Editing Nation (section)

== Social science ==
There are three notable perspectives on how nations developed. [[Primordialism]] (perennialism), which reflects popular conceptions of nationalism but has largely fallen out of favour among academics,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Coakley |first1=J |title="Primordialism" in nationalism studies: theory or ideology? |journal=[[Nations and Nationalism (journal)|Nations and Nationalism]] |date=2017 |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=327–347 |doi=10.1111/nana.12349 |s2cid=149288553 |url=https://pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/136558806/coakley_primordialism_nn_2017_upload.pdf |access-date=28 September 2022 |archive-date=28 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220928031810/https://pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/136558806/coakley_primordialism_nn_2017_upload.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> proposes that there have always been nations and that nationalism is a natural phenomenon. [[Ethnosymbolism]] explains nationalism as a dynamic, evolving phenomenon and stresses the importance of symbols, myths and traditions in the development of nations and nationalism. [[Modernization theory (nationalism)|Modernization theory]], which has superseded primordialism as the dominant explanation of nationalism,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Woods |first1=Eric Taylor |last2=Schertzer |first2=Robert |last3=Kaufmann |first3=Eric |date=April 2011 |title=Ethno-national conflict and its management |journal=Commonwealth & Comparative Politics |volume=49 |issue=2 |page=154 |doi=10.1080/14662043.2011.564469 |s2cid=154796642}}</ref> adopts a [[Constructivism (ethnic politics)|constructivist]] approach and proposes that nationalism emerged due to processes of [[Modernization theory|modernization]], such as [[Industrialisation|industrialization]], urbanization, and mass education, which made national consciousness possible.<ref name="Mylonas" /><ref name="Anthony Smith">{{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Deanna |title=Nationalism |publisher=[[Polity Press]] |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-7456-5128-6 |edition=2nd |location=Cambridge}}</ref>

Proponents of modernization theory describe nations as "[[imagined communities]]", a term coined by [[Benedict Anderson]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Anderson |first=Benedict |title=Imagined Communities |publisher=[[Verso Books]] |location=London |year=1983}}</ref> A nation is an imagined community in the sense that the material conditions exist for imagining extended and shared connections and that it is objectively impersonal, even if each individual in the nation experiences themselves as subjectively part of an embodied unity with others. For the most part, members of a nation remain strangers to each other and will likely never meet.<ref>{{cite book |last=James |first=Paul |author-link=Paul James (academic) |title=Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism: Bringing Theory Back In |url=https://www.academia.edu/1642214 |date=2006 |publisher=[[SAGE Publications]] |location=London |access-date=2 November 2017 |archive-date=29 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200429234210/https://www.academia.edu/1642214/Globalism_Nationalism_Tribalism_Bringing_Theory_Back_In_2006_ |url-status=live }}</ref> Nationalism is consequently seen an "[[invented tradition]]" in which shared sentiment provides a form of collective identity and binds individuals together in political solidarity. A nation's foundational "story" may be built around a combination of ethnic attributes, values and principles, and may be closely connected to narratives of belonging.<ref name="Mylonas" /><ref name="Anderson">{{Cite book |last=Anderson |first=Benedict |title=Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism |publisher=[[Verso Books]] |year=1983 |location=London}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Hobsbawm |first1=E. |title=The Invention of Tradition |last2=Ranger |first2=T. |date=1983 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=Cambridge, UK}}</ref>

Scholars in the 19th and early 20th century offered constructivist criticisms of primordial theories about nations.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Buck |first=Carl Darling |date=1916 |title=Language and the Sentiment of Nationality |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055400012120/type/journal_article |journal=American Political Science Review |language=en |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=45 |doi=10.2307/1946302 |jstor=1946302 |s2cid=146904598 |issn=0003-0554}}</ref> A prominent lecture by Ernest Renan, "[[What Is a Nation?|What is a Nation?]]", argues that a nation is "a daily referendum", and that nations are based as much on what the people jointly forget as on what they remember. Carl Darling Buck argued in a 1916 study, "Nationality is essentially subjective, an active sentiment of unity, within a fairly extensive group, a sentiment based upon real but diverse factors, political, geographical, physical, and social, any or all of which may be present in this or that case, but no one of which must be present in all cases."<ref name=":0" />

In the late 20th century, many social scientists{{Who|date=August 2023}} argued that there were two types of nations, the [[civic nation]] of which French republican society was the principal example and the [[ethnic nationalism|ethnic nation]] exemplified by the German peoples. The German tradition was conceptualized as originating with early 19th-century philosophers, like [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte]], and referred to people sharing a common language, religion, culture, history, and [[ethnic origins]], that differentiate them from people of other nations.<ref name="Noiriel">{{cite book |last=Noiriel |first=Gérard |title=Population, immigration et identité nationale en France:XIX-XX siècle. |language=fr |trans-title= |date=1992 |publisher=Hachette |isbn=2010166779}}</ref> On the other hand, the civic nation was traced to the [[French Revolution]] and ideas deriving from 18th-century French philosophers. It was understood as being centred in a willingness to "live together", this producing a nation that results from an act of affirmation.<ref>[[Rogers Brubaker]], Citizenship and nationhood in France and Germany, [[Harvard University Press]], 1992, {{ISBN|978-0-674-13178-1}}</ref> This is the vision, among others, of [[Ernest Renan]].<ref name="Noiriel" />