ABSTRACT
Nationalism is not so much an ideology like other “isms” as it is an ethic, a pervasive modern assumption as to how the legitimate use of physical force in human affairs is constrained by people’s identities and loyalties. The world is conceived to be a set of natural collectivities, normally resident in discrete territories and known as “nations.” Between nations warfare is held to be always a possibility which might, under certain circumstances, be a legitimate course of action for one party or the other; within a single nation warfare is regarded as profoundly unnatural and, should it occur, as automatically calling into question the very claim to nationhood. The assumption is more often articulated in terms of the relationship between the nation and a more concrete entity, the state, which the German sociologist Max Weber defined in terms of a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a given territory. The principle of nationality counsels statesmen to draw the boundaries of states, insofar as possible, along the boundaries of nations, and to ensure that the government of any state is composed of members of the nation to which it corresponds.
