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Nation-state

Nation-state

:This article is about the political concept. For the Internet game, see Jennifer Government: NationStates. A nation-state is a specific form of state (a political entity), which exists to provide a sovereign territory for a particular nation (a cultural entity), and derives its legitimacy from that function. The compact OED defines it as: "a sovereign state of which most of the citizens or subjects are united also by factors which define a nation, such as language or common descent." Typically it is a unitary state with a single system of law and government. It is almost by definition a sovereign state, meaning that there is no external authority above the state itself. Dependent territories of any kind are not considered nation-states, until they achieve independence. The nation-state implies the parallel occurrence of a state and a nation. In the ideal nation-state, the population consists of the nation and only of the nation: the state not only houses it, but protects it and its national identity, that is they coincide exactly: every member of the nation is a permanent resident of the nation-state, and no member of the nation permanently resides outside it. There are no ideal nation-states, however examples of near ideal nation-states would be Japan and Iceland. This ideal has influenced almost all existing sovereign states, and they can not be understood without reference to that model. It also explains how they are different from their predecessor states. Thus, the term nation-state is also used, imprecisely, for a state that attempts to promote a single national identity, often beginning with a single national language, for example France or Germany or Italy. These nation-states did not always exist, and most of the present nation-states are located on territory that once belonged to another, non-national, state, for example, in the case of much of western Europe, the original state was the Roman Empire. They came into existence at least partly as a result of political campaigns by nationalists. The establishment of a nation-state can be considered the central demand of any nationalist movement.

Characteristics

A nation-state is associated with a particular group of people, the nation, and derives its claim to legitimate existence from them. This in contrast to some monarchies, which derived their legitimacy from the ruling dynasty, or ancient land grants to its ancestors. The nation-state is in a sense the historical vehicle of that nation, and tries to ensure its survival as a nation. Almost always, it has an explicit policy to protect the national culture. A nation-state is one of a class of similar states. To distinguish itself, and also to express a shared identity of its own population, it has national symbols, above all a national flag and a national anthem, often a wide range of national emblems. In fact, nation states have promoted a national identity in almost every area of human social and cultural life, from the national library to the national airline to the national language. Nation-states attempt to create and maintain national unity, and at least a minimal internal uniformity. Nation states have a cultural policy and a language policy for this purpose, and the educational system is often subordinated to this goal. That always meant some compulsion, and in some cases brutal repression of minorities and xenophobic campaigns against non-national influences. The desire for uniformity is said to have positive economic effects, because nation-states generally try to reduce internal disparities in income and regional GDP. Most have a regional policy for that purpose.

What states existed before nation-states?

regional policy In Europe, before 1850, the classic non-national state was a multi-ethnic empire. It was a monarchy ruled by a king or emperor, or in the case of the Ottoman Empire, by a Sultan. The population belonged to many ethnic groups and they spoke many languages. The empire was dominated by one ethnic group, and their language was usually the language of public administration. The ruling dynasty was usually, but not always, from that group. This type of state is not specifically European: such empires existed on all continents. Some of the smaller European states were not so ethnically diverse, but were also dynastic states, ruled by a royal house. Their territory could expand by royal marriage, or merge with another state when the dynasty merged. In some parts of Europe, notably Germany, very small territorial units existed. They were recognised by their neighbours as independent, and had their own government and laws. Some were ruled by princes or other hereditary rulers, some were governed by bishops or abbots. Because they were so small, however, they had no separate language or culture: the inhabitants shared the language of the surrounding region. In some cases these states were simply overthrown by nationalist uprisings, which were inspired by the so-called ideal of the nation-state, meaning a state with a uniform state sponsored national identity. In other cases a nation state seems to have grown by accretion of smaller entities. Some grew to unification by trade and political integration. Some were unified by force. The transition was complex, but this so-called nation-state became the standard ideal in Europe, and in the rest of the world because of European dominance of the world. This so-called nation-state, at least in theory, has a uniform population, language and culture. It stops where the nation stops, and it does not swap territory with other states simply, for example, because the king’s daughter got married. For example, at least in theory, there is a uniform French identity which is different from a supposed uniform German identity, despite the fact that the French-German state border is not the French-German ethnic border and there are some who would consider themselves of German ethnicity on the French side of the border and vice versa. The so-called ideal of the nation-state is actually a state which has attempted to define a national identity which justifies its existence, internally and externally; this process is often ironically called nation-building. By this model, non-national entities have survived in Europe: the dependent principalities of Liechtenstein, Andorra, and Monaco, the republic of San Marino, and the Vatican City.

Examples of nation-states

Oddly, the confederation of cantons and former city-states known in English as Switzerland is often called a nation-state, despite having no dominant ethnic group, no national identity, and several national languages, see also Culture_of_Switzerland. This is odd because Switzerland's primary Raison d'être is to protect against a state, internal or external, attempting to enforce a statewide national identity. A classic nation-state, by definition, is inhabited by one ethnic group, who speak one language, have one culture, and share one religion. The population, in other words, is homogeneous. This group is referred to as ‘the nation’ or ‘the people’. They all live inside the border of the nation-state. No other ethnic or cultural group lives there. It is often said that island states are the best place to find something like this, and Iceland is often cited as the best example of a nation-state. Although the inhabitants are ethnically related to other Scandinavian groups, the national culture and language are found only in Iceland. There are no cross-border minorities, the nearest land is too far away. Japan, see also Japan#Demographics and Ethnic issues in Japan, is traditionally seen as a good example, although it includes minorities of ethnically distinct Ryukyuans in the south, Koreans, Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipinos and Brazilians, and in the north, the indigenous Aino minority of Hokkaido. The Republic of Ireland was until recently inhabited almost entirely by ethnic Irish, but the national territory is not considered complete by nationalists because it does not include Northern Ireland. Very few others approach the ideal model of the nation-state: the border does not correspond to the distribution of the national group. Sometimes that is impossible, because population is ethnically mixed, down to the level of individual streets or buildings. Where part of the national group lives in a neighbouring nation-state, it is usually called a national minority. In some cases states have reciprocal national minorities, for instance the Slovaks in Hungary and the Hungarian in Slovakia. National minorities should not be confused with a national diaspora, which is typically located far from the national border. Most modern diasporas result from economic migration. The existence of an Irish diaspora does not make the Republic of Ireland any less a nation-state, and does not affect Northern Ireland, since few emigrants go there anyway. The possession of dependent territories does influence the status of nation-state. A state with large colonial possessions is obviously inhabited by many ethnic groups, and does not conform to the ideal of a single-culture state. However, in most cases, the colonies were not considered an integral part of the motherland anyway, and were separately administered. Some European nation-states have dependent territories in Europe. Denmark contains virtually all ethnic Danes and has relatively few foreign nationals within it. However, it exercises sovereignty over the Faroe Islands and Greenland. If these are considered separate nations, then Denmark is not a classic nation-state.

Minorities and irredentism

So-called nation-states differ from the definition in two main ways: the population includes minorities, and the border does not include all the national group or its territory. Both have led to violent responses by nation-states, and nationalist movements. The nationalist definition of a nation is always exclusive: no nation has open membership. In most cases, there is a clear idea that surrounding nations are different. There are also historical examples of groups within the nation-state's territory who are specifically singled out as outsiders, such as the Roma and Jews in Europe, or Copts in Egypt. Negative responses to minorities within the nation-state have ranged from total assimilation to total extermination. Typically these responses are effected as state policy, though non-state violence in the form of pogroms occurs. However, many so-called nation-states do accept specific minorities as being in some way part of the nation, and the term national minority is often used in this sense. The Sorbs in Germany are an example: for centuries they have lived in German-speaking states, surrounded by a much larger ethnic German population, and they have no other historical territory. They are now generally considered to be part of the German nation, and are accepted as such by the Federal Republic of Germany, which constitutionally guarantees their cultural rights. Of the thousands of minorities and underlying ethnic nationalities in so-called nation-states across the world, only a few have this level of acceptance and protection. :Main article: Irredentism. The response to the non-inclusion of territory and population may take the form of irredentism, demands to annex unredeemed territory and incorporate it into the evolving so-called nation-state, as part of the national homeland. Irredentist claims are usually based on the fact that an identifiable part of the national group lives across the border, in another so-called nation-state. However, they can include claims to territory where no members of that nation live at present, either because they lived there in the past, or because the national language is spoken in that region, or because the national culture has influenced it, or because of geographical unity with the existing territory, or for a wide variety of other reasons. Past grievances are usually involved (see Revanchism). It is sometimes difficult to distinguish irredentism from pan-nationalism, since both claim that all members of an ethnic and cultural natio belong in one specific state. Pan-nationalism is less likely to ethnically specify the nation. For instance, variants of Pan-Germanism has different ideas about what constituted Greater Germany, including the confusing term Grossdeutschland - which in fact implied the inclusion of huge Slavic minorities from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Typically, irredentist demands are at first made by members of non-state nationalist movements. When they are adopted by a state, they result in tensions, and actual attempts at annexation are always considered a casus belli, a cause for war. In many cases, such claims result in long-term hostile relations between neighbouring states. Irredentist movements typically circulate maps of the claimed national territory, the greater nation-state. That territory, which is often much larger than the existing state, plays a central role in their propaganda. Examples include:
- Greater Albania
- Greater China
- Greater Finland
- Greater Germany, an expression of Pan-Germanism: compare Pan-Slavism
- Greater Greece, expressed in the policy of Megali Idea
- Greater Hungary
- Greater India
- Greater Morocco
- Greater Romania
- Greater Serbia
- Greater Somalia Irredentism should not be confused with claims to overseas colonies, which are not generally considered part of the national homeland. Some French overseas colonies would be an exception: French rule in Algeria did indeed treat the colony legally as a département of France, unsuccessfully. The US was more successful in Hawaii.

Conflicting nationalisms

Iceland not only has clear borders, it is inhabited by people who are either immigrants or self-identify as Icelandic. In many nation-states, all or part of the territory is claimed on behalf of more than one nation, by more than one nationalist movement. The intensity of the claims varies: some are no more than a suggestion, others are backed by armed secessionist groups. Belgium is a classic example of a disputed nation-state. The state was formed by secession from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830, and the Flemish population in the north speaks a dialect of Dutch. The Flemish identity is also ethnic and cultural, and there is a strong separatist movement. The Walloon identity is linguistic (French-speaking) and regionalist. There is also a unitary Belgian nationalism, several versions of a Greater Netherlands ideal, and a German-speaking region annexed from Prussia in 1920, and re-annexed by Germany in 1940-1944. The fact that a nation-state has a disputed territory in this way, does not make it less of a nation-state. If large sections of the population reject the national identity, the legitimacy of the state is undermined, and the efficiency of government is reduced, That is certainly the case in Belgium, where the inter-communal tensions dominate politics. Most states now declare themselves to be nation-states, that is states that attempt to define and enforce a state sponsored national identity. In the case of very large states, there are many competing claims and often many separatist movements. These movements usually dispute that the larger state is a real nation-state, and refer to it as an empire and what is called nation-building is actually empire-building. There is no objective standard for assessing which claim is correct, they are competing political claims. Large nation-states certainly need to define the nation on a broad basis. China, for example, uses the concept of "Zhonghua minzu," a Chinese people, although it also officially recognises the majority Han ethnic group, and no less than 55 national minorities.

History

The origins of the nation-state are disputed: see the main article on nationalism. Some theories see them as a 19th-century European invention, the product of nationalist movements, facilitated by developments such as mass literacy and the early mass media. Some see the nation-state as emerging in a few specific states, such as France and its rival England. They expanded from core regions, Paris and London, and developed a national consciousness, and sense of national identity (Frenchness and Englishness). Both assimilated peripheral regions and their cultures (Wales, Brittany, Aquitaine and Occitania), where regionalism and nationalism resurfaced in the 19th century. The idea of a nation-state is associated with the rise of the modern system of states, usually dated to the Treaty of Westphalia (1648). The balance of power, which characterises that system, depends for its effectiveness on clearly-defined, centrally controlled, independent entities, whether empires or nation-states. The nation-state received a philosophical underpinning from the era of Romanticism, at first as the 'natural' expression of the individual peoples (romantic nationalism). Since then many varieties of nationalism have developed. The increasing emphasis on the ethnic and racial origins of the nation, during the 19th century, led to a redefinition of the nation-state in ethnic and racial terms. That reached its height in the fascist movements of the 20th century. The combination of 'nation' ('people') and 'state' expressed in such terms as the Völkische Staat made fascist states such as early Nazi Germany qualitatively different from non-fascist nation-states. Obviously minorities, who are not part of the Volk, have no authentic or legitimate role in such a state. (The ultimate development of the Nazi state was determined by the total war which its conquests initiated, rather than Nazi theories of the state). In recent years, the nation-state's claim to absolute sovereignty within its borders has been much criticised. A global political system based on international agreements, and superanational blocs characterized the post-war era. Non-state actors, such as international corporations and non-governmental organizations, are widely seen as eroding the economic and political power of the nation-states.

Jennifer Government: NationStates

Jennifer Government: NationStates is a nation simulation game playable on the World Wide Web. It was created by Max Barry in late 2002, based loosely on his novel Jennifer Government.

Play

In the game, a player has charge of a "nation", deciding government policies on automatically-presented issues from a list of options. These decisions affect the character of the nation's status in the areas of Civil Rights, Economy, and Political Freedoms. Based on criteria closely related to these areas, nations range from 27 categories like Scandinavian Liberal Paradise and New York Times Democracy to Compulsory Consumerist State and Psychotic Dictatorship. Players can also dismiss issues: this has no effect. Players may also join the so-called United Nations, making their nations automatically affected by the decisions of that body, although various players role-play disobedience. Discussions on proposed resolutions take place on the forums, often home to all manner of political debate. A dedicated team of volunteers moderates the forums; most of them also moderate the game to keep it free from vandalism.

Group play

Groups of nations form regions. All players begin in one of five Pacific regions and may move their nations into any other region at any time, or set up a new region. Many regions have an elected leader and some participate in complex regional governments, though some contain only a handful of nations. Players commonly attempt to collectively "invade" another region by entering it and seizing control. Some regions have password-protection to stave off such attacks. Invaders must follow certain rules: nations that don't follow these rules often get deleted. Many multi-regional organisations have formed - either to organise invasions (known as raider-play by its adherents) or to organise those who defend against raider play (which defenders, as well as [http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/page=faq Max Barry], generally refer to as 'region crashing'). The longest-lasting and largest defender-group has the name the Alliance Defense Network or ADN. Other organisations include the Red Liberty Alliance (RLA), the Allied Liberation League (ALL), the Ten Thousand Islands Treaty Organization (TITO), the Emergency Auxiliary Army (EAA),the Pacific Defenders, the Rejected Realms Army (RRA),the Global Liberation Army (GLA), the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO), The Reborn Imperial Stronghold Empire Coalition (TRISEC), The Independent Defense Corps (IDC) and Confederacy of Free Regions(COFR). Invading, or "region crashing," first became prominent with a group of players calling themselves the Farkers, who all arrived due to links between the game and the website Fark.com. Later, groups such as the Atlantic Alliance and the World Pudding Alliance took up the hobby. The growth of defender organizations such as the ADN has lead to rivalries between them and other groups such as the New Pacific Order, or NPO, The NPO has recently reconstituted its government into the People's Republic of the Pacific. Other groups mostly comprise alliances of invaders. Some invaders include The DEN Base (formerly DEN), The Cathedral, Roll the Bones, Reign of Terror, and the self-explanatory region "Invaders". Some invader organizations don't exist for region-crashing but rather for expanding territory and for the destruction of regional groups dedicated to opposing ideologies. The organizations become fewer over time as region-crashing becomes more popular among newer players who have fewer ideological affiliations. Commonly, fights occur between regions supporting Fascism and regions supporting Socialism. There are also some mercenary organisations, such as Avian Militia, that conduct both defensive and offensive operations, but this is a relatively new concept and not widespread.

Roleplaying

NationStates' relatively simple simulation has given rise to more in-depth and freeform role-playing, with players using their nations' statistics to measure how their nations would fare in international trade, diplomacy, and war. Some players have even developed complex statistical calculators such as [http://nseconomy.thirdgeek.com/nseconomy.php NSEconomy] (though some controversy exists over the taking of most of the code from The Meritocracy). Part of the appeal of NationStates lies in the ability to create an unrealistic utopia (or dystopia) as the subject of conversation and political philosophising, without needing to worry about practical matters, like national defense, that might become factors in a more comprehensive simulation. It is important that each nation which participates in the forums develops a character all its own, and in many cases these characters can actually spread through the forum, resulting in the nation becoming well-known by others. For example, it is well known throughout the International Incidents forum that Euroslavia, who is now a moderator, is always willing to lend aid to new players in order to help during their first steps, if inexperienced with free-form roleplay.

Time-frames

One of the fascinating facets of the role-playing section of the game lies in growth of unofficial divisions to allow for a person to role-play not just what their nation does, but also what their nation is and when. The forums have evolved into several time-frames (Past, Modern, Post-Modern, Near-Future, Future, and Fantasy) where a player may model any of an unlimited number of fantasy or alien races as well as use technology that has long become obsolete, or even non-existent, in the present. Some regard the divisions between the times as barriers, so that players choosing to play in a more primitive time, say in Ancient Greece, would not have to contend with players utilizing space-ships and laser weaponry, such as one might find in certain types of science fiction, if they don't want to. Gradually, players often learn to have such interactions in a fair and balanced manner so that no player remains completely off-limits if one truly wishes to interact. On the other hand, some players desire to role-play only with nations in the same time-frame for realism. It is also important to realise that some of the gamers have now seen that it is possible to combine a number of time-frames and still maintain a degree of 'realism' within the forums. A good example of this is whereby a nation incorporates Fantasy and Future into a nation which has the ability to traverse the stars, but still maintains a force of mages for defence. The ability to use one's imagination furnishes another interesting dynamic of the game. While a vast majority of NationStates regions follow the simple founder/delegate scheme of the regional governments, some show more complexity, and assign Ministers with such portfolios as War, Recruitment, and Propaganda. Others completely revolutionize the system and employ even less-traditional governmental structures. In fact, it is now common practice for these nations to create factbooks for themselves, which serve not only as a reference sheet, but also allow other players to 'see' the structure of goverenment.

Technical history

Due to the unreliability of the NationStates server, which commonly led to slow or inaccessible forums, January 2004 saw the announcement that the British gaming company [http://www.jolt.co.uk Jolt] would take over hosting of the site as well as the development of NationStates-2. On 28 June, 2004, after several delays, the game switched to the new servers; however, continued programming issues compounded by the death of Max Barry's father caused the forums to remain down until July 13. Flag size increased to 10k from 6k approximately around August 15. A second version of the game, currently in development and called "NationStates 2", may include complex functions for war, trade, diplomacy, and customization.

Statistics

As of July 22 2005, players had set up over 1,300,000 individual nations since NationStates premiered in late 2002. At any time fewer than 150,000 remain in existence as a result of the deletion of nations due to various rule infractions and to inactivity. Though the specific time has varied greatly over the years on-line, NationStates has a current inactivity limit of 28 days (or 60 days if nation-owners place their offspring in "Vacation Mode"), after which the system automatically deletes the quiescent nation. However, the Moderators can resurrect nations deleted for inactivity (though not for rule-violations) on the request of the nation's original owner.

External links

- [http://www.nationstates.net/ Official Website]
- [http://www.maxbarry.com/jennifergovernment/ Jennifer Government webpage]
- [http://forums.jolt.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=1235 Jennifer Government: NationStates Forum]
- [http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=301112 List of websites and forums] for the various regions of NationStates
- [http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php NSwiki], a wiki encyclopedia about NationStates Category:Internet games

State

:This article discusses states as sovereign political entities; for other meanings, see state (disambiguation). A state is an organized political community occupying a definite territory, having an organized government, and possessing internal and external sovereignty. Recognition of the state's claim to independence by other states, enabling it to enter into international agreements, is often important to the establishment of its statehood, although some theories do not make this a requirement - for instance, the Montevideo Convention. The "state" can also be defined in terms of domestic conditions, specifically, as conceptualized by Max Weber, "a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory." [http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/study/xweb.htm] The exact meaning of this definition depends on what is understood by "legitimate". For more information see government.

Introduction

The word "state" in contemporary parlance often means the "Westphalian state", in reference to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. In this sense, the modern state is an entity that enjoys extensive autonomy in its domestic economic and social policy, largely free from interference from other states and powers. A number of modern commentators have claimed that we are experiencing the decline of the Westphalian state as the principal actor of the international system, pointing to economic, cultural, political, and technological changes in the world, such as globalization and the emergence of regional and supernational groupings such as the European Union. The term "state" is also used to describe subnational territorial divisions within a federal system, as in the case of the United States of America. See state (law) and state (non-sovereign). In common speech, the terms country, nation and state are casually used as synonyms, but in a more strict usage they are distinguished:
- country is the geographical area.
- nation designates a people (however, national and international both confusingly refer as well to matters pertaining to what are strictly states, as in "national capital", "international law").
- state refers to the government, and an entity in international law. Currently, the entire land surface of the Earth is divided among the territories of the roughly two hundred states now existing, with the special case of Antarctica, a variety of disputed territories, and a number of areas where state power exists in theory, but not in practice (the most significant of these being Somalia and Iraq).

Etymology

The word "state" originates from the medieval state or throne upon which the head of state (usually a monarch) would sit. By process of metonymy, the word state became used to refer to both the head of state and the power entity he represented (though the former meaning has fallen out of use). A similar association of terms can today be seen in the practice of referring to government buildings as having authority, for example "The White House today released a press statement..."

Formation of the state

The birth of the state, in the broadest sense of the word, coincides with the rise of civilization. For most of the existence of the human species, people lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers. That lifestyle began to change with the invention of agriculture around the 9th millennium BC. The practice of agriculture made it necessary for human beings to build permanent settlements and spend most of their lives in close proximity to the land they cultivated. Thus, control over land became an issue for the first time. To express that control, various forms of property rights developed, with people claiming different kinds of rights over various areas of land. Disagreements over the nature and extent of such claims of ownership degenerated into violence and the first "wars". In some parts of the world, notably Mesopotamia and the Nile valley, natural conditions favoured the concentration of land ownership in few hands. Eventually, a small group of people found themselves owning the land on which many other people worked for a living. This control over the land meant control over the people whose livelihoods depended on the land; thus, the first primitive states arose. These states were usually despotic and unstable, with the ruler(s) holding absolute power over their subjects until some other ruler(s) displaced them. Since there were no laws and no infrastructure, and since power was exercised arbitrarily, some political theorists and historians do not consider such early forms of despotic rule to have been states in the proper sense of the word; they are sometimes called proto-states. One of the earliest known sets of laws, the Code of Hammurabi, has been dated to ca. 1700 BC. It was around this time that the concept of law - one of the foundations of the modern state - began to appear. But the rulers of the Ancient Near East had a long tradition of holding absolute power and claiming the status of god-kings (see hydraulic despotism). Thus, laws limiting the power of monarchs did not develop very far in that region. The city-states of Ancient Greece were the first to establish states whose powers were clearly defined in laws (even if the laws themselves could usually be changed quite easily). Also, notably, the idea of democracy was born in ancient Athens (see Athenian democracy). Many institutions of the modern state (especially in Western Europe and areas once dominated by Western-European empires) can trace their origins back to Ancient Rome, which inherited the political traditions of the Greeks and developed them further (particularly the rule of law, albeit in incomplete form). However, the Roman Republic gave way to the Roman Empire - which, in turn, created the concept of universal empire: the idea that the entire world was (or should be) under the authority of one single legitimate state. The fall of the Roman Empire and the Great Migrations changed the character of European politics. The "barbarian" (i.e., non-Roman) kingdoms and chieftains that followed the Roman Empire were ephemeral and transitory and bore little resemblance to the modern state. Even the kingdom of Charlemagne was fleeting; without the tradition of primogeniture, it dissolved into three smaller kingdoms with the Treaty of Verdun in 843. These kingdoms were treated more as land holdings by the royalty that ruled them. Once again, the state became little more than an expression of the ruler's private ownership of a certain area of land. The lack of a real successor to the Roman Empire in Western Europe created a power vacuum. The kingdoms of Western Europe were besieged by invaders on the frontiers - first, the Muslim invasions from the south, then a series of new migrations from the east and finally the Viking invasions from the north. At the same time, the various kingdoms (and smaller political units) were often involved in wars with each other over territory and succession. The solution that evolved out of these affairs was decidedly opposed to the system of independent states and temporary alliances that dominate the modern international system. Religion, which had rarely been a factor in the power calculations of Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, became the cornerstone of an extremely loose pan-European defensive bloc under the aegis of the Catholic Church. This system produced an extensive framework of institutions - sometimes called "feudalism" - that regulated internal conflict and enabled Western Europe to confront exterior threats, even while no individual secular entity was truly independent in the sense of the modern state. This system asserted itself abroad in the form of the Crusades as the Middle Ages progressed. In 1302, Pope Boniface VIII stated that the political powers of Christendom exercised their prerogatives "at the command and sufferance of the priest." This limited the power of kings, who were obliged to pledge their ultimate allegiance to the Pope. The Holy Roman Empire, one of the strongest medieval authorities, emerged as a competitor to Papal power under Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who invaded Italy to press his claims to secular authority in the mid-12th century. The weakening of the papacy was a major theme of the Middle Ages; the Western Schism in the later 14th century, a dispute over papal succession, was exploited by secular authorities and contributed to their growing power. The emergence of large, stable land holdings by single dynasties - for instance, France and Castile - enabled them to take a more active and independent role than their traditionally subsidiary role in the earlier middle ages. This shift to more independent, more secular actors would become a major point of controversy in Early Modern Europe. The great dynasties of Europe dramatically consolidated power by the beginning of the 16th century; additionally, the external threats to Europe had considerably lessened. The Reformation was to have a powerful impact on the structure of European politics; the dispute was not only theological, but also threatened the very fabric of the ancient political institutions of feudalism. The bloody conflicts that followed, blending the religious and political, pitted those who asserted the authority of the Pope (and in Germany, the Holy Roman Emperor) against those who asserted the authority of secular authorities and their sovereign ability to make internal policy, particularly when that policy reflected religious affiliation, Roman Catholic or Protestant. These conflicts culminated in the Thirty Years' War of the 17th century. In 1648, the powers of Europe signed the Treaty of Westphalia which ended the religious violence for purely political motives and the Church was stripped of temporal power - even though religion continued to play a political role as the foundation of the divine right of kings. The principle of "cuius regio, eius religio" established at Westphalia and previously in the Peace of Augsburg set a precedent of noninterference in other states' internal affairs that was key in the evolution of the modern state. In Germany, the office of the Holy Roman Emperor, the most prominent symbol of lingering institutions of feudalism, was emasculated as a secular authority in favor of the constituent elements of the Holy Roman Empire. The modern state was born. The state continued to develop as monarchs brought nobles and free towns into line and amassed spectacular resources and prestige. The growing numbers of civil servants eventually became known as the bureaucracy after the elevation of the Republican ideal. Nearly a century and a half after the Peace of Westphalia, the state became fully modern through the French Revolution. Claiming 'national will' as its justification, Napoleon and the Grande Armee of France swept over Europe. In response, conquered and neighboring principalities discarded their old systems and adopted the new model of the nation state. The nation state has remained the dominant political entity all over the world ever since, even though the many ideologies of the 19th and 20th century have created numerous different ways of running the affairs of nation states, as well as numerous different forms of internal and external organization (see political system and economic system).

International point of view

The legal criteria for statehood are not obvious. A document that is often quoted on the matter is the Montevideo Convention from 1933, the first article of which states: :The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states. Also, in article 3 it very clearly states that statehood is independent of recognition by other states. This is the declarative theory of statehood. While the Montevideo is a regional American convention and has no legal effect outside the Americas, some have nonetheless seen it as an accurate statement of customary international law. On the other hand, article 3 of the convention is attacked by the advocates of the constitutive theory of statehood, where a state exists only insofar as it is recognized by other states. Which theory is correct is a controversial issue in international law. An example in practice was the collapse of central government in Somalia in the early 1990s: the Montevideo convention would imply that the state of Somalia no longer existed, and the subsequently declared republic of Somaliland (comprising part of the so-called "former" Somalia) may meet the criteria for statehood. However the self-declared republic has not achieved recognition by other states. Article 1 of the convention is also attacked by those who claim that it fails to take into account the complicated situations of military occupation, territorial cession, and governments in exile. Richard W. Hartzell is a leading proponent of this view, and stresses that the four criteria of article 1 need to be expanded to nine. See [http://www.taiwanadvice.com/conventions/montconv.htm The Montevideo Convention and Military Occupation].

The domestic point of view

Looked at from the point of view of an individual nation, the state is a centralized organization of the whole country. Those studying this dimension emphasize the relationship between the state and its people. The English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued that in order to avoid a multi-sided civil war, in which life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short", individuals must necessarily surrender many of their "natural rights" -- including that of attacking each other -- to the "Leviathan", a unified and centralized state. In this tradition, Max Weber and Norbert Elias defined the state as an organization of people that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in a particular geographic area. Also in this tradition, the state differs from the "government": the latter refers to the group of people who make decisions for the state. For Weber, this was an "ideal type", or model, or pure case of the state. Many institutions that have been called "states" do not live up to this definition. For example, in countries such as Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the central state has so far not succeeded in monopolizing the legitimate use of force, and must compete with various local warlords. These cases are sometimes called "failed states". One of the most basic characteristics of a modern state is regulation of property rights, investment, trade and the commodity markets (in food, fuel, etc.) typically using its own currency. Although many states (by their own decision) increasingly cede these powers to trade bloc entities, e.g. North American Free Trade Agreement, European Union, it is always controversial to do so, and opens the question of whether these blocs are in fact simply larger states. The study of political economy, which evolved into the modern study of economics, deals with these specific questions in more detail. However, although states are often influenced in their decisions and no longer hold an absolute jurisdiction over their internal affairs, they are nonetheless much stronger in relation to international organizations or to other states than lower (substate) political subdivisions normally are. But the trend at the moment is for the power of superstate levels of governance to increase, and there is no sign of this increase abating. Many (especially those who favour constitutional theories of international law) therefore reject as outdated the idea of sovereignty, and view the state as just the chief political subdivision of the planet.

Philosophies of the state

Different political philosophies have distinct opinions concerning the state as a domestic organization. In the modern era, these philosophies emerged with the rise of capitalism, which coincided with the (re)emergence of the state as a separate and centralized sector of society. Philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau pondered issues concerning the ideal and actual roles of the state. Recent philosophers like John Rawls and Robert Nozick were more concerned with distributive justice and the morality of exercising political power. There are four theories about the origin (and indirectly the justification) of the state. They are:
- Supernatural or natural authority - In this view, the state is either ordained by a higher power (such as God for the "Divine right of kings") or arises naturally out of a presumed human need for order and authority.
- Natural rights - According to this theory, human beings have certain rights that are "natural" (the implications of this word may vary), and establish states for the protection of those rights.
- Social contract - This idea holds that the state is established by the people (i.e. through the consent of the governed) in order to provide for various collective needs that cannot be satisfied through individual efforts, such as national defense, public roads, education, "the general welfare", etc.
- Conflict - Perhaps the simplest of the theories, it holds that the state did not arise out of any conscious decision, but merely as the result of violent conflict. Various groups of people fought each other for control over land or other resources, and the winning side imposed its domination on the losing side. These four theories can accommodate the full spectrum of political views. In practice, most people (and most political philosophies) subscribe to a combination of two or more of the above theories - arguing, for example, that different states have different origins. The conflict theory, in particular, is often combined with one of the other three in order to separate the illegitimate states (those created through conflict and subjugation) from the legitimate ones. There are at least five major philosophies of the state today, the last four of which correspond to specific political ideologies: contractarianism, liberalism, Marxism, conservatism, and anarchism. Contractarianism, as the name implies, is based on the social contract theory. It is also the only major philosophy of the state that does not fall within any single political ideology - perhaps because several different ideologies have adopted it as their own. Contractarianism is the foundation of modern democracy, as well as most forms of socialism and some types of liberalism. In contractarian thinking, the state should express the public interest, the interests of the whole society, and reconcile it with the separate interests of individuals. The state provides public goods and other kinds of collective consumption, while preventing individuals from free-riding (taking advantage of collective consumption without paying) by forcing them to pay taxes. Liberalism, in the classical sense, is based mainly on the natural rights theory. In this view, some or even all "rights" exist naturally and are not created by the state. For example, John Locke believed that individual property rights existed prior to the creation of the state, while the state's main job should be to preserve those rights. Historically, liberals have been less concerned with determining what the state should do and far more interested in stipulating what the state shouldn't do. The liberal philosophy of the state holds that the powers of any state are restricted by natural rights that exist independently of the human mind and overrule any social contract. However, there has been considerable debate among liberals as to what these natural rights actually are. Critics argue that they do not exist at all, since they are not evident from any observations of nature. On the other hand, there are also liberals who subscribe to the contractarian theory. In most cases, they fall on the left wing of liberalism, being social liberals ("New Deal" liberals; see American liberalism) and arguing for a welfare state. They stand in opposition to adherents of the natural rights theory, who tend to be libertarians, falling on the right wing of liberalism and arguing for a "minimal" state. The Marxist philosophy of the state is based on the conflict theory - specifically, on the idea of class conflict. In this view, the primary role of the state in practice is to enforce the existing system of unequal property and personal rights, class domination, and exploitation. The state also mediates in all types of social conflicts, and supplies necessary social-infrastructural conditions for society as a whole. Under such systems as feudalism, the lords used their own military force to exploit their vassals. Under capitalism, on the other hand, the use of force is centralized in a specialized organization which protects the capitalists' class monopoly of ownership of the means of production, allowing the exploitation of those without such ownership. In modern Marxian theory, such class domination can coincide with other forms of domination (such as patriarchy and ethnic hierarchies). Further, in Marxist theory, classes and other forms of exploitation should be abolished by establishing a socialist system, to be followed later by a communist one. Communism, the final goal, is a classless, propertyless and stateless society; however, socialism still preserves personal property and a (democratic) state. Thus, Marxism is opposed to the state (which it views as illegitimate, in accordance with the conflict theory), but does not wish to abolish the state immediately. As such, there is some overlap between Marxism and contractarianism: the socialist state that Marxists wish to establish as their short-term goal is to be based on a form of social contract. This state ought subsequently to slowly "wither away" as the representative democracy of socialism gradually transforms into the direct democracy of communism. Once the process is complete, the communist social order has been achieved and the state no longer exists as an entity separate from the people. In conservative thinking, which is based on the theory of (super)natural authority, the existing structure of traditions and hierarchies (of class, patriarchy, ethnic dominance, etc.) is seen as benefiting society overall. Thus, in a way, conservatives accept some ideas from both the Marxist and the liberal schools of thought, but view them in a different light: the state forces people to accept class and other kinds of domination, but this is seen as being for their own good. This perspective posits that, in general, current traditions only exist because they have been demonstrably successful in the past. Further, as with the liberals, the state is seen as always existing and/or "natural". Many conservatives, especially in recent decades, have come out in favor of the liberal theory of natural rights. Finally, in anarchist thinking, the state is nothing but an unnecessary and exploitative segment of society. Totally rejecting the Hobbesian notion that only a state can prevent chaos, anarchists argue that the state's monopoly of violence creates chaos. They believe that if the state and its restrictions on individual freedom were abolished, people could figure out how to work together peacefully and individual creativity would be unleashed. Contrary to the Marxist perspective, the anarchists see the state as an unnecessary evil, rather than a tool to be used in the class struggle.

References

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External links

- Franz Oppenheimer; [http://www.opp.uni-wuppertal.de/oppenheimer/st/state0.htm The State. (1914/1922)]
- Franz Oppenheimer; [http://www.opp.uni-wuppertal.de/oppenheimer/fo27a.htm The Idolatry of the State. (1927)] Category:International law Category:International relations Category:Social sciences Category:Political geography ja:国家 simple:State th:รัฐ

Political

Politics is the process by which decisions are made for a given society. The method of making decisions for groups varies, but the act of decision making is the key component that characterises politics. Although it is generally applied to governments, politics is also observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions. Political science is the study of political behavior and examines the acquisition and application of power, i.e. the ability to impose one's will on another. One theorist, Harold Lasswell, has defined politics as "who gets what, when, and how." Another definition of 'politics' is: "how power is distributed within a group or system".

A natural state

In 1651, Thomas Hobbes published his most famous work, Leviathan, in which he proposed a model of early human development to justify the creation of human associations. Hobbes described an ideal state of nature wherein every person had equal right to every resource in nature and was free to use any means to acquire those resources. He noted that such an arrangement created a “war of all against all” (bellum omnium contra omnes). Further, he noted that men would enter into a social contract and would give up absolute rights for certain protections. While it appears that social cooperation and dominance hierarchies predate human societies, Hobbes’s model illustrates a rationale for the creation of societies (polities).

Early history

V.G. Childe describes the transformation of human society that took place around 6000 BCE as an urban revolution. Among the features of this new type of civilization were the institutionalization of social stratification, non-agricultural specialised crafts (including priests and lawyers), taxation, and writing. All of which require clusters of densely populated settlements - city-states. The word "Politics" is derived from the Greek word for city-state, "Polis". Corporate, religious, academic and every other polity, especially those constrained by limited resources, contain dominance hierarchy and therefore politics. Politics is most often studied in relation to the administration of governments. The oldest form of government was tribal organization. Rule by elders was supplanted by monarchy, and a system of Feudalism as an arrangement where a single family dominated the political affairs of a community. Monarchies have existed in one form or another for the past 5000 years of human history.

Definitions

- Power is the ability to impose one's will on another. It implies a capacity for force, i.e violence.
- Authority is the power to enforce laws, to exact obedience, to command, to determine, or to judge.
- Legitimacy is an attribute of government gained through the acquisition and application of power in accordance with recognized or accepted standards or principles.
- A government is the body that has the authority to make and enforce rules or laws.

Political power

Samuel Gompers’ often paraphrased maxim,"Reward your friends and punish your enemies," hints at two of the five types of power recognized by social psychologists: incentive power (the power to reward) and coercive power (the power to punish). Arguably the other three grow out of these two. Legitimate power, the power of the policeman or the referee, is the power given to an individual by a recognized authority to enforce standards of behavior. Legitimate power is similar to coercive power in that unacceptable behavior is punished by fine or penalty. Referent power is bestowed upon individuals by virtue of accomplishment or attitude. Fulfillment of the desire to feel similar to a celebrity or a hero is the reward for obedience. Expert power springs from education or experience. Following the lead of an experienced coach is often rewarded with success. Expert power is conditional to the circumstances. A brain surgeon is no help when your pipes are leaking.

Authority and legitimacy

Max Weber identified three sources of legitimacy for authority known as (tripartite classification of authority). He proposed three reasons why people followed the orders of those who gave them:

Traditional

Traditional authorities receive loyalty because they continue and support the preservation of existing values, the status quo. Traditional authority has the longest history. Patriarchal (and more rarely Matriarchal) societies gave rise to hereditary monarchies where authority was given to descendants of previous leaders. Followers submit to this authority because "we've always done it that way." Examples of traditional authoritarians include kings and queens.

Charismatic

Charismatic authority grows out of the personal charm or the strength of an individual personality (see cult of personality for the most extreme version). Charismatic regimes are often short lived, seldom outliving the charismatic figure that leads them. Examples include Hitler, Napoleon, and Mao.

Legal-rational

Legal-Rational authorities receive their ability to compel behavior by virtue of the office that they hold. It is the authority that demands obedience to the office rather than the office holder. Modern democracies are examples of legal-rational regimes.

References

GOMPERS,SAMUEL; “Men of Labor! Be Up and Doing,” editorial, American Federationist, May 1906, p. 319

Nation

:For publications of this name, see also Nation (disambiguation). One of the most influential doctrines in history is that all humans are divided into groups called nations. It is an ethical and philosophical doctrine in itself, and is the starting point for the ideology of nationalism. The nationals (the members of the "nation") are distinguished by a common identity, and almost always by a common origin, in the sense of ancestry, parentage or descent. The national identity refers both to the distinguishing features of the group, and to the individual’s sense of belonging to it. A very wide range of criteria is used, with very different application. Small differences in pronunciation may be enough to categorise someone as a member of another nation. On the other hand, two people may be separated by difference in personalities, belief systems, geographical locations, time and even spoken language, yet regard themselves and be seen by others, as members of the same nation. Nationals are considered to share certain traits and norms of behaviour, certain duties toward other members, and certain responsibilities for the actions of the members of the same nation. Nations extend across generations, and include the dead as full members. More vaguely, they are assumed to include future generations. No-one fixes a timespan, but a nation is typically several centuries old. Past events are evaluated in this context, for instance by referring to "our soldiers" in conflicts which took place hundreds of years ago. The term nation is often used synonymously with ethnic group (sometimes "ethnos"), but although ethnicity is now one of the most important aspects of cultural or social identity for the members of most nations, people with the same ethnic origin may live in different nation-states and be treated as members of separate nations for that reason. National identity is often disputed, down to the level of the individual. A state which explicitly identifies as the homeland of a particular nation is a nation-state, and most modern states fall into this category, although there may be violent disputes about their legitimacy. In common usage, terms such as nations, country, land and state often appear as near-synonyms, i.e., for a territory under a single sovereign government, or the inhabitants of such a territory, or the government itself; in other words, a de jure or de facto state. In a more strict sense, however, terms such as nation, ethnos, and peoples denominate a group of human beings, in contrast to country which denominates a territory, whereas state expresses a legitimised administrative and decision-making institution. Confusingly, the terms national and international are used as technical terms applying to states, see country.

Origins

The origins of nations are disputed, and these disputes form a major issue in the theory of nationalism. There are some biological theories of its origin, which see humans as territorial animals and the nation as a territory in this sense. Most theorists reject this as simplistic, and treat nations as a relatively late human social grouping. The most widely quoted theories place their origin in the late 18th and 19th century, although this dating is very disputed. Certainly the identification with a "nation" was promoted by early romantic nationalism at that time, usually in opposition to multi-ethnic (and autocratic) empires. The Avishai Margalit in The Ethics of Memory (2002), discusses the defining role of memory in shaping nations: "A nation," he says acerbically, "has famously been defined as a society that nourishes a common delusion about its ancestry and shares a common hatred for its neighbors. Thus, the bond of caring in a nation hinges on false memory (delusion) and hatred of those who do not belong."

Etymology

The first recorded use of the word "nation" was in 968, when Liutprand, bishop of Cremona, while confronting the Byzantine emperor on behalf of his patron Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, boldly declared in his report, "The Land": I answered, "which you say belongs to your empire belongs, as the nationality and language of the people proves, to the kingdom of Italy." (emphasis added)[http://mediaeval.ucdavis.edu/20A/Luitprand.html] The term derives from Latin natio and originally described the colleagues in a college or students, above all at the University of Paris, who were all born within a pays, spoke the same language and expected to be ruled by their own familiar law. In 1383 and 1384, while studying theology at Paris, Jean Gerson was twice elected procurator for the French nation (i.e. the French-born Francophone students at the University). The Paris division of students into nations was adopted at the University of Prague, where from its opening in 1349 the studium generale was divided among Bohemian, Bavarian, Saxon and various Polish nations.

Modern understanding

Since the 19th century, it is considered the norm that a nation coincides with a sovereign state, called a nation-state. That norm itself derives from the ideology of nationalism, which asserts that each nation deserves its own state. Before the 19th century, it is difficult to find examples that fit the modern idea of a nation-state. That does not mean that there is agreement on the number of nations, and their equivalence with a nation-state. Very few nations and nation-states have an undisputed territory and borders. There are many self-government movements, such as those in Belgium, the United Kingdom and Spain. There are nations which describe themselves as stateless nations, such as those of the Kurds and Assyrians. Claimed national territory may be partitioned, as in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. There are also examples of national identity without a corresponding state, or claim to a state. England is a nation in the United Kingdom, but unlike the other four component nations (Northern Ireland, Cornwall, Scotland and Wales) there has, until recently, been little sign of aspiration to self-government (see Campaign for an English Parliament). The term "state-nation" is sometimes used, for nations where the common identity derives from shared citizenship of a state. It implies that the state was formed first, and that the sense of national identity developed later, or in parallel. The Netherlands and France are often quoted as examples. However, both countries also have a strong ethnic identity and cultural identity, reflected in widespread attitudes to immigrants. If the nation was defined only by citizenship, then naturalised citizens would be accepted as equal members of the nation, and that is not the case. In most countries citizenship is sharply distinguished from nationality. Nation-states vary in their attitude to naturalisation and citizenship. In the United States, the only legal restriction on naturalised citizens is, that they may not hold the office of President, and the only act required of new citizens is an Oath of Allegiance. Many other countries have language and cultural knowledge tests, but they may be intended primarily as a barrier to immigration. Almost all nations are associated with a specific territory, the national homeland. Some live in a historical diaspora, that is, mainly outside the national homeland. The term diaspora now refers mainly to dispersed economic migrants and their descendants. The Roma, who are considered in some parts of Europe to be a distinct nation, are a diaspora without a clearly identified homeland. Where territory is disputed between nations, the claims may be based on which nation lived there first - the nation is considered to include past members. That is mainly the case in areas of historical European settlement (1500-1950). The term "First Nations" is used by groups which share an aboriginal culture, and seek official recognition or autonomy. The term nation is widely used, by extension or metaphor, to describe any group promoting some common interest or common identity, see Red Sox Nation and Queer Nation.

Related concepts

- Nationality
- Nationalism
- Nation-state
- Home Nations
- Country
- Constituent countries
- State
- State (law)
- Ethnicity
- Ethnic group
- Race
- Society
- Identity
- Identity politics

Links

- [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv3-41 Dictionary of the History of Ideas[:] Medieval and Renaissance ideas of Nation
- [http://www.tamilnation.org/nation.htm What is a Nation?] - Nadesan Satyendra Category:Ethnicity Category:Political geography ja:国民 simple:Nation

Cultural

:For other uses of Culture or Cultures, see Culture (disambiguation) The word culture, from the Latin root colere (to inhabit, to cultivate, or to honor), generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. Different definitions of "culture" reflect different theoretical orientations for understanding, or criteria for valuing, human activity. Anthropologists most commonly use the term "culture" to refer to the universal human capacity to classify, codify and communicate their experiences symbolically. This capacity is a defining feature of the genus Homo.

Defining culture

Different definitions of culture reflect different theories for understanding - or criteria for valuing - human activity. Sir Edward B. Tylor wrote in 1871 that "culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society", while a 2002 document from the United Nations agency UNESCO states that culture is the "set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs". http://www.unesco.org/education/imld_2002/unversal_decla.shtml UNESCO, 2002 While these two definitions range widely, they do not exhaust the many uses of this concept - in 1952 Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of more than 200 different definitions of culture in their book, Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions [Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952].

Culture as civilization

Many people today use a conception of "culture" that developed in Europe during the 18th and early 19th centuries. This idea of culture then reflected inequalities within European societies, and between European powers and their colonies around the world. It identifies "culture" with "civilization" and contrasts the combined concept with "nature". According to this thinking, one can classify some countries as more civilized than others, and some people as more cultured than others. Thus some cultural theorists have actually tried to eliminate popular or mass culture from the definition of culture. Theorists like Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) or the Leavises regard culture as simply the result of "the best that has been thought and said in the world” (Arnold, 1960: 6), thus labeling anything that doesn't fit into this category as chaos or anarchy. On this account, culture links closely with social cultivation: the progressive refinement of human behavior. Arnold consistently uses the word this way: "...culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world". http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/nonfiction_u/arnoldm_ca/ca_all.html Arnold, 1882 In practice, culture referred to élite goods and activities such as haute cuisine, high fashion or haute couture, museum-caliber art and classical music, and the word cultured described people who knew about, and took part in, these activities. For example, someone who used 'culture' in the sense of 'cultivation' might argue that classical music "is" more refined than music produced by working-class people such as punk rock or than the indigenous music traditions of aboriginal peoples of Australia. People who use "culture" in this way tend not to use it in the plural as "cultures". They do not believe that distinct cultures exist, each with their own internal logic and values; but rather that only a single standard of refinement suffices, against which one can measure all groups. Thus, according to this worldview, people with different customs from those who regard themselves as cultured do not usually count as "having a different culture"; but class as "uncultured". People lacking "culture" often seemed more "natural", and observers often defended (or criticized) elements of high culture for repressing "human nature". From the 18th century onwards, some social critics have accepted this contrast between cultured and uncultured, but have stressed the interpretation of refinement and of sophistication as corrupting and unnatural developments which obscure and distort people's essential nature. On this account, folk music (as produced by working-class people) honestly expresses a natural way of life, and classical music seems superficial and decadent. Equally, this view often portrays non-Western people as 'noble savages' living authentic unblemished lives, uncomplicated and uncorrupted by the highly-stratified capitalist systems of the West. Today most social scientists reject the monadic conception of culture, and the opposition of culture to nature. They recognize non-élites as just as cultured as élites (and non-Westerners as just as civilized) - simply regarding them as just cultured in a different way. Thus social observers contrast the "high" culture of élites to "popular" or pop culture, meaning goods and activities produced for, and consumed by, non-élite people or the masses. (Note that some classifications relegate both high and low cultures to the status of subcultures.)

Culture as worldview

During the Romantic era, scholars in Germany, especially those concerned with nationalist movements - such as the nationalist struggle to create a "Germany" out of diverse principalities, and the nationalist struggles by ethnic minorities against the Austro-Hungarian Empire - developed a more inclusive notion of culture as "worldview". In this mode of thought, a distinct and incommensurable world view characterizes each ethnic group. Although more inclusive than earlier views, this approach to culture still allowed for distinctions between "civilized" and "primitive" or "tribal" cultures. By the late 19th century, anthropologists had adopted and adapted the term culture to a broader definition that they could apply to a wider variety of societies. Attentive to the theory of evolution, they assumed that all human beings evolved equally, and that the fact that all humans have cultures must in some way result from human evolution. They also showed some reluctance to use biological evolution to explain differences between specific cultures - an approach that either exemplified a form of, or legitimized forms of, racism. They believed that biological evolution would produce a most inclusive notion of culture, a concept that anthropologists could apply equally to non-literate and to literate societies, or to nomadic and to sedentary societies. They argued that through the course of their evolution, human beings evolved a universal human capacity to classify experiences, and to encode and communicate them symbolically. Since human individuals learned and taught these symbolic systems, the systems began to develop independently of biological evolution (in other words, one human being can learn a belief, value, or way of doing something from another, even if the two humans do not share a biological relationship). That this capacity for symbolic thinking and social learning stems from human evolution confounds older arguments about nature versus nurture. Thus Clifford Geertz (1973: 33 ff.) has argued that human physiology and neurology developed in conjunction with the first cultural activities, and Middleton (1990: 17 n.27) concluded that human "'instincts' were culturally formed". People living apart from one another develop unique cultures, but elements of different cultures can easily spread from one group of people to another. Culture changes dynamically and people can (must?) teach and learn culture, making it a potentially rapid form of adaptation to change in physical conditions. Anthropologists view culture as not only as a product of biological evolution but as a supplement to it, as the main means of human adaptation to the world. This view of culture as a symbolic system with adaptive functions, and one which varies from place to place, led anthropologists to conceive of different cultures as defined by distinct patterns (or structures) of enduring, arbitrary, conventional sets of meaning, which took concrete form in a variety of artifacts such as myths and rituals, tools, the design of housing, and the planning of villages. Anthropologists thus distinguish between material culture and symbolic culture, not only because each reflects different kinds of human activity, but also because they constitute different kinds of data that require different methodologies. This view of culture, which came to dominate between World War I and World War II, implied that each culture had bounds and demanded interpretation as a whole, on its own terms. There resulted a belief in cultural relativism; the belief that one had to understand an individual's actions in terms of his or her culture; that one had to understand a specific cultural artifact (a ritual, for example) in terms of the larger symbolic system of which it forms a part. Nevertheless, the belief that culture comprises symbolical codes and can thus pass via teaching from one person to another meant that cultures, although bounded, would change. Cultural change could result from invention and innovation, but it could also result from contact between two cultures. Under peaceful conditions, contact between two cultures can lead to people "borrowing" (really, learning) from one another (diffusion or transculturation). Under conditions of violence or political inequality, however, people of one society can "steal" cultural artifacts from another, or impose cultural artifacts on another (acculturation). Diffusion of innovations theory presents a research-based model for how, when and why people adopt new ideas. All human societies have participated in these processes of diffusion, transculturation, and acculturation, and few anthropologists today see cultures as bounded. Modern anthropologists argue that instead of understanding a cultural artifact in terms of its own culture, one needs to understand it in terms of a broader history involving contact and relations with other cultures. In addition to the aforementioned processes, migration on a major scale has characterized the world, particularly since the days of Columbus. Phenomena such as colonial expansion and forced migration through slavery became prominent. As a result, many societies have become culturally heterogeneous. Some anthropologists have argued nevertheless that some unifying cultural system bound heterogeneous societies, and that it offers advantages to understand heterogenous elements as subcultures. Others have argued that no unifying or coordinating cultural system exists, and that one must understand heterogeneous elements together as forming a multicultural society. The spread of the doctrine of multiculturalism has coincided with a resurgence of identity politics, which involve demands for the recognition of social subgroups' cultural uniqueness. Sociobiologists argue that observers can best understand many aspects of culture in the light of the concept of the meme, first introduced by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins suggests the existence of units of culture - memes - roughly analogous to genes in evolutionary biology. Although this view has gained some popular currency, anthropologists generally reject it.

Culture as values, norms, and artifacts

Another common way of understanding culture sees it as consisting of three elements: # values # norms # artifacts. (See Dictionary of Modern Sociology, 1969, 93, cited at [http://www.info.gov.hk/coy/eng/report/doc/Youth_Statistical/2002/app/Chp6_Cultural_Capital.pdf]) Values comprise ideas about what in life seems important. They guide the rest of the culture. Norms consist of expectations of how people will behave in different situations. Each culture has different methods, called sanctions, of enforcing its norms. Sanctions vary with the importance of the norm; norms that a society enforces formally have the status of laws. Artifacts — things, or material culture — derive from the culture's values and norms. Julian Huxley gives a slightly different division, into inter-related "mentifacts", "socifacts" and "artifacts", for ideological, sociological, and technological subsystems respectively. Socialization, in Huxley's view, depends on the belief subsystem. The sociological subsystem governs interaction between people. Material objects and their use make up the technological subsystem. [http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~aforsber/ccsf/culture_defined.html] As a rule, archeologists focus on material culture whereas cultural anthropologists focus on symbolic culture, although ultimately both groups maintain interests in the relationships between these two dimensions. Moreover, anthropologists understand "culture" to refer not only to consumption goods, but to the general processes which produce such goods and give them meaning, and to the social relationships and practices in which such objects and processes become embedded.

Culture as patterns of products and activities

In the early 20th century, anthropologists understood culture to refer not to a set of discrete products or activities (whether material or symbolic) but rather to underlying patterns of products and activities. Moreover, they assumed that such patterns had clear bounds (thus, some people confuse "culture" with the society that has a particular culture). In the case of smaller societies, in which people merely fell into categories of age, gender, household and descent group, anthropologists believed that people more-or-less shared the same set of values and conventions. In the case of larger societies, in which people undergo further categorization by region, race, ethnicity, and class, anthropologists came to believe that members of the same society often had highly contrasting values and conventions. They thus used the term subculture to identify the cultures of parts of larger societies. Since subcultures reflect the position of a segment of society vis a vis other segments and the society as a whole, they often reveal processes of domination and resistance. The 20th century also saw the popularization of the idea of corporate culture - distinct and malleable within the context of an employing organization or of a workplace.

Culture as Symbols

The symbolic view of culture, the legacy of Clifford Geertz (1973) and Victor Turner (1967), holds symbols to be both the practices of social actors and the context that gives such practices meaning. Anthony P. Cohen (1985) writes of the "symbolic gloss" which allows social actors to use common symbols to communicate and understand each other while still imbuing these symbols with personal significance and meanings. Symbols provide the limits of cultured thought. Members of a culture rely on these symbols to frame their thoughts and expressions in intelligible terms. In short, symbols make culture possible, reproducible and readable. They are the "webs of significance" in Weber's sense that, to quote Pierre Bourdieu (1977), "give regularity, unity and systematicity to the practices of a group...".

Culture as stabilizing mechanism

Modern cultural theory also considers the possibility that (a) culture itself is a product of stabilization tendencies inherent in evolutionary pressures toward self-similarity and self-cognition of societies as wholes, or tribalisms. See Steven Wolfram "A new kind of science" on iterated simple algorithms from genetic unfolding, from which the concept of culture as an operating mechanism can be developed, and Richard Dawkins "The extended phenotype" for discussion of genetic and memetic stability over time, through negative feedback mechanisms, such as Wikipedia.

Cultural change

Cultures, by predisposition, both embrace and resist change dependence of culture traits. For example, men and women have complementary roles in many cultures. One sex might desire changes that affect the other, as happened in the second half of the 20th century in western cultures. Cultural change can come about due to the environment, to inventions (and other internal influences), and to contact with other cultures. For example, the end of the last ice age helped lead to the invention of agriculture, which in its turn brought about many cultural innovations. In diffusion, the form of something moves from one culture to another, but not its meaning. For example, hamburgers, mundane in the United States, seemed exotic when introduced into China. "Stimulus diffusion" refers to an element of one culture leading to an invention in another. Diffusions of innovations theory presents a research-based model for why and when individuals and cultures adopt new ideas, practices, and products. "Acculturation" has different meanings, but in this context refers to replacement of the traits of one culture with those of another, such as happened to certain Native American tribes and to many indigenous peoples across the globe during the process of colonization. Related processes on an individual level include assimilation (adoption of a different culture by an individual) and transculturation.

Propagating culture

Insofar as culture grows and changes naturally within human society, it requires little or no formal propagation. Families or age-based peer-groups will instinctively foster (and develop) their own cultural norms. But few cultures act in such a laissez faire manner. Most societies develop some sort of religion or similar basis for inculcating and preserving established or "correct" cultural behavior. And many societies take the task of education out of the hands of priests and shamans and place it on a wider footing, so that the young (at least) gain a practical and emotional identification with a standardised version of their nurturing culture. Groups of immigrants, exiles, or minorities often form cultural associations or clubs to preserve their own cultural roots in the face of a surrounding (generally more locally-dominant) culture. Thus the world has acquired many Garibaldi Clubs, Pushkin Societies, and underground schools. On a broader scale, many countries market their cultural heritage internationally. This occurs not only in the promotion of tourism (importing money), but also in cultural development abroad (exporting ideas). Note the roles of cultural attachés in embassies and the function of specific organizations devoted to propagating the mother-culture, its language and its ideologies abroad, for example the work of:
- the Alliance française
- the British Council
- the Fulbright Program
- the Goethe-Institut
- the Instituto Cervantes

Cultural studies

Cultural studies developed in the late 20th century, in part through the re-introduction of Marxist thought into sociology, and in part through the articulation of sociology and other academic disciplines such as literary criticism. This movement aimed to focus on the analysis of subcultures in capitalist societies. Following the non-anthropological tradition, cultural studies generally focus on the study of consumption goods (such as fashion, art, and literature). Because the 18th- and 19th-century distinction between "high" and "low" culture seems inappropriate to apply to the mass-produced and mass-marketed consumption goods which cultural studies analyses, these scholars refer instead to "popular culture". Today, some anthropologists have joined the project of cultural studies. Most, however, reject the identification of culture with consumption goods. Furthermore, many now reject the notion of culture as bounded, and consequently reject the notion of subculture. Instead, they see culture as a complex web of shifting patterns that link people in different locales and that link social formations of different scales. According to this view, any group can construct its own cultural identity.

Sample list of cultures

Cultures of contemporary countries and regions

Main article: List of national culture articles.

- Albania
- Angola
- Australia
- Belgium
- Bhutan
- Brazil
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Canada
- Quebec
- Political culture of Canada
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Nation-state

Characteristics

What states existed before nation-states?

Examples of nation-states

Minorities and irredentism

Conflicting nationalisms

History

See also

Jennifer Government: NationStates

Play

Group play

Roleplaying

Time-frames

Technical history

Statistics

See also:

External links

State

Introduction

Etymology

Formation of the state

International point of view

The domestic point of view

Philosophies of the state

See also

References

External links

Political

A natural state

Early history

Definitions

Political power

Authority and legitimacy

Traditional

Charismatic

Legal-rational

References

See also

Nation

Origins

Etymology

Modern understanding

Related concepts

See also

Links

Cultural

Defining culture

Culture as civilization

Culture as worldview

Culture as values, norms, and artifacts

Culture as patterns of products and activities

Culture as Symbols

Culture as stabilizing mechanism

Cultural change

Propagating culture

Cultural studies

Sample list of cultures

Cultures of contemporary countries and regions