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History establishes that communities develop identities through economic and social necessity. A much more current view of nationalism than in Anderson might read as follows:

The national world order is a distinct from, and in opposition to, other world orders. It claims, and effectively controls, all land surface on Earth. The national world order is an autonomy-minimizing world order. It sets rigid limits on which states are legitimate, and in effect suppresses all non-nation states, and refuses to grant them superiority or soveriengty.

States are historically linked to one single tangible territory. Despite its association with war, a world order of nation states minimizes territorial conflict - at least compared to a world of expansionist universalist states (empires of conquest).

State formation is limited to one type of group: nations or peoples. These groups have distinct characteristics: permanence, transgenerationality, and long-term convergence around a core culture that survives temporary...
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