ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on processes by which a territorial state spawns a nation to be both geographical and political. It introduces the philosophy of power through nationhood. Nationhood is made up of a number of ethnic affinities, principally language, religion, popular ideas about race, mythology and cultural history, association with territory, and political development. Then the chapter presents modern case-study, Guinea in West Africa, chosen because it illustrates the issue of nationhood as a source of power particularly starkly, highlighting the distinction between the state with integration and the nation-state. The chapter examines the case of Guinea in West Africa where nationhood was achieved, against the odds, for a time. It is through its sovereign power that the state can enforce both its negative and positive functions; sovereignty gives the state its staying power once the consensus of nationhood is combined with the order and authority of the state and the nation-state has been created.
