Concept
Nation
Overview
A nation is a type of social organization where a collective identity—a national identity—has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, territory, or society. Some nations are constructed around ethnicity (see ethnic nationalism) while others are bound by political constitutions (see civic nationalism).
A nation is generally more overtly political than an ethnic group. Benedict Anderson defined a nation as "an imagined 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", while Anthony D. Smith defined nations as cultural-political communities that have become conscious of their autonomy, unity and particular interests. Black's Law Dictionary also defines nation as a community of people inhabiting a defined territory and organized under an independent government. Thus, nation can be synonymous with state or country. Indeed, according to Thomas Hylland Eriksen, what distinguishes nations from other forms of collective identity, like ethnicity, is this very relationship with the state.
The consensus among scholars is that nations are socially constructed, historically contingent, organizationally flexible, and a distinctly modern phenomenon. Throughout history, people have had an attachment to their kin group and traditions, territorial authorities and their homeland, but nationalism – the belief that state and nation should align as a nation state – did not become a prominent ideology until the end of the 18th century.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Nation is discussed.
If we are to avoid all these controversies, we must first of all endeavor to find some definition of a nation. A nation is not to be defined by affinities of language or a common historical origin, though these things often help to produce a nation. Switzerland is a nation, despite diversities of race, religion, and language. England and Scotland now form one nation, though they did not do so at the time of the…
Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
“It has lost its capacity of an organic absolute intuition and of respect for the divine—external though its divinity be: and there sets in the bestiality of contempt for all that is noble. The mere wisdomless universal, the mass of wealth, is the essential: and the ethical principle, the absolute bond of the nation, is vanished; and the nation is dissolved(118).”
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph
The difference of form is really shared by every degree of the administration, and it is only by including every degree that you really know the difference. In one country you begin to feel the spirit of the minister in the manoeuvres of his underlings; in another you must see the election of members of parliament to see if the nation is really free; in each and every country, he who has only seen the towns cannot…
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
In the exportation of the produce of their own country, the merchants of a landed nation would have an advantage of the same kind over those of mercantile nations, which its artificers and manufacturers had over the artificers and manufacturers of such nations; the advantage of finding at home that cargo, and those stores and provisions, which the others were obliged to seek for at a distance. With inferior art and…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
names the idea; the book is about it; opens on it
This is what would naturally result from a federation of the world, if such a thing ever came about. But the prospect is remote, and it is worth while to consider why it is so remote. The unity of a nation is produced by similar habits, instinctive liking, a common history, and a common pride. The unity of a nation is partly due to intrinsic affinities between its citizens, but partly also to the pressure and…
Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight
names the idea; states what it is
Philosophers who discussed Nation
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Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Fascism.