primordialist and perennialist approaches, which
Nation-state
Kristian Stokke
University of Oslo, Norway
Geographers have studied the state in a number
of different ways, focusing especially on the state’s
role as a regulator of the economy, provider of
social welfare, and arena for political participa-
tion. The concept of nation-state draws attention
to the state as a community, that is, the state as
a focal point for identity, and the nation as a
source of legitimacy for the state. These links
between the state and nation define the concep-
tual core of the nation-state and provide a basis
for distinctions with regard to state forms that are
based on other conceptions of community, state
territoriality, and state–community relations, for
example, city-states, multination states, empires,
and confederations. State–community relations
are also the focal point for nationalist ideology,
revolving around the principle of political and
territorial congruence between a sovereign state
and an autonomous national community.
Nations, nationalism, and nation-state
formation
The focus on the community dimension of the
state makes national identity an obvious analyt-
ical starting point for examining nationalism,
nation-state formation, and nation-state models
of citizenship. There is, however, no consen-
sus on the meaning of the “nation.” Debates
about its character, origins, and political roles
have revolved around a polarization between
The International Encyclopedia of Geography.
Edited by Douglas Richardson, Noel Castree, Michael F. Goodchild, Audrey Kobayashi, Weidong Liu, and Richard A. Marston.
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118786352.wbieg0736
see nations as essential, bounded, and stable, and
modernist and constructivist perspectives, which
view nations as constructed, changeable, and
historically contingent (Özkirimli 2010).
Primordialism sees the nation as a natural
category that is defined by objectively given
organizing principles such as blood, race, eth-
nicity, language, religion, and territory. Such
primordial bonds of human association, it is
argued, have always and naturally divided pop-
ulations. They hence precede and provide a
given basis for the formation of nation-states.
Perennialism does not share this view of nations
as natural categories, but nevertheless sees them
as long-standing and relatively stable social and
historical phenomena. Contemporary nations
stem from entrenched ethnosymbolic systems
with deep historical roots. Both approaches hold
that contemporary nations and their homelands
are objectively defined and premodern in origin,
and hence predate and shape modern state
formations and nationalist politics.
Primordialism and perennialism held a hege-
monic position in both popular and academic
discourses on nations and nationalism for a long
time, but have come under strong scholarly crit-
icism because of their essentialist, static, and uni-
versalizing analyses of nations, nation-states, and
nationalism. These perspectives are also viewed
with skepticism as a result of their association
with nationalist ideology. Primordialism provides
a conceptual foundation and political legitimacy
for the core argument in nationalist ideology
that nations do exist and have unique characters,
that the values and interests of nations take
priority over those of other collectivities, and
that the nation must be politically autonomous
NAT I O N-STATE
and protected through nation-states. Nationalism
as a political movement seeks to achieve these
core principles, and primordialism may provide
a conceptual basis and political legitimacy for
such actions (Herb and Kaplan 2008).
Modernist and constructivist perspectives share
a view of nations as social constructions that are
interwoven with nationalism. This means that
nations are not given and fixed categories, but
have come into being in the context of nation-
alist ideas about natural, bounded, and stable
national communities. The principal difference
in opinion between modernism and construc-
tivism is with regard to the possibility of causal
explanations behind the construction of national
communities. Modernism holds that it is possible
to identify economic, social, and political causes
behind the invention and instrumental use of
national identities and traditions. While some
scholars emphasize capitalist economic trans-
formations and the associated social division of
labor as the drivers behind nationalism and the
invention of modern nations, others emphasize
the emergence of modern states that made
nationalism a particularly appropriate form of
politics, not least for the dominant classes in
pursuit of hegemony in the face of radical pol-
itics by subordinate classes. Modernist scholars
thus agree that the modern state and nationalist
ideology preceded the invention of nations,
rather than nations being an objective basis for
nationalism and nation-state formation.
Constructivism rejects the modernist view of
nations as invented traditions that can be causally
explained with the needs of capitalism, the mod-
ern state, or dominant class interests. The focus
is instead on understanding nations as discursive
constructions – “imagined communities” – built
around boundary demarcations of nations and
national homelands, and the bonds between
people and place (Jackson and Penrose 1993;
2
Paasi 1998). Nations are constructed and insti-
tutionalized through narratives about who “we”
are, where we belong, and how we are differ-
ent from the “others,” who belong elsewhere.
To examine the meaning of the nation is to
examine who are rendered culturally and terri-
torially included or excluded in representations
of national communities, how imagined com-
munities are institutionalized, and the manner
in which discursively constructed identities
constitute a basis for identification and everyday
banal nationalism.
Nations and their “homelands” may be seen
as given or constructed, but there is broad
agreement that national identity and territorial
self-determination are intrinsically linked to
nation-states. The formation of nation-states has
been a long-standing research tradition within
and outside human geography. The existing
literature revolves around two principal ways
of pursuing congruence between national and
state boundaries; either from nation building
to nation-state, or through state building to
nation-state (Penrose and Mole 2008). The
state route to nation-state involves modern state
formation as a precursor to building a nation
of all people living within its territory. The
nation is thus conceived as a civic collectivity
built around universal citizenship, democracy,
and liberalism. The process of creating cul-
tural uniformity thus follows from rather than
precedes the formation of the modern state.
This focus on state building is in contrast to
the nation route to nation-state formation,
where self-determination is demanded for a
culturally predefined nation. Both trajectories
of nation-state formation are nationalist in the
sense that they seek to achieve congruence
between the boundaries of a modern state that
is based on the idea of government for and by
the people, and a nation that is construed as a
cultural community of equals. Where they part

ways is in the sequencing of nation and state
building in the process of nation-state formation.
Geographers have also given extensive atten-
tion to nation-state building, that is, the interre-
lated processes of constructing and politicizing
the nation and to building the state and imbu-
ing it with national meaning. Penrose and
Mole (2008) observe that nation-state building
includes at least some of five main processes: state
building centered on creating state institutions
for government and representation; establishing
state monopoly over the legitimate use of force;
building national systems of education and lan-
guage; developing media institutions and mass
communication; and fostering shared systems of
meaning. All of these are always and unavoidably
spatial and territorial processes, providing rich
opportunities for geographic scholarship on the
building and transformation of nation-states.
The nation-state and citizenship
While the analytical foci and theoretical perspec-
tives may change, geographers continue to pay
critical attention to state–community relations.
One notable reorientation is that contemporary
studies are increasingly framed by theories and
debates about citizenship and nation-state trans-
formation. Citizenship is conventionally taken
to mean a formal legal status that is based on
membership in a community and that provides
a basis for citizen rights and responsibilities.
The modern nation-state model of citizenship
rests on membership within a nation, but the
national community may be constructed in
different ways. The previous section pointed
to a general distinction between ethnocultural
and juridical-political constructions, that is,
nations that are built around cultural bonds and
a historical homeland, or around people living
within a territorial state under common law
NATION-S TATE
and legislature. Following from this distinction,
citizenship has conventionally been granted
on the basis of the parents being citizens (jus
sanguinis) or on the basis of being born within
the territory of a state (jus soli). Increased cul-
tural diversity in the context of international
migration has, however, challenged such simple
distinctions and transformed the criteria of citi-
zenship. Hybrid systems for legal citizenship have
thus become more prominent as immigration
countries have come to realize that the exclusion
of large groups from citizenship has problematic
implications in terms of social marginalization,
political exclusion, conflict, and racism. In this
situation, exclusion and stratified membership in
communities of citizens have become key issues
in citizenship studies within and outside human
geography (Kofman 2006).
Citizenship studies have been marked by a cul-
tural turn that has raised critical questions about
cultural differences and cultural politics within
the nation. Citizenship rests on assumptions
about cultural homogeneity, and the principle
of universality means that all members of a
political community are granted citizenship on
equal terms. It also means that commonality
of identity among citizens is privileged at the
expense of particularistic group belonging, and
that all are treated equally in the sense that laws
and rules apply to all in the same way. The
liberal perspective on citizenship holds that the
principle of universality constructs citizenship
in a manner that transcends particularity and
difference in favor of equality and justice. Critics
argue, in contrast, that universality conceals
how citizenship is defined in terms of dominant
identities and thus puts other identity groups
at a disadvantage, even if everyone is granted
equal citizenship in legal terms. While universal
citizenship is seen as an instrument of emanci-
pation and justice, it simultaneously masks and
3
NAT I O N-STATE
accentuates group oppression in terms of gender,
sexuality, class, ethnicity, and so on.
Citizenship studies have drawn attention to
contentions over the character of national com-
munities and struggles for inclusive membership.
Isin and Wood (1999) describe such politics of
membership as “cultural politics” and make a
distinction between identity politics revolving
around claims on the basis of durable group
identities, and politics of difference emphasizing
recognition of differences. Identity politics and
politics of difference present opposed views
on the nature of identities, with divergent
implications for political practices.
Identity politics refers broadly to political strug-
gles around shared experiences of injustice based
on involuntary membership in a particular social
group. Conscientization about the mode of
oppression that a group experiences is thus cen-
tral in challenging stigmatizing representations
and in demanding group-differentiated rights.
Recent years have also seen the emergence of a
politics of difference, focusing on the constructed
character of identity and differences within any
imagined community. This is in marked contrast
to identity politics, which sees groups as defined
by objective relations of oppression.
The question of membership in communities
of citizens has thus produced two modes of
cultural politics, separated by a divide between
essentialist and constructivist views on identity.
Whereas identity politics builds on essentialist
notions of identity and seeks a transition from
oppression to social and political inclusion, the
politics of difference is based on a constructivist
view of identity, critical attention to difference,
and a broadening of what issues are considered
relevant to citizenship.
Geographers have paid increased scholarly
attention to the policies and politics of inclu-
sion/exclusion in cultural membership and
formal citizenship, including a critical focus on
4
different forms of partial citizenship between
noncitizens and full citizens. The prevalence
of hybrid and stratified citizenship blurs the
idealized image of binary distinction between
citizens and noncitizens, and of equality among
citizens. Differentiation at the level of becoming
a citizen is also mirrored in diverse and strat-
ified experiences of being a citizen. Renewed
attention to citizenship has thus provided new
opportunities for geographic scholarship on
changing and contextual links between the state
and communities.
Transformation of the nation-state
model of citizenship
The nation-state model of citizenship has come
under pressure as a result of increased diversity
and cultural politics within presumably homo-
geneous nations, but also from the transforma-
tion of territorial state sovereignty in conjunction
with increased globalization.
The modern model of liberal citizenship rests
on assumptions about territorially bounded
nations and states. The nation-state is seen as
the principal site for citizenship, because of its
sovereign authority to grant legal status as a citi-
zen within its territory and to define the extent
and content of rights and political participation.
This territorial model of citizenship has come
under pressure in the context of various forms of
globalization. Increased economic globalization
has reduced the sovereignty of the state and con-
tributed to the emergence of multiscale forms of
governance and citizenship. Global neoliberal-
ization of governance also means that citizenship
rights and participation are defined not only by
the citizens’ relations to the state, but also by
the market and civil society. Finally, increased
international mobility has produced a growing
number of people with dual citizenship or

transnational belonging, challenging the territo-
rial nation-state model of citizenship. It can thus
be argued that economic globalization, global-
ized neoliberalism, and international migration
have introduced and reinforced tendencies
toward cross-scale, multisited, and transterritorial
citizenship. Citizenship has become increasingly
complex in geographic terms, and the substance
of membership, rights, and participation has
come to be defined through multiple and rela-
tional scales and spaces (Desforges, Jones, and
Woods 2005).
Citizenship has been decentered in regard to
the territorial nation-states, although the state
remains a prominent domain of citizenship,
leading some scholars to the observation that
citizenship is being transformed in postnational,
denationalized, and transnational directions
(Sassen 2002). A postnational trajectory means
that citizenship comes to be located outside the
framework of national communities in the sense
that it rests on new forms of community and that
it transcends the institutional framework cen-
tered on the nation-state. Denationalization, in
contrast, refers to a transformation of citizenship
away from the national scale that nevertheless
remains within the general framework of nations
and states. Such a denationalization trajectory is
especially visible in the emergence of multilevel
citizenship.
The most obvious example of multilevel
citizenship is found in federal states, where
individuals are citizens with rights and responsi-
bilities both at the level of the component states
and within the overarching federal state. Devo-
lution of power to semiautonomous regions in
a quasi-federal state or to municipalities and
cities in a decentralized state structure provides
additional examples of multilevel citizenship.
Such subnational forms of citizenship can be
characterized as scaled down versions of the
NATION-S TATE
nation-state model of citizenship. At the oppo-
site scalar end, there are also examples of
citizenship at the supranational level based on
the nation-state model. The foremost example
here is citizenship at the scale of the European
Union, which also includes formal legal status,
rights, and political participation.
The postnational trajectory is a more radi-
cal departure from the nation-state model of
citizenship since it involves constructions of
communities of citizens and rights outside the
framework of the nation. In the past, citizenship
was broadened when previously excluded groups
(e.g., workers, women, children) were included
in the national polity. In the contemporary
period, some argue that rights that used to be
reserved for nationals are increasingly granted to
resident foreigners (denizens). This means that
membership has come to be based on discourses
of personhood and that rights are framed as
human rights. It does not mean, however, that
the state has become irrelevant. While universal
personhood and human rights have become
a legitimating basis for claims to rights, the
realization of such rights is still tied to state
institutions.
A third trajectory is found in the form of
transnational citizenship. Transnational citizenship
means that legal status and rights are situated in
national institutions, while citizenship as mem-
bership (belonging) and participation (social,
cultural, and political practices) is embedded
in transnational fields. This creates a situation
where belonging and active citizenship are with
reference to multiple political and communal
spaces in countries of origin and immigration as
well as the transnational spaces of diasporas.
This brief review demonstrates the continued
centrality of the nation-state as a research object
in human geography. It also indicates that the
questions that are asked and the approaches that
are used have undergone important changes,
5
NAT I O N-STATE
and especially that citizenship has become an
important analytical tool for studying the con-
crete, context-specific, and changing meaning
and politics of state–community relations within
nation-states. Cultural and global changes have
challenged the nation-state and its model of
citizenship, and have been followed by increased
attention to postnational, denationalized, and
transnational forms of citizenship and to cross-
scale, multisite, and transterritorial geographies
of citizenship. Contemporary state–community
relations in nation-states are thus characterized
by an increasingly complex geography as insti-
tutions and political struggles for citizenship are
constituted within and across multiple scales,
spaces, and places.
SEE ALSO: Citizenship; Nationalism and
geography; State, the; Transnationalism
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