Back 2 Basics
Back 2 Basics: What Is a Nation-State?
A primer series that strips global affairs down to first principles. Episode one: the concept everyone uses and almost nobody defines.
Back 2 Basics is the Curious Globalist primer series. Each episode takes one foundational concept in international affairs, history, or economics and explains it cleanly, without jargon, in under thirty minutes.
In our opening episode we tackle the term that anchors almost every other conversation on this show: the nation-state. Where did it come from, why is it not the same as a country, and why is it currently under more pressure than at any point in the last century?
You will learn
- The Westphalian origin story (and what the textbook version gets wrong)
- The difference between a nation, a state, and a nation-state
- Three real-world cases that break the definition