The first workshop on Global Systems sketched the main human social systems operating on a global level, including countries or nation-states. In this workshop, I am going to clarify the concepts and explain why I am going to use these two terms interchangeably and reserve the related concept of “nation” for social systems like Indigenous First Nations.
As mentioned in the introduction, we will go round a cycle of workshops using simpler versions of tools to confirm their utility, then refining the tools, or discarding them, based on how useful they were.
This workshop applies some linguistic tools to help understand the concepts of nation, sovereign state or “country”.
The words “Country”, “State” or “Nation” tend to be used almost interchangeably instead of making some useful distinctions which can help with the analysis. As is often the case, some of the interested parties have an interest in blurring the distinctions.
The Oxford English Dictionary illustrates these distinctions, while providing a start on resolving them, which I will build on.
Nation
- a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory:
State
1 [a different concept, not relevant here]
2a a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government
2b an organized political unit or area forming part of a federal republic
3 the civil government of a country
Country
- a nation with its own government, occupying a particular territory:
The problem with the definition of “nation” is that most units that are called “nations”, like Canada and the United States, have never been nations ― they are a mix of many ancestries, cultures and languages[ Even though they have imposed official languages based on those dominant among their first immigrants, many other languages are spoken.]. Many of the units that make up the United Nations are actually more like meaning 2b of “state”, especially since they all have somewhat sovereign governments which is not required by the definition.
Many nations by the definition above, such as the First Nations of the territory now called North America, are not recognized by the UN. Some have inhabited a particular territory with fixed homes over generations, others were nomadic but still generally followed a pattern of moving over the same territory seasonally or following the game, taking their homes with them or building as needed from local materials.
England had a brief period of meeting some of the criteria in the definition, but does not any more because immigration from former colonies and elsewhere have removed that temporary, partial homogeneity which came from a mixing of Britons, Angles, Saxons, Celts, Normans, Danes, … but was partial because its class system prevented a real mixing of cultures. The myth of a common culture was really a pretence that the ruling classes’ culture was “the” culture, together with the fact that it was taught as such in schools and by some of the national media. The United Kingdom has never been a nation in this sense.
The word “state” has three related meanings. It can be a sub-sovereign unit as in the States of Mexico or the USA, a “nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government” or the government of a country (example: “the services provided by the state”).
Although in the Oxford English Dictionary definition a country is a nation, this is different from normal usage. “This country” is used by residents to refer to the UK, the USA or Canada, even though they are not nations, so in this work I will feel free use the word “country” to mean something closer to the definition 2a of a state: the whole organized system whether an actual nation or just based on a claimed territory. For example: “in this country, it is legal to …”.
Just to muddy the waters, I will still keep use “national” as an adjective even though it blurs the distinction between country and nation but that is the common usage, as in “national anthem”.
I will use capitalised State to mean the sub-sovereign unit and will use lower-case, two words “the state” as a near synonym for “the government”.
Note that names like “Canada” are taken to refer either to the country, the government or even independent bodies recognised by the government such as sports teams (as in “Canada is the second largest country by area”, “Canada voted against the motion in the United Nations” or “Canada won the Women’s Hockey gold medal”). This allows for propaganda in which the government encourages the confusion between usages to build patriotism which it then uses to claim support for its policies.
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