HISTORY: State & Nation Building - Civic vs. Cultural Concepts

What is a nation? There are two main interpretations of the concept nation which social and political scientists debate: civic vs. cultural/ethnic.

It would appear that the concept of nation is complex considering subjective and abstract elements are attributed to the central definition of what constitutes a nation. Despite this ambiguity, several factors are often cited as being fundamental to the formation and composition of a nation. This would include, geographic territory, customs, tradition, religion, history and the language of a people. The concept can actually be broadly defined along two distinctive representations - one affiliated with civic and political aspects and another representing, sociocultural and ethnic components. Irrespective of the defining factors, the existence of a nation-State is unequivocally identified as the shared cultural characteristics and ideological values which act as the reference axis for further integration and consolidation.

In regards to a civic oriented definition, this would entail various phases resulting in economic and cultural unification, solidarity through mass education with the media enabling universal political identity formation. The result is active participation within a politically defined territory in which the expansion of the State apparatus includes the perpetuation of the civic duties and roles as well as universal policies for a large and often heterogeneous population. As such, it will historically encompass the large scale assimilation of ethnically diverse groups into a collective mass of state defined citizenry. This was akin to what Benedict Anderson identified as “imagined communities” since individual members are unknown to one another but imagine themselves in communication via a shared consciousness born out of a State defined identity.

As such, I would surmise civic definitions of a nation would entail strong State influence, effective politicizing of the population and stressing unification along ideological lines. A prime historical example would be Russification attempts of the Caucasus region under Soviet rule. This would be done in spite of cultural, linguistic and ethnic differences within a heterogeneous population. Defining a nation based on cultural and ethnic bounds would account for longer historical periods which would entail migrations, Diasporas and even territorial claims. Group identity could be based on tribal and clan affiliations resulting in blood alliances and familial kinship structures.