Nation state
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Illustration:Liberty Leading the People (1831, detail) by Eugène Delacroix.
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A nation state (or nation-state), in the most specific sense, is a country where a distinct cultural or ethnic group (a "nation" or "people") inhabits a territory and have formed a state (often a sovereign state) that they predominantly govern. It is a more precise term than "country" but of the same general meaning, being that it is an ethnic nation with its own land (thus "homeland") and government.
A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may include a diaspora or refugees who live outside the nation-state; some nations of this sense do not have a state where that ethnicity predominates. In a more general sense, a nation-state is simply a large, politically sovereign country or administrative territory. A nation-state may be contrasted with:
- A multinational state, where no one ethnic group dominates (may also be considered a multicultural state depending on the degree of cultural assimilation of various groups).
- A city-state which is both smaller than a "nation" in the sense of "large sovereign country" and which may or may not be dominated by all or part of a single "nation" in the sense of a common ethnicity.
- An empire, which is composed of many countries (possibly non-sovereign states) and nations under a single monarch or ruling state government.
- A confederation, a league of sovereign states, which might or might not include nation-states.
- A federated state which may or may not be a nation-state, and which is only partially self-governing within a larger federation (for example, the state boundaries of Bosnia and Herzegovina are drawn along ethnic lines, but those of the United States are not).
This article mainly discusses the more specific definition of a nation-state, as a typically sovereign country dominated by a particular ethnicity.
See also
- Balkanization
- Bioregionalism as an alternative to nation states.
- Caliphate
- City-state
- Nation
- Nationalism
- National personification
- Titular nation
- Westphalian sovereignty
See also
- Bioregionalism - as an alternative to Nation States.
- City-state
- Cultural identity
- Ethnic group
- Expansionism
- Historiography and nationalism
- Multinational state
- Nation
- National personification
- Nationalism
- Neo-medievalism
- Non-intervention
- Primordialism
- Secession
- Sovereignty
- Sovereign state
- Stateless nation
- Violent non-state actor
- Titular nation
