A nation is generally more overtly political than anethnic group.[2][3]Benedict Anderson defines a nation as "animagined political community […] imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion",[4] whileAnthony D. Smith defines nations as cultural-political communities that have become conscious of theirautonomy, unity and particular interests.[5][6]Black's Law Dictionary also defines nation as a community of people inhabiting a defined territory and organized under an independent government.[2] Thus, nation can be synonymous withstate orcountry. Indeed, according toThomas Hylland Eriksen, what distinguishes nations from other forms of collective identity, like ethnicity, is this very relationship with the state.[7]
The consensus among scholars is that nations aresocially constructed, historically contingent, organizationally flexible, and a distinctlymodern phenomenon.[8][9] Throughout history, people have had an attachment to theirkin group andtraditions, territorial authorities and their homeland, butnationalism – the belief that state and nation should align as anation state – did not become a prominent ideology until the end of the 18th century.[10]
The English wordnation fromMiddle English c. 1300,nacioun "a race of people, large group of people with common ancestry and language," fromOld Frenchnacion "birth (naissance), rank; descendants, relatives; country, homeland" (12c.) and directly fromLatinnationem (nominativenatio(nātĭō), supine of verb nascar « to birth » (supine : natum)) "birth, origin; breed, stock, kind, species; race of people, tribe," literally "that which has been born," fromnatus, past participle ofnasci "be born" (Old Latingnasci), fromPIE root *gene- "give birth, beget," with derivatives referring to procreation and familial and tribal groups.[11]
In Latin,natio represents the children of the same birth and also a human group of same origin.[12] ByCicero,natio is used for "people".[13]
The broad consensus amongstscholars of nationalism is that nations are a recent phenomenon.[14] However, some historians argue that their existence can be traced to the medieval period, or a minority believe even to antiquity.
Adrian Hastings argued that nations and nationalism are predominantly Christian phenomena, with Jews being the sole exception. He viewed them as the "true proto-nation" that provided the original model of nationhood through the foundational example ofancient Israel in theHebrew Bible, despite losing their political sovereignty for nearly two millennia. The Jews, however, maintained a cohesive national identity throughout this period, which ultimately culminated in the emergence ofZionism and the establishment of modern lsrael.[15] Anthony D. Smith wrote that the Jews of the lateSecond Temple period provide "a closer approximation to the ideal type of the nation ... perhaps anywhere else in the ancient world."[16]
Susan Reynolds has argued that many European medieval kingdoms were nations in the modern sense, except that political participation in nationalism was available only to a limited prosperous and literate class,[17] while Hastings claims England's Anglo-Saxon kings mobilized mass nationalism in their struggle to repel Norse invasions. He argues thatAlfred the Great, in particular, drew on biblical language in his law code and that during his reign selected books of the Bible were translated intoOld English to inspire Englishmen to fight to turn back the Norse invaders. Hastings argues for a strong renewal of English nationalism (following a hiatus after theNorman conquest) beginning with thetranslation of the complete bible into English by the Wycliffe circle in the 1380s, positing that the frequency and consistency in usage of the word nation from the early fourteenth century onward strongly suggestEnglish nationalism and the English nation have been continuous since that time.[18]
However,John Breuilly criticizes Hastings's assumption that continued usage of a term such as 'English' means continuity in its meaning.[19]Patrick J. Geary agrees, arguing names were adapted to different circumstances by different powers and could convince people of continuity, even if radical discontinuity was the lived reality.[20]
Florin Curta cites MedievalBulgarian nation as another possible example.Danubian Bulgaria was founded in 680-681 as a continuation ofGreat Bulgaria. After the adoption ofOrthodox Christianity in 864 it became one of the cultural centres ofSlavic Europe. Its leading cultural position was consolidated with the invention of theCyrillic script in its capitalPreslav on the eve of the 10th century.[21] Hugh Poulton argues the development ofOld Church Slavonic literacy in the country had the effect of preventing the assimilation of theSouth Slavs into neighboring cultures and stimulated the development of a distinct ethnic identity.[22] A symbiosis was carried out between the numerically weak Bulgars and the numerous Slavic tribes in that broad area from the Danube to the north, to theAegean Sea to the south, and from theAdriatic Sea to the west, to theBlack Sea to the east, who accepted the common ethnonym "Bulgarians".[23] During the 10th century the Bulgarians established a form of national identity that was far from modern nationalism but helped them to survive as a distinct entity through the centuries.[24][25][clarification needed]
In contrast, Geary rejects the conflation of early medieval and contemporary group identities as a myth, arguing it is a mistake to conclude continuity based on the recurrence of names. He criticizes historians for failing to recognize the differences between earlier ways of perceiving group identities and more contemporary attitudes, stating they are "trapped in the very historical process we are attempting to study".[27]
Similarly,Sami Zubaida notes that many states and empires in history ruled over ethnically diverse populations, and "shared ethnicity between ruler and ruled did not always constitute grounds for favour or mutual support". He goes on to argue ethnicity was never the primary basis of identification for the members of these multinational empires.[28]
Paul Lawrence criticises Hastings's reading ofBede'sEcclesiastical History of the English People as evidence of an earlyEnglish national identity, instead observing that those writing so-called 'national' histories may have "been working with a rather different notion of 'the nation' to those writing history in the modern period". Lawrence goes on to argue that such documents do not demonstrate how ordinary people identified themselves, pointing out that, while they serve as texts in which an elite defines itself, "their significance in relation to what the majority thought and felt was likely to have been minor".[29]
Use of termnationes by medieval universities and other medieval institutions
A significant early use of the termnation, asnatio, occurred atmedieval universities[30] to describe the colleagues in a college or students, above all at theUniversity of Paris, who were all born within apays, spoke the same language and expected to be ruled by their own familiar law. In 1383 and 1384, while studying theology at Paris,Jean Gerson was elected twice as a procurator for the Frenchnatio. TheUniversity of Prague adopted the division of students intonationes: from its opening in 1349 thestudium generale which consisted of Bohemian, Bavarian, Saxon and Polishnations.
In a similar way, thenationes were segregated by theKnights Hospitaller of Jerusalem, who maintained atRhodes the hostels from which they took their name "where foreigners eat and have their places of meeting, each nation apart from the others, and a Knight has charge of each one of these hostels, and provides for the necessities of the inmates according to their religion", as the Spanish travellerPedro Tafur noted in 1436.[31]
In his article, "The Mosaic Moment: An Early Modernist Critique of the Modernist Theory of Nationalism",Philip S. Gorski argues that the first modernnation-state was theDutch Republic, created by a fully modern political nationalism rooted in the model ofbiblical nationalism.[32] In a 2013 article "Biblical nationalism and the sixteenth-century states",Diana Muir Appelbaum expands Gorski's argument to apply to a series of new, Protestant, sixteenth-century nation states.[33] A similar, albeit broader, argument was made by Anthony D. Smith in his books,Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity andMyths and Memories of the Nation.[34][35]
In her bookNationalism: Five Roads to Modernity,Liah Greenfeld argued that nationalism was invented in England by 1600. According to Greenfeld, England was “the first nation in the world".[36][37]
For Smith, creating a 'world of nations' has had profound consequences for the global state system, as a nation comprises both a cultural and political identity. Therefore, he argues, "any attempt to forge a national identity is also a political action with political consequences, like the need to redraw the geopolitical map or alter the composition of political regimes and states".[38]
There are three notable perspectives on how nations developed.Primordialism (perennialism), which reflects popular conceptions of nationalism but has largely fallen out of favour among academics,[39] proposes that there have always been nations and that nationalism is a natural phenomenon.Ethnosymbolism explains nationalism as a dynamic, evolving phenomenon and stresses the importance of symbols, myths and traditions in the development of nations and nationalism.Modernization theory, which has superseded primordialism as the dominant explanation of nationalism,[40] adopts aconstructivist approach and proposes that nationalism emerged due to processes ofmodernization, such asindustrialization, urbanization, and mass education, which made national consciousness possible.[9][41]
Proponents of modernization theory describe nations as "imagined communities", a term coined by Benedict Anderson.[42] A nation is an imagined community in the sense that the material conditions exist for imagining extended and shared connections and that it is objectively impersonal, even if each individual in the nation experiences themselves as subjectively part of an embodied unity with others. For the most part, members of a nation remain strangers to each other and will likely never meet.[43] Nationalism is consequently seen an "invented tradition" in which shared sentiment provides a form of collective identity and binds individuals together in political solidarity. A nation's foundational "story" may be built around a combination of ethnic attributes, values and principles, and may be closely connected to narratives of belonging.[9][44][45]
Scholars in the 19th and early 20th century offered constructivist criticisms of primordial theories about nations.[46] A prominent lecture by Ernest Renan, "What is a Nation?", argues that a nation is "a daily referendum", and that nations are based as much on what the people jointly forget as on what they remember. Carl Darling Buck argued in a 1916 study, "Nationality is essentially subjective, an active sentiment of unity, within a fairly extensive group, a sentiment based upon real but diverse factors, political, geographical, physical, and social, any or all of which may be present in this or that case, but no one of which must be present in all cases."[46]
In the late 20th century, many social scientists[who?] argued that there were two types of nations, thecivic nation of which French republican society was the principal example and theethnic nation exemplified by the German peoples. The German tradition was conceptualized as originating with early 19th-century philosophers, likeJohann Gottlieb Fichte, and referred to people sharing a common language, religion, culture, history, andethnic origins, that differentiate them from people of other nations.[47] On the other hand, the civic nation was traced to theFrench Revolution and ideas deriving from 18th-century French philosophers. It was understood as being centred in a willingness to "live together", this producing a nation that results from an act of affirmation.[48] This is the vision, among others, ofErnest Renan.[47]
There is an ongoing debate about the future of nations − about whether this framework will persist as is and whether there are viable or developing alternatives.[49]
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.Postnationalism is the process or trend by which nation states and national identities lose their importance relative to supranational and global entities. Several factors contribute to the trend Huntington identifies, includingeconomic globalization, a rise in importance ofmultinational corporations, the internationalization of financial markets, the transfer ofsocio-political power from national authorities to supranational entities, such as multinational corporations, theUnited Nations and theEuropean Union and the advent of new information and culture technologies such as theInternet. However attachment to citizenship andnational identities often remains important.[52][53][54]
Jan Zielonka of theUniversity of Oxford states that "the future structure and exercise of political power will resemble the medieval model more than the Westphalian one" with the latter being about "concentration of power, sovereignty and clear-cut identity" andneo-medievalism meaning "overlapping authorities, divided sovereignty, multiple identities and governing institutions, and fuzzy borders".[49]
^Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. (1991).Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. pp. 6–7.ISBN978-0-86091-546-1.
^Hastings, Adrian (1997).The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 186–187.ISBN0-521-59391-3.
^Smith, Anthony D. (1993).National Identity. Ethnonationalism in comparative perspective (Reprint ed.). Reno Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press. pp. 48–50.ISBN978-0-87417-204-1.
^Reynolds, Susan (1997).Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900–1300. Oxford.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Azar Gat,Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2013, China, p. 93 Korea, p. 104 and Japan p., 105.
^Özkirimli, Umut (2010).Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction (2nd ed.). London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 77–78.
^Özkirimli, Umut (2010).Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction (2nd ed.). London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 77–78.
^Lawrence, Paul (2013). "Nationalism and Historical Writing". In Breuilly, John (ed.).The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 715.ISBN978-0-19-876820-3.
^Woods, Eric Taylor; Schertzer, Robert; Kaufmann, Eric (April 2011). "Ethno-national conflict and its management".Commonwealth & Comparative Politics.49 (2): 154.doi:10.1080/14662043.2011.564469.S2CID154796642.
^R. Koopmans and P. Statham; "Challenging the liberal nation-state? Postnationalism, multiculturalism, and the collective claims making of migrants and ethnic minorities in Britain and Germany";American Journal of Sociology 105:652–96 (1999)
^R.A. Hackenberg and R.R. Alvarez; "Close-ups of postnationalism: Reports from the US-Mexico borderlands";Human Organization 60:97–104 (2001)
^I. Bloemraad; "Who claims dual citizenship? The limits of postnationalism, the possibilities of transnationalism, and the persistence of traditional citizenship";International Migration Review 38:389–426 (2004)
Manent, Pierre (2007). "What is a Nation?""Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved12 November 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link),The Intercollegiate Review, Vol. XLII, No. 2, pp. 23–31.
Renan, Ernest (1896)."What is a Nation?" In:The Poetry of the Celtic Races, and Other Essays. London: The Walter Scott Publishing Co., pp. 61–83.
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