808–1932 [The Spanishization of Mallorca: 1808–1932] (in Catalan). El Gall editor. p. 422.ISBN9788416416707.
^Mayans Balcells, Pere (2019).Cròniques Negres del Català A L'Escola [Black Chronicles of Catalan at School] (in Catalan) (del 1979 ed.). Edicions del 1979. p. 230.ISBN978-84-947201-4-7.
^abLluís, García Sevilla (2021).Recopilació d'accions genocides contra la nació catalana [Compilation of genocidal actions against the Catalan nation] (in Catalan). Base. p. 300.ISBN9788418434983.
^Bea Seguí, Ignaci (2013).En cristiano! Policia i Guàrdia Civil contra la llengua catalana [In Christian! Police and Civil Guard against the Catalan language] (in Catalan). Cossetània. p. 216.ISBN9788490341339.
^abde la Cierva, Ricardo (1981).Historia general de España: Llegada y apogeo de los Borbones [General history of Spain: Arrival and heyday of the Bourbons] (in Catalan). Planeta. p. 78.ISBN8485753003.
^Ferrer Gironès, Francesc (1985).La persecució política de la llengua catalana [The political persecution of the Catalan language] (in Catalan) (62 ed.). Edicions 62. p. 320.ISBN978-8429723632.
^abBenet, Josep (1995).L'intent franquista de genocidi cultural contra Catalunya [The Francoist attempt of cultural genocide against Catalonia] (in Catalan). Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat.ISBN84-7826-620-8.
^abcdefghiLlaudó Avila, Eduard (2021).Racisme i supremacisme polítics a l'Espanya contemporània [Political racism and supremacism in contemporary Spain] (7th ed.). Manresa: Parcir.ISBN9788418849107.
^Moreno Cabrera, Juan Carlos."L'espanyolisme lingüístic i la llengua comuna" [Linguistic Spanishism and the common language](PDF).VIII Jornada sobre l'Ús del Català a la Justícia (in Catalan). Ponència del Consell de l'advocacia de Catalunya.
^Merle, René (2010).Visions de "l'idiome natal" à travers l'enquête impériale sur les patois 1807–1812 [Visions of the "native idiom" through the imperial survey of patois 1807–1812] (in French). Perpinyà: Editorial Trabucaire. p. 223.ISBN978-2849741078.
^Fontana, Josep (1998).La fi de l'antic règim i la industrialització. Vol. V Història de Catalunya [The end of the old regime and industrialization. Flight. V History of Catalonia] (in Catalan). Barcelona: Edicions 62. p. 453.ISBN9788429744408.
^Pujol, Juan (December 1936).La Voz de España.{{cite news}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)
^Polo, Xavier.Todos los catalanes son una mierda. Proa, 2009. ISBN 9788484375739.
^Roglan, Joaquim.14 d'abril: la Catalunya republicana (1931–1939). Cossetània edicions, 2006. ISBN 9788497912037.
^Levy, Richard S.; Bell, Dean Phillip; Donahue, William Collins; Madigan, Kevin, eds. (2005).Antisemitism: a historical encyclopedia of prejudice and persecution. Vol. 1.
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