THE HISTORY OF THE NATION STATE

There are 195 recognised independent states in the world. All but two are member states of the United Nations (UN). Some states, such as Taiwan, remain in limbo due to ongoing political disputes over their sovereignty. The vast majority of the global population, including indigenous peoples, are subject in some way to the laws of a nation state. And yet the nation is notoriously difficult to define. In the Oxford English Dictionary, a nation is listed as a “large aggregate of communities and individuals united by factors such as common descent, language, culture, history, or occupation of the same territory, so as to form a distinct people”.

The nation has become the accepted political method of organising our modern public and private lives. We are all bound by national laws, which are in turn enshrined in international law through organisations such as the UN and the European Union (EU). But how did this simple and apparently obvious idea come to dominate the world and its political laws over recent centuries? And, as entities such as the UN and the EU are subject to increasing criticism from various quarters, is the sovereign nation state now entering a period of slow and painful decline – even disappearance – with the rise of economic globalisation?

One of the many contradictory aspects of the nation is that it is a relatively recent invention: most historians claim that it (‘birth’), usually referring to a racial ‘breed’ or group rather than a political state.