Despite a century of scholarly debate, political science remains paralyzed by a fundamental question: What is a nation?

Is it a voluntary political community, a spiritual principle born of a “daily plebiscite” (Renan), or an imagined artifact of modernity (Anderson)? This definitional crisis lies at the heart of the discipline, generating persistent theoretical contradictions and confounding efforts to distinguish the “nation” from other forms of collective identity.

Yet this theoretical confusion stands in stark contrast to a formidable political reality. Nationalism remains the dominant ideology of the contemporary world. Its logic is built into the very architecture of modern political institutions – from the United Nations to the nation-state itself – and it continues to shape a vast spectrum of political orientations. Its potency is now being reshaped and reinforced by the forces of neoliberal globalization, which it both enables and contests, as well as by the rising “sovereignist” and populist reactions against that very order.

The field remains fractured by irreconcilable foundations:
• Is the nation a civic project of collective will, or an ethnic community of common descent?
• Is it a modern construct born of capitalism and the state, or a perennial formation with deep historical roots?
• Are its defining features – culture, territory, institutions – the cause of its existence, or the effect of a prior collective claim?

This ongoing paralysis not only hinders our understanding of nationalism’s enduring force but also obscures the dynamics of sovereignty disputes, state formation, and identity politics across the globe.

We invite authors to engage directly with this enduring problem. This special issue seeks to interrogate the very foundations of the concept without prescribing a path forward. We welcome contributions that:
• Propose and defend a new theoretical definition of the nation;
• Critically re-examine the classic contradictions within the field’s seminal literature;
• Analyze the political consequences of adopting one definitional framework over another;
• Explore empirical cases that expose the limitations of existing definitions;
• Investigate the relationship between national identity and claims to sovereignty, territory, or statehood.

By confronting the definitional crisis head-on, this special issue aims to map the contours of this foundational problem and explore whether, and how, it can be resolved.

Are you interested in contributing a manuscript to this Research Topic?

The Nation: Impossible to Define?