The nation is a tool, a political tool to legitimize autonomous power through the invention and perception of a homogeneous population with a common identity, history and culture. This perception creates the feeling of a destiny for the population, a destiny of a stable unified autonomous state.

The nation is different from the state, as the state has physical borders and administrative institutions, whereas the nation is regarded as a population with a common identity. The nation is not limited to one state, nor the state limited to one nation. For example, many Quebecois think of themselves as a separate nation within the Canadian state and the Kurds are seen as one nation spread over several Middle Eastern states.

In established sovereign states, the nation is used as a political tool through the concept of a nation-state. If the total population of a state shares a seamless common identity, the state is regarded as a nation-state. However, due to migration and relocation, a seamless common identity inhabiting one state is realistically unattainable. States nonetheless claim to be nation-states, as even the perception of a homogeneous population ensures unity, stability and conformity.

In the spirit of the memorable line, “We have made Italy, now we have to make Italians,” a better name for nation-states would be nationalizing-states. Established states want to create and maintain the perception of a homogeneous population. In Western Europe, for instance, the move to a strict non-Western immigrant integration policy is an example of nationalizing-states determined to create one national identity.

In territories without established sovereignty, the nation – or in other words a perceived common identity, history and culture – is used to validate a population’s struggle for autonomy. Claims of autonomy boil up in places where there is regional, uneven economic development, incompatibility of state policy and/or transgression against regional populations. This is seen, for example, in the former Yugoslavia, where, contrary to popular belief, not ethnicity but economic disparities and failure of politics led to the creation of different states.

The perception of all these different common identities, histories and cultures is invented and taught through three institutions: mass education, mass media and propaganda. In George Orwell’s fictional society the Party slogan ran, “Who controls the past, controls the future: Who controls the present, controls the past.”

Inventing and altering the past, however, is not exclusively associated with fictional states, as the old English saying, “the victors write history,” explains. Mass education, where history and culture are taught and learned, molds a population to conform to the state and is responsible for the rise of a national identity, history and culture. In addition, propaganda and mass media create favorable opinions, stimulating attachment to either the state or the struggle for autonomy. An example of the power of these institutions is seen in incidents such as torture and imprisonment without trial. They are not recognized as atrocities when committed by one’s “own” side.

Today, in the age of globalization and supra-national (or supra-state) organizations like the European Union and NATO, there seems to be more emphasis on internationalism than on the nation itself. One would say the market-driven need for global collaboration leads to a global society. However, economic, political and ideological differences between collaborating states and other unified states create power blocs. These modern power blocs are phenomena first seen in both World Wars and the Cold War and today in the conflict between Western states and Islamic states.

In the past, present or future, as long as there is uneven economic development, failure of politics and oppression, populations will be mobilized under the claim of nationhood. George Orwell keenly observed that there always has to be an “us” versus “them” in order to guarantee the permanence of the current world order, which he worded as, “war is peace.” In the same manner, the everlasting existence of “us” versus “them” guarantees the permanence of the concept of a nation. Even in the unified region of the European Union, national identity is regaining importance, as populations are afraid to loose their power (us) in the immigrant flow (them) and the increasingly centralized European government.

The nation as a political tool continues to create and maintain common identities through mass education, mass media and propaganda. This takes place at the state level and increasingly at the supra- or international levels. In a utopian world, we would see a global nation, but unfortunately not in today’s.

Further Reading

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised Edition ed. London and New York: Verso, 1991.

Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.

Hobsbawm, Eric J. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

McCrone, David. The Sociology of Nationalism: Tomorrow’s Ancestors. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.

Smith, Anthony D. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998.

Online Resources

> The Nationalism Project
> The Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism
> Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
> The Warwick Debates on Nationalism

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