A situation of national danger or disaster in which a government suspends normal constitutional procedures to regain control. It can be an earthquake, flood, landslide, cyclone, tsunami, urban flood, heatwave; a man-made disaster can be nuclear, biological, and chemical, there is no fixed term to declare a national calamity as a 'national disaster. The government is also allowed to stop production and/or stop any citizen from traveling, working, or going to school depending on how serious of danger or disaster the nation is in.
by miss anonymous FMM September 2, 2020
Get the national state of disaster mug.The paradox of sovereignty: A nation-state claims absolute, indivisible authority within its borders. But in a globalized world, this sovereignty is fundamentally fictional. States are permeable to capital flows, digital information, climate effects, pandemics, and transnational corporations that operate beyond their control. The hard problem is that the nation-state, the primary unit of modern political organization, is simultaneously too small to solve global problems and too large to address local ones effectively. It is an increasingly dysfunctional container for human affairs, yet no agreed-upon alternative exists.
Example: A nation-state passes a strict data privacy law. A multinational tech company, based elsewhere, continues to harvest its citizens' data through servers in a third country. The state's sovereignty hits a wall. Conversely, a small town being poisoned by cross-border pollution is powerless because the solution requires an international treaty. The nation-state is caught in a pincer: its legal authority stops at a line on a map that viruses, carbon dioxide, and billionaires laugh at. It possesses the myth of total control while wrestling with problems that are inherently stateless. Hard Problem of Nation-States.
by Enkigal January 24, 2026
Get the Hard Problem of Nation-States mug.The idea that a "nation" is not a primordial, natural entity, but a modern fiction invented through shared stories, symbols, and administrative coercion. It argues that the flag, anthem, founding myths, and mass education systems are tools used to convince millions of strangers they share a deep, sacred bond and a common destiny, thereby legitimizing the state's power over a defined territory. The nation is an "imagined community" that feels incredibly real because everyone around you agrees to act as if it is.
Example: "Before 1861, 'Italy' was a geographic expression, a patchwork of warring states. Then, through the Theory of Constructed Nation States, they crafted a story of Roman rebirth, standardized a Tuscan dialect as 'Italian' in schools, and invented rituals. Within two generations, a Sicilian peasant and a Venetian merchant both ‘felt’ Italian, proving the nation is a successful group hallucination with an army and a passport office."
by Abzu Land January 31, 2026
Get the Theory of Constructed Nation States mug.The collective "way of thinking" characteristic of the nation-state as an entity. It is defined by realpolitik, raison d'état (reason of state), border security, sovereignty disputes, national interest calculations, and the monopoly on legitimate violence. This cognition is not merely the sum of its citizens' thoughts; it is the institutional logic embedded in foreign ministries, intelligence agencies, and diplomatic corps that perpetuates a worldview of perpetual competition between bounded territorial units.
Example: When a refugee crisis emerges, Nation State Cognition immediately frames it as a problem of border security, asylum quotas, and national burden, rather than as a humanitarian crisis requiring a regional or global resettlement solution. The cognitive framework of the state cannot easily think beyond its own borders and legalisms.
by Nammugal February 5, 2026
Get the Nation State Cognition mug.The unconscious predisposition to view the nation-state—a relatively modern construct of a bordered territory with a centralized government—as the natural, inevitable, and primary unit of human political organization. This bias leads to assuming global problems must have national solutions, that national identity is paramount, and that political maps divided into colored countries represent a fundamental reality, rather than a contingent, often violently imposed, administrative layer.
Example: When a pandemic hits, the immediate global response is framed by Nation State Bias: "What is France's policy? What is Brazil's strategy?" This overlooks more relevant units like cities, regions, or global supply chains, and creates competition for vaccines instead of coordinated, transnational public health planning.
by Nammugal February 5, 2026
Get the Nation State Bias mug.The study of how large political communities develop collective psyches—shared identities, memories, traumas, and aspirations that shape how nations think, feel, and behave. Nation-states are not just administrative units; they're psychological entities, with personalities (aggressive, defensive, confident), moods (optimistic, anxious, nostalgic), and even neuroses (historical guilt, inferiority complexes, messianic delusions). The psychology of nation-states examines how national identity is formed (through shared stories, symbols, education), how national trauma is processed (or not), and how collective psychology drives foreign policy, domestic politics, and international relations. Understanding that nations have psychologies explains why they often act against their apparent interests—because they're driven by the same irrational forces as individuals, just on a larger scale.
Example: "He studied the psychology of nation-states to understand why his country kept making the same foreign policy mistakes. It wasn't bad leadership; it was national psychology—a deep-seated insecurity from a historical defeat that made them overcompensate aggressively. Until the psychology healed, the policy wouldn't change."
by Dumu The Void February 16, 2026
Get the Psychology of Nation-States mug.The study of how nation-states are structured as social systems—how they organize populations, create hierarchies, distribute resources, and maintain order. Nation-states are the largest-scale social organizations humans have devised, and their sociology is correspondingly complex: classes, institutions, bureaucracies, legal systems, and the millions of interactions that hold them together. The sociology of nation-states examines how social order is maintained (through consent, coercion, and habit), how inequality is structured (by class, race, region), and how states change (through revolution, reform, or collapse). It also examines the relationship between states and the societies they govern—how states shape society and how society shapes states, in an ongoing dance of power and resistance.
Example: "She applied the sociology of nation-states to understand rising inequality in her country. It wasn't just bad policy; it was the structure of the state itself—who it represented, who it ignored, whose interests were built into its operations. Changing policy wouldn't change the structure; changing the structure required changing who had power."
by Dumu The Void February 16, 2026
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