e name of the nation-state, statepolicies will be assessed in terms of how closely these policies broadlyfulfill the perceived national mission or destiny. War, then, tests thefusion between nation and statei.e., the degree to which people perceive thestate as an ontological representation of the will of society and thus aconstituent element of their national identification. (2b) So long as stateinstitutions are largely seen as fundamental expressions of the nationandenact policies generally deemed consistent with broad understandings andmeanings of national identitythe majority of groups within civil societywill tend to mobilize, to support, and even to constitute the power of thestate. (2c) Conversely, to the extent that the state or its war policyoffends basic understandings of national identification, the more elementswithin civil society will mobilize themselves against the state and itsprimary civic auxiliaries and supports. This last point leads to a furtherinsight that combines the concerns of (1) and (2). The intensity of thefusion between the nation and state can lead to the entrenchment of existingsocial boundaries and the solidification of the power of those key socialgroups, to quote Weber, that "steer common conduct within a polity."[3] However, when nation-state fusion is low and the state is no longer deeplyperceived as a "true" representation of society, nationalist groups areliable to struggle to establish which among them is the "genuine"organization capable of articulating the "real" voice of the nation. Depending on how intense the ensuing contest is (and the lower nation-statefusion goes the more intense such struggles are likely to be), the more thatcivic life is apt to be reconfigured to (i) reject and displace the oldcenters of power and to (ii) create, establish, and enforce new sources ofnationalist hegemony within civil society. Of the three cases selected for this study, the United Statesquali...
