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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).[1]
A nation is generally more overtly political than an ethnic group.[2][3] Benedict Anderson defines 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",[4] while Anthony D Smith defines nations as cultural-political communities that have become conscious of their autonomy, unity and particular interests.[5][6]
The consensus among scholars is that nations are socially constructed, historically contingent, organizationally flexible, and a distinctly modern phenomenon.[7][8] 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.[9]
- ^ Eller 1997.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
blackwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ James, Paul (1996). Nation Formation: Towards a Theory of Abstract Community. London: SAGE Publications. Archived from the original on 6 October 2021. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
- ^ Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. (1991). Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. pp. 6–7. ISBN 978-0-86091-546-1.
- ^ Smith, Anthony D. (8 January 1991). The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Wiley. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-631-16169-1 – via Google Books.
- ^ Smith, Anthony D. (1991). National Identity. London: Penguin. p. 99. ISBN 9780140125658.
- ^ Mylonas, Harris; Tudor, Maya (2023). "Varieties of Nationalism: Communities, Narratives, Identities". Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108973298. ISBN 9781108973298. S2CID 259646325.
a broad scholarly consensus that the nation is a recent and imagined identity dominates political science
- ^ Mylonas, 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.
- ^ Kohn, Hans (2018). Nationalism. Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 15 January 2022. Retrieved 12 January 2022.