De nation is spoken when it comes to sovereignty, feeling, instinct native who represents a country. From this origin it is easy to build a complex concept of what a nation is about. A country that fights for its independence, that defines its borders with honor, respect, brotherhood and cooperation can be considered a nation, iron, solid, stable. The cultural and democratic values of a country must serve as a referential axis to build a Nation.
What is nation
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The word "Nation" comes from the Latin nātio, which in turn derives from nāscor ("to be born"). Its meaning is "birth", "people", "species" or "class". In a broad and less complex sense, this term reflects a cultural and historical community that, in addition, has a specific territory (considered as its own territory) and with a different degree of knowledge or awareness than the rest.
There is a conceptualization of the legal definition of the nation, which dates back to the 18th century, describing the word as a number of citizens in which the sovereignty of the State resides, that is, power.
This is a modernist concept, which thanks to the elements found in it, it is quite clear that, before nationalisms began on the part of the colonizers or conquerors, there was not a country, but colonies. The conceptualization of the political or civic nation also applies here, since in both meanings there are groups of citizens with specific roots, their own language, culture, geography, customs and a race.
This word can also come to refer to a State, territory, country, ethnic group or by the inhabitants who are there, of course, respecting each of the applicable differences in each term.
This is a perennialist definition, since it stops taking into account sovereignty as a primary element for the composition of a nation, making it clear that they have existed in the world since before the colonizations.
With this explanation, the perennialist definition of nation explains that nationalism is born from the word in question and not vice versa. The essence of nationalism is to feel that you belong to a specific place, but the nation is the proof that that place exists and that there are people living there. For many scholars, both meanings are totally valid, so it is up to each person to accept any of the conceptualizations provided in this post.
History of the concept of nation
As mentioned in the previous section, the first concept of the nation came to the fore at the end of the 18th century. From there, the origins of the countries and the political approaches of the time regarding the territories they wanted to conquer made more sense.
The American and French revolutions took place thanks to the knowledge of what a nation really was. The antecedents of this term (in a perennialist sense) could have anthropological origins. Why? Well, some authors and researchers describe the first human beings as territorial subjects, in this case, the territory would be the nation.
Part of the history of this term has to do with the liberal nation in the 18th century. Liberalists began to question territories whose governments were based on absolute monarchies. This type of government was contrary to sovereignty and therefore affected the feelings of the nation that these subjects fervently maintained.
The elements of a country were created, passing sovereignty to the citizens and leaving the government systems totally excluded, with this, the power they previously had was greatly reduced.
The liberals had a rational foundation, legal equality and individual freedom. At this point, it is quite easy to see that it is a political conceptualization.
On the other hand, there is a more romantic definition of this term, it is a series of characteristics that only citizens of a given territory possess and that, despite the fact that they can move to other lands, they do not lose. The military expansions brought about by wars and revolutions led to this definition being born (prematurely, according to scholars).
With the definition of the term alluding to romanticism, the people are no longer seen as simple individuals who inhabit a territory or State (a new term known and accepted from this same meaning) but instead include new elements, such as culture, its traits, language, essence, spirituality, etc. Strongly rejecting the multiethnic or cultural form of government. In addition, the inhabitants themselves had to have feelings of the place where they lived, an inalienable and inalienable national feeling.
From this new conceptualization, the identification of the nation as a State is born.
For many, the State and the nation are totally different precepts or terms, starting from the idea that the nation is a quality that ends up uniting a finite or infinite number of people and that the State is a reality and political organization.
After all that has been said throughout this post, it must be realized that, despite the criticisms, both concepts are related, coexist and have common characteristics, among them, their elements of conformation. It should be noted that, when talking about elements, the presence of all is imperative. If one is missing, then there is neither State nor Nation.
Elements of the nation
Like the State, the nation has a series of imperative elements for its formation. With the creation of the conceptualization of the term, the scholars determined that the elements that make up it are the population, country, government and legitimacy.
Population
The people, citizens and inhabitants of a specific territory.
country
It is the territory that ends up delimiting the nation or state and in which the citizens who live or intend to live in it are geographically and politically organized.
government
It is the political entity that represents the nation, is in charge of organizing its inhabitants and formulating laws for the correct coexistence of each one of them.
Legitimacy
It is the direct acceptance of other countries, that is, other states recognize a nation as their equal.
Nation types
With the beginning of the French and American revolutions, several precepts of the term studied in this post were born. For scholars, there are two types: political and cultural.
Political nation
This definition only talks about the geographical and political delimitations that certain territories possess that, in addition, exercise or apply sovereignty. This concept has a lot of similarity with what a State encompasses, in addition, nation projects can be used to improve the quality of life of citizens.
The examples of political nation are varied and applicable in most countries in which power resides in the citizenry.
Cultural Nation
It refers to the way in which the people who inhabit a specific territory are organized and has its origin in the written and shared memories from generation to generation. Cultural nations exist thanks to groups of people who feel that they are part of a society or culture that comprises 3 fundamental elements: population, territory and sovereignty. In this regard, a cultural nation may or may not be organized by a state.
Nationalization
Nationalization is a political measure that has a great impact on the economy of a specific country; This is described as the process by which the state government takes control of activities covering the field economic, distributor or producer in the country concerned.
This implies a payment to the previous owner for the company that is becoming the property of the national state. This compensation is made in the form of bonds (not immediately transferable); In order to execute the nationalization of a specific company, reasons that support said measures must be demonstrated before the judiciary, these reasons must be focused on facilitating the purchasing power of the country, pursuing a clearly lucrative purpose, as well as being in favor of grant the inhabitants of the nation justice for society.
A clear example of this can be the nationalization of banks, nationalization of oil or the nationalization of companies. This is a political model belonging to socialist thought, where it is stated that the economy will improve if it is directly in the hands of the people and not of private entrepreneurs whose purpose is to fill their pockets without offering anything to fellow citizens.
Companies vulnerable to the nationalization procedure are those that meet basic needs such as: transportation industry, banking service, customs companies, militarized industries, among others.
In other words, nationalization is nothing more than the legal acquisition of assets that were part of private property and that will now be controlled by the State directly; It should be noted that this change of owners from private to public may or may not be compensated, which means that it is not a mandatory measure, however it would be the most sensible.
