Nations and Nationalities

A. Nation and nation-state now refer to an autonomous, centrally organized political entity.

• Ethnic groups are not necessarily so formally politically organized.
• The majority of all nation-states have more than one ethnic group in their constituent populations, and the multiethnicity of all countries is increasing.

B. Nationalities and Imagined Communities

1. Nationalities are ethnic groups that aspire to autonomous statehood (regardless of their political history).
2. The term “imagined communities,” coined by Benedict Anderson, has been used to describe nationalities, since most of their member population feel a bond with each other in the absence of any “real” acquaintance.
3. Mass media and the language arts have helped to form such imagined communities by becoming the means of establishing a commonalty of values, motivations, language, and the like.
4. Colonialism refers to the political, social, economic, and cultural domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power for an extended period of time.
5. Colonialism helped create imagined communities as different ethnic groups under the control of the same colonial administration often pooled resources in opposition to the colonial power.