Is Nation ‘One of the Most Puzzling and Tendentious Items in the Political Lexicon’?

By Cyril Jayet

Volume 19, Issue 2, pages 152-169

The aim of this paper is to clarify the meaning of the concept of nation, which has often been described as a puzzling concept. I propose first to analyse various definitions of nation, focusing on whether they imply that nations exist and what this means if so, or in what sense they exist. I distinguish four ways of approaching this. I evidence the shortcomings of each approach, and argue that the best one is that proposed by Brubaker: to focus on nationalization as a process and on nationness as a variable, rather than on ‘nations’ as discrete groups. Second, I show how this approach can benefit from Rosch’s theory of categorization, Gellner’s definition of nationalism, and Mann’s theory of the centralization of the state. Finally, I argue that what Gellner called the ‘weakness of nationalism’ explains the puzzle of ‘nations’: although nationalization contributes to shaping society according to the principle of nationalism, it only succeeds to a certain degree, leaving nations always unfinished and impossible to identify clearly.

Read the full article here.