Future Analysis of Nation State

Future Analysis of The Nation-State System

Introduction:
It is common to hear of the threats to the nation-state system in the contemporary world. Such threats seem to originate from many different quarters, at different level of the global system. This impending sense that the nation-state is somehow in “crisis” led to analyze the question of “the contemporary crisis of the nation-state?”
But before we go into the analysis, it is important to look into the ideas that would help to understand the case, under discussion, in a better way. To begin with, let’s see the definition of nation, state and the nation-state system, according to the context under discussion.
Nation
According to the Oxford English dictionary, the word nation literally means, community of people having mainly common descent, history, language, etc or forming sovereign state or inhabiting territory.
From the above definition, there are two kinds of nations, the ethnic nation (community with common descent) and demotic nation (community with common territorial boundaries). E.K. Francis draws a distinction between ‘ethnic’ nations that are based on belief in common descent and a sense of solidarity and common identity, and ‘demotic’ nations that are based on shared administrative and military institutions, common territorial boundaries for protection and the mobility of goods and people. This is similar to the distinction often made between ‘cultural nations’, based on criteria such as language, customs, religion and the ‘political nations’, that are more contractual and derive from shared institutions, shared citizenship and a sense of shared history.

State
According to Oxford English dictionary, state literally means, political community under one government.
This means a community which is coherent with the government of the state obeys the government with its own will, making government responsible for it. It is the political organization of the people under one government.

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