Nation-State

Definition of a Nation-State

The Oxford English Dictionary sheds limited light on the characteristics and nature of this phenomenon, as its entry requires thorough understanding of several other complex related concepts. It defines nation-state as “an independent political state formed from a people who share a common national identity (historically, culturally, or ethnically); (more generally) any independent political state.” Although the first use of the term recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is C. M. Platt's article “A Triad of Political Concepts: State, Sovereign, Government,” in Political Science Quarterly published in 1895, there are references to nation-states published before this date. In the text of John Robert Seeley's series of lectures on the expansion of England and critiques published in 1884 of his work, the term nation-state was used to contrast how the English concept that the “state is the nation” differs from the ancient Greek concept, “the state is the city.”

The prevailing explanation of the emergence of a nation-state derives from arguments that the modern state played a key role in shaping nationalism. John Breuilly argues that the modern state took shape in advance of nationalism—by which he means political movements and organizations [Page 1218]that act and claim to speak for the nation—which then led to the development of a system of nation-states. Whereas Breuilly asserts nationalism makes sense in some of the situations that the modern state shapes, others such as Eric Hobsbawm believe that the modern state causes or produces nationalism. Such arguments, however, are contradicted by empirical evidence. Historically, the causal order was reversed: The emergence of national identity and national consciousness precedes the development of the modern state. It is nationalism that led to the emergence of the modern state and distinguishes modern from nonmodern societies.

National government necessarily takes the form of the state; it is the central political institution all nations share. The state's modern connotation—an impersonal political organization based on popular mandate—is a result of the development of the idea of the nation, which redefined populations as uniform and diffused sovereignty within them. States as impersonal bureaucratic legal rational institutions bear little resemblance to former conceptualizations of the phenomenon of government. Before nationalism, the word state did not conceptualize government; it referred to a different aspect of reality. For instance, in England, state meant either “status” or “estate” (property). Modern states, which are the national form of government, therefore, are always nation-states. As the nation-state—like all of human social reality—is a historically contingent cultural artifact, the remainder of this entry will explain its emergence and persistence.

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