ABSTRACT
Nationalisms are not chance or deviant phenomena, but a social correlation of collective political action and social mobilisation deriving from a universal form of political organisation, the nation-state has spread throughout the world. Prior to the development of the nation-state, four forms of state organisation existed in Western civilisation, each one characterised by a particular type of relation between the centre and the periphery. The move from absolutist state to nation-state culminated in the transformation of traditional society into a national modern society. The economic and political functions construct society; cultural functions construct community. States introduce a national school system as a means of political integration, by assuming control of the education apparatus. The cultural functions of socialisation and acculturation, reinforced once the state has assumed control of the education system, seek to obtain the loyalty of citizens to the state and make them co-partners in the nation.
