The State as a Mechanism for Exclusion: Nationhood, Citizenship, Ethnicity

Abstract

The state seems to be an eternal, enduring reality. Since the time of extensive philosophical discourses in ancient Greece, we take the existence of the state for granted. Although it is acknowledged that our modern state is not the same as those of early republics and city states, and even much later configurations such as the Italian city states which played such a decisive role during the Renaissance, the notion of an apparently eternal mechanism remains. And surely, if taken in its broadest terms, this may be accepted. However, the notion of the state then remains such a broad abstraction that it is not useful for any concrete analysis of today's conditions. Nevertheless, there is one feature that is of special interest, common to all state formations hitherto known, but actually not often mentioned. The feature in question - and the focus of the present contribution - is the character of the state as predominantly exclusive. This exploration of the nature of the state is undertaken on a somewhat abstract level, but this is the only way to develop a valid understanding of mechanisms that are frequently discussed but, in many cases, not truly understood in their structural meaning.