1995-10-01a- CIA Conference Report: THE CHALLENGE OF ETHNIC CONFLICT TO NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER IN THE 1990S GEOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES 01-Oct-95

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Summary of Discussion you pointed out, and, where the countries are very
strong, there are more national states than nation-
states. They clearly are very important actors and, in
General Discussion most states, they are not forcing people into a single
form. Clearly, that is the case in the United States, in
QUESTION: Do you think that political arrangements Britain, and in France. National identity is important,
have very little to do with the consolidation of nation- but it is not necessarily an identity that requires every-
alism of our nation states? body to be the same. As we look at the newer states of
the world, the states that have been created after
DR. POULSEN: Geographers are concerned with World War II, virtually none of them come anything
things that give character to territory; we look at close to the nation-state. They are national states.
nations as one of the critical components of such.
DR. POtLSEN: Well, we obviously differ on this.
The way governments adjust their institutional One of the fundamental facts is that the world is parti-
arrangements to accommodate the national diversity is tioned into states, and this cannot be ignored. The
a question more properly in the province of a political states are very significant in determining what is pro-
scientist. Nevertheless, many geographers will agree duced, how. people do things, and the like. But at the
that one of the most important characteristics ofter- same level, we have, in fact, national identities so that
tory is the prevailing national identity in that territory. within a state there may be two quite different simul-
taneously operating systems based upon this identity.
One cannot understand this section of the United
States without knowing that English is the common If we go the way of the anthropologist and look at
language and that Americans share a lot of common every single grouping of people-and this is cer y
images and values that help make the country go. a valid way of looking at things-we do not get to
Where you have diversity within the state, serious some of the big problems that generate conflict. The
problems exist. I made a particular point of-distin- interrelationships between nations within states and
guishing between nations and other groups; the caste also of national interests between states are the key
system in India, for instance, is a very fundamental ingredients in conflict.
part of understanding India and really does not fit into
this otherwise useful framework.
DR. HONEY: I would suggest that our notion of the
nation-state is really oversimplified and that we would
be better off if we adopted Tilly's definition of the
national state. There are few really national states, as
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