What is a Nation?

This position holds that nations are natural communities, not modern inventions. It argues they rest on long-standing ethnic ties, shaped by territory and kinship, and on a shared cultural heritage — language, religion, myth, values — that binds a people across continuous history.

This position holds that nations are modern creations. It argues they only emerged from the late eighteenth century amid sweeping political, social, and economic change, driven by Enlightenment ideas, industrialisation, and the rise of print capitalism rather than ancient roots.

This position holds that nations mean liberty. It argues that the nation is the natural home of self-determination and democracy — the best arena in which a free people can govern itself — and that nationhood, far from being uniform, encompasses real internal diversity.

This position holds that nations are fundamentally tools of coercion — a means for elites to control the population. It argues that nationalism shades into illiberalism and imperialism, that 'the working men have no country', and that all states are ultimately instruments of coercive power.