The forging of countries: Two distinct and conflicting forms of nationalism – civic and ethnic – helped create the nation-states of Europe (Luka Ivan Jukićis, 9/20/24, Aeon)
Only in the decades after 1871 did this idea that civic borders should conform to ‘objective’ national ones based on ethnic criteria come to prominence. Importantly, it arose with the maturity of nationalist movements, not at their birth. […]
Today, it feels vaguely accurate to say that countries like the US, the UK or France base their national identity on the ‘civic’ nationhood of common citizenship. Poland, Hungary, Czechia or even Russia, on the other hand, appear wedded to a more ethnic idea of nationhood rooted in a common language, traditions and myths of origin.
The ethno-state is just Darwinist.