The Evolving Definitions of Nationality and Nation

Few words in political science cause as much confusion as “nation” and “nationality.” People use them interchangeably in everyday conversation, yet scholars have argued over their precise meanings for more than a century. The looseness with which even academic writers employ these terms has produced a great deal of misunderstanding. Understanding what separates them, and how their meanings have shifted over time, is essential for making sense of the political movements that continue to reshape the world map. This post unpacks these concepts and connects them to the related ideas of political freedom and self-determination.

What does nationality actually mean? 🔗

Nationality is a layered term that operates on at least two levels. At its most formal, it describes the legal bond between a person and a state, a relationship that carries rights such as the ability to vote and duties such as obedience to the law. But nationality also points to something less legalistic: a sense of belonging. In this second sense, it signifies membership in a group of people who share cultural, historical, and linguistic ties.

This dual character is what makes the word slippery. The political scientist J.W. Garner described nationality as a culturally homogeneous group conscious of its own unity, treating it as more of a psychological condition than a strictly racial or political one. Nationality, then, signifies both nationhood and membership in a nation. A person can hold the nationality of a country in the legal sense while also feeling a deep emotional attachment to its people, culture, and shared past.

The difference between nationality and citizenship 🔗

It helps to separate nationality from citizenship, since the two often get blurred. Citizenship is primarily a legal and political status: it defines who belongs to a state and what political rights they hold within it. Nationality leans more toward identity and belonging. A useful way to remember the distinction is that statehood is political and a matter of law, while nationality is psychological and a matter of feeling. In multinational countries, many people can share a single citizenship while identifying with several distinct national or cultural communities.

What is a nation? 🔗

If nationality is about individual membership, a nation is the larger collective that membership refers to. A nation is a body of people bound together by shared characteristics: common language, culture, history, customs, and a belief that they are one and distinct from others. The term is closely tied to the idea of “a people.”

The word itself reveals an older meaning. “Nation” comes from the Latin natus, meaning born, so in its earliest sense it suggested a group sharing a common origin or descent. German thinkers of the nineteenth century leaned heavily on this idea of shared blood. The trouble is that this definition collapses quickly: no nation in the world descends from a single pure racial stock, so common ancestry cannot be the real foundation of nationhood.

Renan and the “daily plebiscite” 🔗

The most influential modern answer came from the French scholar Ernest Renan. In his 1882 lecture “What Is a Nation?”, Renan examined the usual candidates for what holds a nation together: race, language, religion, shared interests, and geography. He explained why each of these, on its own, is insufficient to unify a people.

Instead, Renan argued that a nation is a “soul” or spiritual principle, resting on two things: a shared inheritance of memories from the past and the present-day consent to live together. He famously described the nation as a daily referendum, the continuous, renewed will of a people to remain united. What a nation chooses to forget in common, he added, matters as much as what it remembers. This “voluntarist” view treats the nation as something built by collective will rather than fixed by birth or blood.

Why textbooks keep getting it wrong 🔗

The instability of these definitions is not just an academic quirk. Even careful authors of introductory texts often use “nation” and “nationalism” in contradictory ways within the same book. This is why political scientists stress precision. A nation is a cultural and psychological community; a state is a political and legal institution with sovereignty over a territory. The two do not always overlap. India, for instance, functions as one nation while containing enormous linguistic, religious, and regional diversity, and a single state can contain more than one national community.

Political freedom: independence or self-determination 🔗

Once a group sees itself as a distinct nation, a political question naturally follows: how should it govern itself? Political freedom in this context refers to the ability of a people to make their own decisions and run their own affairs. It can take two broad forms.

The first is complete independence, meaning the creation of a sovereign state with full control over both its internal and external affairs. This is typically the goal of national liberation movements. India’s freedom struggle against British colonial rule is a clear example: the aim was full political freedom, and the outcome was the establishment of a sovereign Indian state in 1947.

The second form is self-determination, which can mean something narrower than full independence. It often involves a degree of local control within a larger political framework, where a community governs many of its own affairs while remaining part of a bigger state.

What self-determination means in international law 🔗

Self-determination is a core principle of international law that allows a people to decide their own political destiny. It is enshrined in Article 1 of the United Nations Charter and in the common Article 1 of the two major human rights covenants, the ICCPR and the ICESCR, which affirm the right of all peoples to freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social, and cultural development. The 1970 Declaration on Friendly Relations, adopted by consensus at the UN General Assembly, remains its most authoritative formulation.

Crucially, exercising this right does not lead to only one outcome. It can range from full political independence to greater autonomy within an existing state, or even full integration into one. Scholars therefore distinguish between internal self-determination, the right of a people to choose their own political and social systems within a state, and external self-determination, the right to form a separate state or break away from an existing one. In practice, the right sits on a spectrum rather than offering a single binary choice.

Autonomy that grows into independence: two case studies 🔗

The relationship between limited self-government and outright independence is not just theoretical. History shows that movements seeking greater autonomy within a larger state frequently evolve into movements for complete separation. Two examples from the British Isles illustrate the pattern.

Scotland: from home rule to a referendum on independence 🔗

Scotland joined with England through the Union of 1707, but it retained distinct legal, educational, and religious institutions. Political campaigns for Scottish self-government began in the nineteenth century, initially demanding home rule within the United Kingdom rather than separation.

That demand for greater autonomy eventually produced devolution. A 1979 referendum on a Scottish assembly fell short because, although a narrow majority voted yes, the result did not meet the required threshold of 40% of the total electorate. A second referendum in 1997 succeeded decisively, with roughly 74% backing a Scottish Parliament. This led to the Scotland Act 1998 and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, which gained control over devolved areas.

The story did not end with autonomy. In 2014, Scots voted in a referendum on full independence. The Scottish Government has described every vote in that referendum as an act of self-determination by the people of Scotland. The “No” side won and Scotland remained in the UK, but the campaign prompted promises of further devolved powers, delivered through the Scotland Act 2016. Scotland’s trajectory, from home rule to devolution to a vote on independence, shows how the demand for local control can steadily expand.

Ireland: from home rule to a sovereign state 🔗

Ireland’s experience traces a similar arc but reaches a different destination. After the Act of Union of 1801 placed Ireland under direct rule from Westminster, the Home Rule movement emerged as the dominant force in Irish nationalism from the 1870s onward. Founded by Isaac Butt, it campaigned for an Irish parliament and internal autonomy within the British Empire, not for full separation.

Home Rule bills were introduced repeatedly and defeated repeatedly, in 1886 and 1893, before a third bill finally became law in 1914, only to be suspended during the First World War. By then, Irish opinion had shifted. The autonomy that home rule promised had come to seem like too much for unionists in Ulster, who feared minority status, and too little for nationalists who now wanted full independence.

The result was a decisive break from the autonomy model. Elected Sinn Féin members refused to settle for home rule and instead set up their own legislature, the Dáil Éireann, declaring an independent republic. After a war of independence and a truce in 1921, the Anglo-Irish Treaty established the Irish Free State in 1922, while six counties in the north remained within the United Kingdom. Ireland thus moved all the way along the spectrum, from a demand for limited self-government to the creation of a sovereign state.

Why these concepts still matter 🔗

The Scottish and Irish cases reveal a recurring dynamic. A nation that first asks for greater control over its own affairs may, when that autonomy proves unsatisfying or when political circumstances change, push toward complete independence. This is precisely why nation, nationality, and self-determination cannot be treated as fixed legal labels. They are living concepts whose meanings respond to history, identity, and the collective will of peoples.

For anyone studying comparative politics, the lesson is that definitions here are tools, not final answers. A nation is held together as much by a shared decision to remain together as by any common trait, and the freedom a nation seeks can take many forms along a continuum from autonomy to full sovereignty.

What do you think? If a nation is genuinely a “daily plebiscite,” should every people that identifies as distinct have the right to vote on independence, or are there limits to that right? And when a community gains greater autonomy within a larger state, do you think this tends to satisfy its aspirations or simply set the stage for demands for complete independence?

References

1. https://www.politicalscienceview.com/state-nation-and-nationality-distinguished/
2. https://www.flexiprep.com/NIOS-Notes/Senior-Secondary/Political-Science/NIOS-Political-Science-Unit-2-Nationality-and-State.html
3. https://www.e-ir.info/2018/11/16/what-is-nationalism-a-nation-a-nationalist/
4. https://www.vedantu.com/question-answer/as-defined-by-ernst-renan-a-nation-has-to-have-class-9-social-science-cbse-5febf67641231c3a785e5228
5. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ps-political-science-and-politics/article/abs/nation-and-nationalism-the-misuse-of-key-concepts-in-political-science/90C58CF24961094397C7A1B4D9232E4E
6. https://law.cornell.edu/wex/self_determination_(international_law)
7. https://www.diakonia.se/ihl/resources/international-law/self-determination-international-law/
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence
9. https://www.parliament.scot/about/history-of-the-scottish-parliament/the-path-to-devolution
10. https://www.gov.scot/publications/right-decide/pages/3/
11. https://www.britannica.com/event/Home-Rule-Great-Britain-and-Ireland
12. https://origins.osu.edu/read/100-years-irish-independence-and-division
13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Home_Rule_movement