Differentiate a nation, a state, and a nation-state - Essay Example

Differentiate a Nation, A And A Nation A Nation A nation refers to a population of individuals that share cultural values. A nation entails a defined structure of ruling to a given population that share religion or a given language. The binding units of a nation are common experiences of history. A nation originates from the formulation of a common territory distinguishing other populations. Language is a significant element that defines different nations. The available resources in a given territory also define a given nation in the context of survival.

Various nations exist in different settings like the racial and civic nations. Ethnic nations originate from common races configured by similar traditions. The Japanese group of people is an ethnic nation of Yamato. Civic nation entails dissimilar population of different ethnic groups sharing a common belonging. The United States is an exemplary of civic nation since the country’s population is a diverse combination without common ancestry, similar language groups or dominant religion. A StateA state refers to a given country with self-governing political units that hold elite jurisdiction over a given territory or region.

The defining terms of a state include the population, given boundaries, and absolute sovereignty. The mandates of the said country maintains jurisdiction over the given population within a territory. “States or countries are independent political units that claim exclusive jurisdiction over defined territories and over all of the people and activities within them” (Dahlman & William 410).Different governments lack the power to exercise the absolute authority. As such, the state enhances or forces applicable patterns of a population’s activity to obey the rules provided in a certain political map.

Cultural aspects define the organization of a said state in any portioning of a state. States exercise absolute sovereignty where a democratic space entails exclusive rights to the available population. “The idea that a state has the exclusive right to rule over a demarcated space and all the people and resources within it is known as sovereignty” (Dahlman & William 412). State features include transferred self-governing powers to a central government structure. The population of a state exhibit common identities with related origins.

A Nation-StateThe nation state refers to a given state that rules a region with a population arising from united cultures. The concept of nation states embraces the initial development of nations that later attain protective states. The nation state focuses on dominate organization of a country and nation to formulate an overall geo-political setting. The nation state merges the notions of ruler sovereignty and ethnic identity to form a dominant political environment. The idea serves to establish sovereignty in a geographical setting with defined boundaries.

“Therefore, the perfect state was idealized as a nation-state, a state ruling over a territory that contains all the people who are culturally joined as a nation. The idea of the nation-state assumed that nations develop first and that each nation then achieves a territorial state of its own” (Dahlman & William 412).The main elements of nation states include economic features, social dimensions, cultural appreciations and a sense of national unity merged under a single country. Work CitedDahlman, Carl H, and William H. Renwick. Introduction to Geography: People, Places & Environment.

Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2013. Print.