3 ms·

As a small note, I think the word we're looking for in this thread is not "nation-state", but simply "state" i.e. sovereign country or polity. Not all states a

As a small note, I think the word we're looking for in this thread is not "nation-state", but simply "state" i.e. sovereign country or polity. Not all states are "nation-states". A "nation" (⋆) is specifically a group of people who are culturally homogeneous, and a "nation-state" (⋆⋆) is a sovereign state that is also culturally homogeneous. In most of these discussions we are talking simply about sovereign states, not nation-states specifically. Someone else pointed this out onetime in another HN comment, and now "can't unsee". (⋆) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation (⋆⋆) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state

jholman 7y ago
That's certainly what "nation" meant a hundred years ago, and what it means in context of nationalist ideology. I think that in modern English, "nation" and "nation state" mostly mean "sovereign country or polity". I think this usage is partly because obviously most uses of "state" are references to obviously-non-sovereign internal divisions of territory, whether in the US or Austria or Australia or Brazil or India, and including extremal cases like the states of Palau (most of which comprise less than a thousand people). Probably another cause is that so few people take 19th-C / 20th-C nationalism seriously that there's no real need for the word "nation" in this context. But if you're keen on the political-science definitions, note that states don't have to be sovereign. The word "country" won't do because they don't have to be sovereign either (e.g. England or Greenland). I think if you want to formally say "sovereign state", you have to say "sovereign state".
- pvg 7y ago
  I think that in modern English, "nation" and "nation state" mostly mean "sovereign country or polity". It's just very recent modern infosec and internet English and it's seeping out into all sorts of other places. Probably too late to stop it. As a check, I just searched NYT's site for 'nation state' and other than its original non-redundant sense or in quotes, they don't use it, best I can tell.

jholman 7y ago

That's certainly what "nation" meant a hundred years ago, and what it means in context of nationalist ideology. I think that in modern English, "nation" and "nation state" mostly mean "sovereign country or polity". I think this usage is partly because obviously most uses of "state" are references to obviously-non-sovereign internal divisions of territory, whether in the US or Austria or Australia or Brazil or India, and including extremal cases like the states of Palau (most of which comprise less than a thousand people). Probably another cause is that so few people take 19th-C / 20th-C nationalism seriously that there's no real need for the word "nation" in this context. But if you're keen on the political-science definitions, note that states don't have to be sovereign. The word "country" won't do because they don't have to be sovereign either (e.g. England or Greenland). I think if you want to formally say "sovereign state", you have to say "sovereign state".

pvg 7y ago
I think that in modern English, "nation" and "nation state" mostly mean "sovereign country or polity". It's just very recent modern infosec and internet English and it's seeping out into all sorts of other places. Probably too late to stop it. As a check, I just searched NYT's site for 'nation state' and other than its original non-redundant sense or in quotes, they don't use it, best I can tell.