Differentiate between Nation-State and Modern State

A nation in the sense of a common ethnicity may include a diaspora or refugees living outside the nation state; some nations in this sense lack a state where that ethnicity predominates. A nation state is merely a large, politically sovereign country or administrative territory in a broader sense.

Comparison of a nation state

A nation state could be compared to:

• A multicultural state in which no single ethnic group is dominant (such a state may also be considered a multicultural state depending on the degree of cultural assimilation of various groups)
• A city-state that is smaller than a “nation” in the sense of a “large sovereign country” but may or may not be dominated by all or part of a single “nation” in the sense of a shared ethnicity
• An empire is a collection of countries (potentially non-sovereign entities) and nationalities ruled by a single monarch or ruling state
• A confederation is a grouping of sovereign nations that may or may not contain nation-states
• A federated state that is only partially self-governing within a larger federation and may or may not be a nation-state (for example, the state boundaries of Bosnia and Herzegovina are drawn along ethnic lines, but those of the United States are not)

Differentiate between nation state and modern state

Following the collapse of monarchy and dynastic control in Europe, nation states developed. Since then, contemporary states have been evolving. Power and authority are centralised in modern states.Citizens of a nation state developed a shared identity based on shared language, traditions, and customs. People who speak different languages and follow diverse traditions and customs coexist in modern states. Modern states have evolved from nation states.

Functions of a modern state

A developed state is a modern state. The state should make every effort to keep its citizens secure and safe. The government should ensure that the state’s borders are secure and safeguarded. A well-knit macroeconomic system is required to integrate the market into society. The motto of all government efforts should be “citizen first.” The single criterion for modern state governance is whether the state’s actions promote the welfare of its citizens. As a result, the government becomes a provider of important services.

The modern state is widely acknowledged to be focused on three basic purposes:

Security and Defense

Today’s states evaluate the idea of security from a variety of perspectives. Human Security is a term that has arisen to put citizens first. The States of the globe got together as a ‘league of countries’ and later as the ‘United Nations Organisation,’ inspired by the philosopher Immanuel Kant’s notion of permanent peace, and have been arguing the terms security and defence in terms of promoting peace.

Economic functions

The contemporary state is supposed to intervene in the political system’s economic functions. The government must assist the people in realising their full potential in order to improve their lives. Try to comprehend what Martha Nusbaum says about “capabilities” and what Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has to say about the “capability approach.”The economic functions of the contemporary state include protecting consumers, weaker parts, and investing in areas where there is little profit.

Provision of Essential Services

The contemporary state is expected to look after its residents from “cradle to tomb.” The modern state is responsible for meeting basic requirements such as food, clean drinking water, education, healthcare, and social security for the population. The Government of India and several state governments have a variety of programmes and projects in this direction. One example is the Government of Tamil Nadu’s noon meal and nutrition’s lunch initiatives in all Government schools, which have been adopted in many regions of the country.

The modern nation-state

Nationalism contributed to the race for empires as well as the great conflicts of the twentieth century. Multiethnic empires grew out of nation-states with high levels of homogeneity at home, but failed to establish the same levels of loyalty and connection to the original state. The fact that nation-states were at their core ethnic entities contributed to recurrent ethnic disputes, especially as imperialism’s repercussions expressed themselves in redrawing ethnic boundaries and population dispersion. Following World War I (1914–1918), the victorious allies demolished the empires of Germany, Russia, Turkey, and Austria-Hungary, and their former territories were either granted independence or were colonised by the surviving imperial powers, France, Britain, and Japan.

The nation-state faced rising competition in the global system after World War II (1939–1945). Western European empires crumbled as a result of a combination of self-determination movements, nationalism, Cold War politics, and empire fatigue brought on by the growing costs of suppressing resistance movements in terms of lives and resources. The disintegration of colonial empires, followed by the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, resulted in an increase in the number of independent countries from 75 in 1945 to more than 200 in 2000.

Conclusion

The contemporary nation-state is an evolved type of governance with well-defined and ordered governing mechanisms that eliminate the bureaucracy of previous forms of administration. These structures are in place with numerous institutions to ensure that national and international policies are enforced and implemented efficiently. International policies have allowed countries such as the United States to rise to prominence and become superpowers.