I found for national identity was by David Miller in On Nationality where he names five elements that together distinguish national identity from other sources of personal identity. Nations are communities with a shared belief that its members belong together (1), an extended history (2), an active character that includes doing things together such as making decisions and achieving results (3), a connection to a particular territory (4), and are marked off from other communities by a distinct public culture (5). (on nationality pg 27). Some examples of nations are Americans, Jews, and Germans who are all groups of people that are conscious of their common identity. A nation is not the same as a state. Although nation and state represent different concepts, both are fairly recent developments dating back to the Renaissance in 15th and 16th century Europe. State arose from warfare, which produces a social hierarchy of victors. Conquerors of territory enriched themselves at the expense of the conquered. The state was formed when a strong monarch consolidated the conquered territory and state organization emerged. State formation began the process of nation formation. When a strong monarchy established a territorial state, local identities merged over centuries into a wider national identity. The merging of identities into a national identity was highly influenced by the monarch’s suppression of other languages and religions that parted from the state’s chosen language and religion. The English, French, and Spanish were the first nations to emerge. Because the first modern nation-states formed in a process where nations where nearly synonymous with their states, it is understandable to see why some make the error of using the terms nation and state interchangeably. This error is also reinforced by popular everyday misuses of the terms such as the name of the United Nations, when actually the United Nations is a coll...
