Characteristics of the National States

Next we want to talk to you in Overhistory of what are National States, what they mean and how they were formed and what consequences this formation brought to those who are modern states of today.

Characteristics of National States

During the second half of the 19th century, the National States will be brewing, after a long evolutionary process that dates back to the rise of the Modern States in the 15th and 15th centuries XVI. We will now see what are the main characteristics of these political systems.

In the National States, as the name implies, the idea of ​​the "Nation" will be vital. We could describe the "nation" as a large community of individuals "united by a history, a culture, an ethnic composition and a language in common."

But, as we explained in the article dedicated to the modern states and the national states , in practice many states included several nations within their borders.In other cases, such as the American countries that received hundreds of thousands of immigrants, there was a very large population heterogeneous, and many times foreigners outnumbered nationals.

So the governments tried on one hand to doptar for themselves the attributes of the nation , merging them with the State . Eric Hobsbawn explains this process as follows:

In the In the last decades of the 19th century, the State not only created the nation, but also needed to create the nation. [...] The nation was the new a civic religion of the States.It constituted a link that united all citizens with the State and was, at the same time, a counterweight to all those who appealed to other allegiances about the State: religion, nationality or a ethnic element, [...] to the social class to which each individual belonged.

This process of rapprochement between the State and the Nation was strongly cemented by policies carried out by the rulers, occurring simultaneously in different countries.In that sense the essential fact was the implementation of the state primary education.

In addition to the teaching of basic knowledge such as the teaching of the official language or notions of mathematics, a source was realized emphasizing aspects that helped to build the notion of the nation with an important role of history and geography.The transmission of the cultural values ​​of the nation , the exaltation of procedures, and the permanent presence of the national symbols-the flag, the anthem-completed the socializing function of the school.

Another important point in the transmission of national values ​​to the population was the establishment of military service mandatory .All this transformation of the state role also included a significant increase in government administration and more interference in public services.