ABSTRACT
The nation is defined by its ambition of transcending particular belongings by means of citizenship and of defining the citizen as an abstract individual, without particular identification and qualification, over and all concrete determinations. This secularism is indicative of the essential fact that the social bond is no longer religious but national, and hence political. The national project is universal, not only because it is fated to all who are gathered in the same nation, but also because this principle of overcoming particularisms by means of the political is easily adopted in any society. Some theorists have focused on the subjective or spiritual dimension of the nation; others on the objective characteristics and the economic or technological conditions which are at the origin of nationalisms. The political project can correspond to the Machtpolitik of Max Weber, where "time and time again we find that the concept 'nation' directs us to political power.".
