ABSTRACT
The formation and re-emergence of nation-states and the appeal of nationalism, sometimes subsuming a religion, is likely to continue in the foreseeable future, and the hypothesis that these have peaked and will decline is improbable. The more uncertain and unstable geopolitics become, the greater the importance of the nation-state, there being about 190 autonomous polities worldwide. Nationalism is the emotional attachment to one’s own ethnonational group, and according to Peter Alter [1985:2 and 9], “To conceive of nationalism as a political aberration, or as an inevitable but ultimately transitory historical phenomenon is to disregard its unabated impact upon politics. Though we might justifiably abhor its extreme forms, which were especially rampant in the years directly before and after the First World War, we cannot conveniently forget it as a pathological manifestation in the history of modem societies, nor dismiss treatment of its historical impact as irrelevant… the tenet of Enlightenment philosophy—that the individual is principally a member of the human race and thus a citizen of the world—no longer holds: individuals perceive themselves, rather, as members of a particular nation. They identify with its historical and cultural heritage and with the form of its political life.”
