Nation-state

:This article is about the political concept. For the Internet game, .

Minorities and irredentism

Real nation-states differ from the ideal model in two main ways: the population includes minorities, and the border does not include all the national group or its territory. Both have led to violent responses by nation-states, and nationalist movements.

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The nationalist definition of a nation is always exclusive: no nation has open membership. In most cases, there is a clear idea that surrounding nations are different. There are also historical examples of groups who are specifically singled out as "outsiders", such as the Roma and Jews in Europe, or Copts in Egypt. Negative responses to minorities within the nation-state have ranged from total assimilation to total extermination. Typically these responses are effected as state policy, though non-state violence in the form of pogroms occurs. However, many nation-states do accept specific minorities as being in some way part of the nation, and the term 'national minority' is also used in this sense. The Sorbs in Germany are an example: for centuries they have lived in German-speaking states, surrounded by a much larger ethnic German population, and they have no other historical territory. They are now generally considered to be part of the German nation, and are accepted as such by the Federal Republic of Germany, which constitutionally guarantees their cultural rights. Of the thousands of minorities in nation-states across the world, only a few have this level of acceptance and protection.

Related Topics:
Nation - Roma - Jew - Copts - Assimilation - Extermination - Pogroms - Sorbs

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The response to the non-inclusion of territory and population may take the form of irredentism, demands to annex territory and incorporate it in the nation-state, as part of the national homeland. Irredentist claims are usually based on the fact that an identifiable part of the national group lives across the border, in another nation-state. However, they can include claims to territory where no members of that nation live at present, either because they lived there in the past, or because the national language is spoken in that region, or because the national culture has influenced it, or because of geographical unity with the existing territory, or for a wide variety of other reasons. Past grievances are usually involved (see Revanchism). It is sometimes difficult to distinguish irredentism from pan-nationalism, since both claim that all members of an ethnic and cultural natio belong in one specific state. Pan-nationalism is less likely to ethnically specify the nation. For instance, variants of Pan-Germanism has different ideas about what constituted Greater Germany, including the confusing term Grossdeutschland - which in fact implied the inclusion of huge Slavic minorities from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Related Topics:
Irredentism - Homeland - Revanchism - Pan-nationalism - Pan-Germanism - Greater Germany - Austro-Hungarian Empire

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Typically, irredentist demands are at first made by members of non-state nationalist movements. When they are adopted by a state, they result in tensions, and actual attempts at annexation are always considered a casus belli, a cause for war. In many cases, such claims result in long-term hostile relations between neighbouring states. Irredentist movements typically circulate maps of the claimed national territory, the greater nation-state. That territory, which is often much larger than the existing state, plays a central role in their propaganda. Examples include:

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• Greater Albania
• Greater China
• Greater Finland
• Greater Germany, an expression of Pan-Germanism: compare Pan-Slavism
• Greater Greece, expressed in the policy of Megali Idea
• Greater Hungary
• Greater Morocco
• Greater Romania
• Greater Serbia
• Greater Somalia

Irredentism should not be confused with claims to overseas colonies, which are not generally considered part of the national homeland. Some French overseas colonies would be an exception: French rule in Algeria did indeed treat the colony legally as a département of France, unsuccessfully. The US was more successful in Hawaii.

Related Topics:
Colonies - French rule in Algeria - Département

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