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Beyond dichotomy: concepts of the nation and the distribution of membership

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 1999

Tim Nieguth
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton AB, T6G 2H4, Canada
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Abstract

Globalisation, fragmentation and the emergence of identity politics challenge the myth of the homogeneous nation-state. They also lend increasing importance to processes of national boundary construction. This article argues that the dichotomy of ethnic and civic nations which traditionally informs much of social science discourse on nations and nationalism is inadequate to analyse how nations distribute membership. The same is true of the Meineckean distinction between cultural and political nations. Both typologies fail to account for some actually existing types of national boundary construction and they suggest that, in any instance, the process of boundary construction is homogeneous, universal and generic. As a consequence of these shortcomings, the ethnic/civic dichotomy needs to be revised, by disentangling different organising principles at work in defining the boundaries of ethnic and civic nations: ancestry, race, culture and territory.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1999 Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism

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