The Nation State: Features, Its Pitfalls and Cleavages

Most countries today are diverse. Yet some countries face challenge related to identity based political mobilization that counters the nation building process projected by the state. African leaders have over the last five decades resorted to different mechanisms such as assimilation and integration to bring together the different identities living in their territories. Yet decades after such efforts, the continent continues to grapple with the one of the fundamental issues of accommodating politically mobilized ethno national and regional groups and reconciling unity with sub state based demands for accommodation. While the center aims to ensure unity, territorial integrity and loyalty of ethno national groups, the latter oscillate between remaining loyal to the overarching state and autonomy or even secession. This chapter addresses the key features of the nation state, demonstrate its limitations and propose institutional and policy instruments that actors may deploy to reconcile the tension between ethno nationalism and the demands from the nation state. It addresses whether it is possible to build a shared and nested belongingness that prevails over the different manifestations of local identity and if so what are the appropriate instruments that states can use to achieve this lofty task.