ism. A state can influence identity by employing homogenizing institutions like the army and public schools to bind citizens together with a common understanding of national identity, loyalty, and duty. While I am suggesting that a state can influence the development of a nation, I also want to stress that there is no universal formula of forming a national identity. Identity is a matter of what one wish’s to call oneself, and what one can get others to accept.A nation-state exists when the great majority of citizens are conscious of a common identity. Some nation-states are composed of a population that is mostly homogeneous in the sense of ethnicity, language, religion, and history. Japan is an example of a state that is made up of one primary nation. The United States is an example of a nation-state that has formed a cohesive national identity despite being made up of a combination of people from many nations. Colonization created the United States so political autonomy/freedom became and still is the focus of a common national identity for Americans.When the terms nation and state are put together into nation-state, it implies a modern, legal, participatory state. Nation added to state means that the state is participatory. Nation represents an association of citizens who voluntarily consent to the government, and believe in the legitimacy of the state. The term nation-state also implies that the state is representative of all groups of citizens who actively participate. The democratic nation-state (in modern sense) originated from American and French Revolutions. The state of Canada can be thought of as a multinational-state in that it is made up of many nations, the two largest being the English and the French. Canada is a nation-state, in that the majority of citizens share the common nationality of being Canadian. Part of what unites Canadian nationality is how we like to distinguish ourselves from being Ame...
