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Nation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anationis a type ofsocial organizationwhere a collectiveidentity,anational identity,has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such aslanguage,history,ethnicity,culture,territoryorsociety.Some nations are constructed around ethnicity (seeethnic nationalism) while others are bound by politicalconstitutions(seecivic nationalism).[1]

A nation is generally more overtly political than anethnic group.[2][3]Benedict Andersondefines 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 Smithdefines nations as cultural-political communities that have become conscious of theirautonomy,unity and particular interests.[5][6]

The consensus among scholars is that nations aresocially constructed,historically contingent, organizationally flexible, and a distinctly modern phenomenon.[7][8]Throughout history, people have had an attachment to theirkin groupandtraditions,territorial authorities and their homeland, butnationalism– the belief thatstateand nation should align as anation state– did not become a prominent ideology until the end of the 18th century.[9]

Etymology and terminology

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The English wordnationfromMiddle Englishc. 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), fromPIEroot *gene- "give birth, beget," with derivatives referring to procreation and familial and tribal groups.[10]

In Latin,natiorepresents the children of the same birth and also a human group of same origin.[11]ByCicero,natiois used for "people".[12]

Black's Law Dictionarydefines a nation as follows:

nation,n.(14c)1.A large group of people having a common origin, language, tradition, and usage constitutes a political entity. • When a nation is coincident with a state, the termnation-stateis often used....

...

2.A community of people inhabiting a defined territory and organized under an independent government; a sovereign political state....[2]

The word "nation" is sometimes used as synonym for:

  • State (polity)orsovereign state:a government that controls a specific territory, which may or may not be associated with any particular ethnic group
  • Country:a geographic territory, which may or may not have an affiliation with a government or ethnic group
  • Ethnic groupin older texts due to its original meaning and etymology

Thus the phrase "nations of the world" could be referring to the top-level governments (as in the name for theUnited Nations), various large geographical territories, or various large ethnic groups of the planet.

Depending on the meaning of "nation" used, the term "nation state"could be used to distinguish larger states from smallcity states,or could be used to distinguishmultinational statesfrom those with a single ethnic group.

Medieval nations

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The existence of Medieval nations

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The broad consensus amongstscholars of nationalismis that nations are a recent phenomenon.[13]However, some historians argue that their existence can be traced to the medieval period.

Adrian Hastingsargued 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 Israelin 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 ofZionismand the establishment of modern lsrael.[14]Anthony D. Smithwrote that the Jews of the lateSecond Temple periodprovide "a closer approximation to the ideal type of the nation... perhaps anywhere else in the ancient world."[15]

Susan Reynoldshas 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,[16]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 Englishto 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 nationalismand the English nation have been continuous since that time.[17]

However,John Breuillycriticizes Hastings's assumption that continued usage of a term such as 'English' means continuity in its meaning.[18]Patrick J. Gearyagrees, arguing names were adapted to different circumstances by different powers and could convince people of continuity, even if radical discontinuity was the lived reality.[19]

Florin Curtacites MedievalBulgarian nationas another possible example.Danubian Bulgariawas founded in 680-681 as a continuation ofGreat Bulgaria.After the adoption ofOrthodox Christianityin 864 it became one of the cultural centres ofSlavicEurope. Its leading cultural position was consolidated with the invention of theCyrillic scriptin its capitalPreslavon the eve of the 10th century.[20]Hugh Poulton argues the development ofOld Church Slavonicliteracy in the country had the effect of preventing the assimilation of theSouth Slavsinto neighboring cultures and stimulated the development of a distinct ethnic identity.[21]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 Seato the south, and from theAdriatic Seato the west, to theBlack Seato the east, who accepted the common ethnonym "Bulgarians".[22]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.[23][24][clarification needed]

Anthony Kaldellisasserts inHellenism in Byzantium(2008) that what is called theByzantine Empirewas the Roman Empire transformed into anation-statein theMiddle Ages.[page needed]

Azar Gat also arguesChina,KoreaandJapanwere nations by the time of theEuropean Middle Ages.[25]

Criticisms

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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".[26]

Similarly,Sami Zubaidanotes 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.[27]

Paul Lawrence criticises Hastings's reading of Bede, 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".[28]

Use of termnationesby medieval universities and other medieval institutions

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A significant early use of the termnation,asnatio,occurred atMedieval universities[29]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 Gersonwas elected twice as a procurator for the Frenchnatio.TheUniversity of Pragueadopted the division of students intonationes:from its opening in 1349 thestudium generalewhich consisted of Bohemian, Bavarian, Saxon and Polishnations.

In a similar way, thenationeswere segregated by theKnights Hospitaller of Jerusalem,who maintained atRhodesthe 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 Tafurnoted in 1436.[30]

Early modern nations

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In his article, "The Mosaic Moment: An Early Modernist Critique of the Modernist Theory of Nationalism",Philip S. Gorskiargues that the first modernnation-statewas theDutch Republic,created by a fully modern political nationalism rooted in the model ofbiblical nationalism.[31]In a 2013 article "Biblical nationalism and the sixteenth-century states",Diana Muir Appelbaumexpands Gorski's argument to apply to a series of new, Protestant, sixteenth-century nation states.[32]A similar, albeit broader, argument was made byAnthony D. Smithin his books,Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National IdentityandMyths and Memories of the Nation.[33][34]

In her bookNationalism: Five Roads to Modernity,Liah Greenfeldargued that nationalism was invented in England by 1600. According to Greenfeld, England was “the first nation in the world".[35][36]

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".[37]

Social science

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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,[38]proposes that there have always been nations and that nationalism is a natural phenomenon.Ethnosymbolismexplains 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,[39]adopts aconstructivistapproach and proposes that nationalism emerged due to processes ofmodernization,such asindustrialization,urbanization, and mass education, which made national consciousness possible.[8][40]

Proponents of modernization theory describe nations as "imagined communities",a term coined byBenedict Anderson.[41]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.[42]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.[8][43][44]

Scholars in the 19th and early 20th century offered constructivist criticisms of primordial theories about nations.[45]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. "[45]

In the late 20th century, many social scientists[who?]argued that there were two types of nations, thecivic nationof which French republican society was the principal example and theethnic nationexemplified 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.[46]On the other hand, the civic nation was traced to theFrench Revolutionand 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.[47]This is the vision, among others, ofErnest Renan.[46]

Debate about a potential future of nations

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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.[48]

The theory of theclash of civilizationslies in direct contrast tocosmopolitantheories about an ever more-connected world that no longer requires nation states. According topolitical scientistSamuel P. Huntington,people's cultural and religiousidentitieswill be the primary source of conflict in the post–Cold Warworld.

The theory was originally formulated in a 1992 lecture[49]at theAmerican Enterprise Institute,which was then developed in a 1993Foreign Affairsarticle titled "The Clash of Civilizations?",[50]in response toFrancis Fukuyama's 1992 book,The End of History and the Last Man.Huntington later expanded histhesisin a 1996 bookThe Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

Huntington began his thinking by surveying the diverse theories about the nature of global politics in the post–Cold Warperiod. Some theorists and writers argued thathuman rights,liberal democracyand capitalistfree marketeconomics 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 ofideologyhad 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. Postnationalismis 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 powerfrom national authorities to supranational entities, such as multinational corporations, theUnited Nationsand theEuropean Unionand the advent of new information and culture technologies such as theInternet.However attachment to citizenship andnational identitiesoften remains important.[51][52][53]

Jan Zielonka of the University 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-medievalismmeaning "overlapping authorities, divided sovereignty, multiple identities and governing institutions, and fuzzy borders".[48]

See also

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References

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  1. ^Eller 1997.
  2. ^abGarner, Bryan A., ed. (2014). "nation".Black's Law Dictionary(10th ed.). Thomson Reuters. p. 1183.ISBN978-0-314-61300-4.
  3. ^James, Paul(1996).Nation Formation: Towards a Theory of Abstract Community.London:SAGE Publications.Archivedfrom the original on 6 October 2021.Retrieved15 September2019.
  4. ^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.
  5. ^Smith, Anthony D. (8 January 1991).The Ethnic Origins of Nations.Wiley. p. 17.ISBN978-0-631-16169-1– viaGoogle Books.
  6. ^Smith, Anthony D. (1991).National Identity.London: Penguin. p. 99.ISBN9780140125658.
  7. ^Mylonas, Harris; Tudor, Maya (2023)."Varieties of Nationalism: Communities, Narratives, Identities".Cambridge University Press.doi:10.1017/9781108973298.ISBN9781108973298.S2CID259646325.a broad scholarly consensus that the nation is a recent and imagined identity dominates political science
  8. ^abcMylonas, Harris; Tudor, Maya (2021)."Nationalism: What We Know and What We Still Need to Know".Annual Review of Political Science.24(1): 109–132.doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-041719-101841.
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  11. ^DictionnaireLe Petit Robert,édition 2002.
  12. ^Dictionnaire Latin-Français,Gaffiot.
  13. ^Mylonas, Harris; Tudor, Maya (2023)."Varieties of Nationalism: Communities, Narratives, Identities".Cambridge University Press.doi:10.1017/9781108973298.ISBN9781108973298.S2CID259646325.a broad scholarly consensus that the nation is a recent and imagined identity dominates political science
  14. ^Hastings, Adrian (1997).The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 186–187.ISBN0-521-59391-3.
  15. ^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.
  16. ^Reynolds, Susan(1997).Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900–1300.Oxford.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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  29. ^see:nation (university)
  30. ^Pedro Tafur,Andanças e viajesArchived29 June 2011 at theWayback Machine.
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  34. ^Smith, Anthony D. (1999).Myths and Memories of the Nation.Oxford University Press.
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  42. ^James, Paul(2006).Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism: Bringing Theory Back In.London:SAGE Publications.Archivedfrom the original on 29 April 2020.Retrieved2 November2017.
  43. ^Anderson, Benedict (1983).Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism.London:Verso Books.
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  45. ^abBuck, Carl Darling (1916)."Language and the Sentiment of Nationality".American Political Science Review.10(1): 45.doi:10.2307/1946302.ISSN0003-0554.JSTOR1946302.S2CID146904598.
  46. ^abNoiriel, Gérard (1992).Population, immigration et identité nationale en France:XIX-XX siècle(in French). Hachette.ISBN2010166779.
  47. ^Rogers Brubaker,Citizenship and nationhood in France and Germany,Harvard University Press,1992,ISBN978-0-674-13178-1
  48. ^ab"End of nations: Is there an alternative to countries?".New Scientist.Archived fromthe originalon 18 March 2017.Retrieved10 May2017.
  49. ^"U.S. Trade Policy — Economics".AEI. 15 February 2007. Archived fromthe originalon 29 June 2013.Retrieved20 February2013.
  50. ^Official copy (free preview):"The Clash of Civilizations?".Foreign Affairs.Summer 1993. Archived fromthe originalon 29 June 2007.
  51. ^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 Sociology105:652–96 (1999)
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  53. ^I. Bloemraad; "Who claims dual citizenship? The limits of postnationalism, the possibilities of transnationalism, and the persistence of traditional citizenship";International Migration Review38:389–426 (2004)

Sources

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Further reading

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