Doctrine of the national basis of the state

The term nation-state signifies that the State is organized on the basis of nationhood. During the rise of absolutism, a consolidation of territories took place. This brought diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic groups into the fold of centralized absolutist States. Before the eighteenth century, the concept of nationalities was not clearly recognized. Lord Acton, in his History of Freedom and Other Essays (1907), has remarked that rights of nationalities in the old European system were neither recognized by the governments nor asserted by the people.²⁶ It could be said that Machiavelli’s The Prince sought to awaken nationalist feeling amongst the people of Italy and was hoping that the Medici dynasty could perform the national consolidation where regional identities such as Florentine, Venetian, Pisan, etc. would be transcended. Similarly, Otto von Bismarck dreamt of Germany as one nation transcending the identity of Prussia, Bavaria or Hanover. Writers have pointed out that the Napoleonic policy of dominating Europe aroused national spirit in Russia, Italy, Germany and Spain. Furthermore, the philosophy and writings of Kant, Hegel, Schiller and Goethe provided political justification for this nationalist spirit.

However, after the defeat ot Napoleon, the Vienna Congress in 1814–15 ignored national spirit in the post-Napoleonic reconstruction of Europe. The resulting new states (like Italy and Germany) became more of a geographical expression and confederation than nation-states (for example, the Belgians were joined with the Dutch). However, nineteenth-century Europe saw Bismarck, Mazzini and others emerging as ‘prophet[s] of nationalism. The late nineteenth century also saw revolutions in the Balkans against the Turkish Ottoman Empire and the subsequent independence of Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Romania.