4 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN STATE AND NATION - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The differences between state and nation are striking, although these terms are often misused synonymously. A State is that political and administrative entity in which a society decides to group itself in a territory.

States are supported by three basic elements: population, sovereignty and territory. The population exercises sovereignty over the entire territory, which in turn is controlled by a government, which can be elected by its inhabitants.

Instead, a nation is a people. That is to say, a society that shares a common language, culture and history, which has acquired its own identity that differentiates it to a greater or lesser extent from other nations.

The confusion between these two terms is that the current society in which we live is dominated by nation-states. This is because these two concepts have made symbiosis; in most cases, states have been formed where before there were nations. They have sometimes been used synonymously. For example, the UN is the United Nations, but it has member states.

The boundaries of nations may exceed the boundaries that states have delimited from each other through different political and military conflicts. Also within a State there may be several nations that, at a certain moment in history, ended up coming together in a single country.

Currently, there are States that reject any possibility that threatens the majority national identity, while others accept plurality and promote it. Maps are victims of frequent changes with the creation of new states. Nations are much more stable over time.

Peoples such as Italian or German have existed for centuries with a consolidated identity, despite the fact that the creation of their states is recent. You may also be interested in knowing the types of nationalism that exist, since it is a feeling closely related to the concept of nation.

Fundamental differences between state and nation

1- The nation is a social organization, the State is a political organization

Defining culture is a daunting task, because there are hundreds of concepts formulated by different authors throughout history. Despite this, it is possible to frame the relationship between culture and nation.

These two elements are not directly related, but they usually come together. A nation has a defined cultural configuration, even though it shares traits with other nations (Ghai, nd).

On the contrary, a State does not understand cultures. Although its operation may be mediated by it, a State is in charge of guaranteeing the sovereignty of its territory and granting the rights established to the population residing in it.

2- States require territory, nations do not

Since States are a political institution that establishes a government, power must be exercised over a territory. There is the case of the Order of Malta, which is a State without territory because throughout history it was left without it, but for a State to exist it must have a constituted territory.

A nation passes over the territory of a state. Authors such as Paul (1996) indicate that the existence of an Arab nation, composed of more than twelve States, could be considered. While that happens, in Spain, several of its autonomous communities such as Catalonia, the Basque Country, Galicia or Andalusia are recognized as historical nationalities.

3- States vary faster than nations

Many states have border disputes, in which many portions of territory are disputed. Those disputed territories can have a defined nation, which is not going to change immediately, regardless of who exercises sovereignty over the territory.

The UN was founded after the Second World War with 51 States that today number 193, which indicates that the growth of States has been exponential in little more than half a century, without this implying the establishment of nation-states.

4- States are created, nations are not

At a certain point, the leaders of each country agreed to found or make it independent, approving a charter or fundamental norms that indicate what the establishment of a government is like.

On the contrary, nations are shaped over time and owe their constitution to evolution and not to specific facts and events.

Globalization has encouraged the blurring of nations, although they continue to evolve at their own pace and because of different factors, where all kinds of elements influence such as the cultural dominance that one country has over another.

Origin of the relationship between State and nation

The concepts of nation and state have not always been so closely related. At present, the number of colonies in the world is small. But in the Modern Age and much of the Contemporary, continents such as Asia and America were entirely colonized.

At that time, a State was imposed, but due to social differences marked by race, the concept of nation was diffuse. In many cases, with the independence of many colonies, states arose before nations, which later grouped together constituting different identities. In fact, there are still many stateless nations.

Criteria for defining these two concepts

In 1933 the Montevideo Convention was approved, which establishes the requirements that any State must have. In this sense, it was defined that for a State to be considered as such it must have a permanent population, a defined territory, an established government and the ability to establish relations with other States.

In addition, there are countries that do not recognize each other, but that does not mean they stop being states, according to the convention (Olson, nd).

Defining the boundaries of nations is more complicated. These are defined by Benedict Anderson as "imaginary communities". A nation can be scattered over several states, as in the case of Kurdistan, and yearn for the constitution of its own state (Paul, 1996).

However, authors such as Walby (2003) affirm that although there are many states, there are very few nation-states and there will be fewer and fewer as a consequence of globalization.

References

1. Barkin, J., and Cronin, B. (1994). The state and the nation: Changing norms and the rules of sovereignty in international relations. International Organization, 48 (1), 107-130.
2. de Vasconcelos, F. (2013). Do Estado-nação à autonomia-nação: challenges to the concept of sovereignty. Meridiano 47 - Boletim De Análise De Conjuntura Em Relações Internacionais, 14 (136), 3-9.
3. Ghai, K. (sf) 9 Major Differences between State and Nation. Your Article Library. Recovered from yourarticlelibrary.com.
4. Mateu J. and Sánchez D.. (2015). 3. Power and State: legitimacy and government. In Andalusian, Manuel. Philosophy Anaya.
5. Olson, L. (sf) The criteria that define a country, an independent State, and a nation. Infoplease. Recovered from infoplease.com.
6. Paul, J. (1996). Nations and states. Global Policy Forum. Recovered from globalpolicy.org.
7. Rokkan, S. (1999). State Formation, Nation-building, and Mass Politics in Europe: The Theory of Stein Rokkan: Based on His Collected Works. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
8. Walby, S. (2003). The Myth of the Nation-State: Theorizing Society and Polities in a Global Era. Sociology 37 (3): 529–546.