What Is a Nation? (2015)
notesonliberty.com
notesonliberty.com
Hence the US could be a single state and country, while being inhabited by many nations (American, Sioux, Apache etc). The UK could be a single state made up of multiple countries and inhabited by people identifying as members of many nations.
And occasionally you'll have a case where you have a distinct nation that has a well defined country (say Tibet) but is not recognized as a state.
Country:
A tract of land; a region; the territory of an independent nation; (as distinguished from any other region, and with a personal pronoun) the region of one's birth, permanent residence, or citizenship.
http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=cou...
State:
A political body, or body politic; the whole body of people who are united under one government, whatever may be the form of the government; a nation.
http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=sta...
Nation:
A part, or division, of the people of the earth, distinguished from the rest by common descent, language, or institutions; a race; a stock.
http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=nat...
E.g., we call people who supported the break up of the Austro-Hungarian empire in favor of self-rule by its constituent ethnic groups “nationalists.”
What makes it legitimate, except that other states will recognize it? The status quo.
This is why China can crack down on HK, or Spain on Catalonia.
In a sense, it is not much different from organized crime: gangs recognize each other, sometimes fight but most of the time stay within their borders, and exert violence to punish their members that deviated from the rules. The gang members recognize that the use of violence to punish fellow members is legitimate.
In some ways it is a little arbitrary. A new state like East Timor or South Sudan can be declared and immediately recognized by most everyone, and then admitted to the UN. Kosovo can déclaré itself a state, be recognized by a lot of other states, but lack a seat at the UN and 'real' statehood. And then there's a case like Taiwan which does more or less everything a state would or could do...but is recognized by almost nobody.
While it's not perfect, a good rule of thumb as to whether a state is really a state is if they are full members of the UN. It's not perfect - the Holy See and Switzerland were non-member states for a long time - but it's close.
I am not sure what the solution is, but providing a predetermined cost for separation of a part of the country is a simplistic framework that might work.
Eg. Catalonia gets their independence, owes Spain ~20 billion euros over the next 20 years, and they each guarantee to each other that it will not raise taxes to opposing products in the next 30 years[1]. For Kosovo it's a bit late to avoid violence. But as state separation becomes common and accepted as "normal", there will be less of "this is terrible" storylines that politicans thrive on, so harder to pull people into violent wars.
Oh well, one can only hope. FWIW, I am sure that will lead back to unification efforts (you know, to share costs and optimise development: eg. it's hard to design a good railroad if you are governing only your tiny county), but as long as we define clear uniting and separating guidelines, I hope we can reach acceptable terms for all parties.
[1] Not saying this is a fair arrangement, but I am sure there could be a way to define something that is fair and probably written onto thousands of pages :)
What is a nation? I argue that it is a group label that is invented and sustained in so far as it serves to further the goals of elites. Within an individual’s lifetime they appear unchanging, but from a historical perspective they are fluid and are frequently created, killed, or reborn as needed. When conversing about geopolitics we cannot ignore national identity, but we must keep in mind that in the long run nationality can be, and is, molded to suit political goals.
Nations are a political entity. What else would you expect. The same thing can be said about laws or morals or religion or ...
Edit: Apart from language, I can't think of any other cultural attribute which is strong enough to define a nation.
If you'd consider the Dutch and Flemish to have enough difference to define nations, then what about other regions of the Netherlands, or the different counties of the UK?
You now seem to be diving into their examples to, in essence, agree with them: language itself is not a good common property to define a nation.
Coming from Serbia and speaking Serbian (but not Croatian or Bosnian, though we'd understand each other as if we are speaking the same language ;)), even language is a term used for political purposes, but what you make of it in relation to defining a "nation" is up to you.
Although, personally, I'd find language to be the only thing there that I'd care about
States speak of administration; nations speak of common bonds. States seek to turn their diverse populations into a common nation because it will create stability. But when some of the people who are subject to your administration feel a common bond with hundreds of millions of people on the other side of a somewhat arbitrary line, this may be an impossible or undesireable task.
The idea of nationalism, that states and nations should coincide, was only partly implemented. There are numerous groups, including indigenous peoples of the Americas and Pacific or the numerous groups of India which never obtained their own states.
Some of these elements are indeed needed but not all them at once. There is the flagrant example of Alsatians who chose in 17th century to integrate the kingdom of France despite speaking a Germanic dialect over a religious matter (they were Catholics and German speaking people Protestants).
While I agree nation is a made up concept, for many a nation it goes back a long time, and it did usually start by differentiating by language (and religion was quickly added into the mix esp in the area). Still, the fact that we can track movement of "nations" between states (eg. large number of Serbs moved to Hapsburg monarchy as Ottomans invaded "Serbia", basically becoming a majority there, thus leading to seccesion movements that led to WW1), means that it can and has been defined for quite a while.
While German nation was practically defined as Prussia led unification efforts, there was a concept of Germanic tribes a long time ago.
And yes, language was the main denominator, but as civilizations developed, more was added into the mix. After all, language was certainly territorial to begin with, so it is a derived attribute by itself.
There is a province called Friesland (Fryslan) with its own language, I think they can qualify as a nation.
Language is just as fraught politically as anything else.
If your nation used to make you a second-class citizen in foreign states, which is somewhat typical in Eastern Europe, you do have a sharp distinction between nations and states. I.e. nations can live under yoke of different states. In this states, your nation can/could make you an "invader" (funny how it's hard in English to find a word emotional enough to call someone who formerly conquered you!) or a "traitor" (Poles in Russian Empire), or a primitive "barbarian" unworthy of fully participating in our, you know, higher civilization (Poles in German Empire).
Intuitively, your nation is defined partly by your name (see Lithuanian actions to lithuanize Slavic names of citizens) and received language and culture. Funny how the OP seriously considers a "blood and race" understanding of nation, which I think in Europe is a fast road to Godwin law. Aside from being nonsensical, it just feels morally repulsive.
For the record, I do think that the European concept of nation does more harm not good, and in an ideal world we should replace it with civic identification with your free republic. But it does serve as an instrument to organize people for political action. This can be sometimes legitimately good.
Especially I find the OP's critique of American Revolution trite. For a long time now it's fashionable ot thrash both American and French Revolutions, while without them there would be no strong examples for people throughout the world to question power. (They were themselves based on ancient examples, but for them you need classical education.) Our world would be much more horrible without that.
I’m pretty tired of hearing thoughts on nations and nationalism from a generation of westerners who are privileged enough not to remember why we have nations and nationalism. Ask the Uyghurs or Tibetans or Kurds what is a nation. Ask Israelis or Bangladeshis. You’ll get a sensible answer.
"A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture."
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1913...