Nations, Peoples, States

Abstract

The following article consists in a report prepared by the General Secretary François Bedarida and Nicolas Roussellier that treats one of the themes of the Eighteenth International Congress of Historical Sciences (Montreal, 1995) and which is based on summaries of the papers presented. This report reflects the attempt made by the participating scholars of different cultures to re-evaluate and reconsider "nation"-both as a concept (along with related concepts and realities like ethnicity, people, national identity and nation-state) and as an evolved historical reality in many parts of the world in the context of the conjuncture that took form toward the close of the twentieth century on the disintegration of colonial empires and accompanied by the emergence of the nation-state as a topic of debate. Analysis was made of (1) the ways in which national groups assumed shape, dissolved and re-united; (2) the various models of "nations, peoples, and states" and their formation or disintegration; (3) the positive or negative role of the state in the coming into being of the nation; and (4) the elements of the nation-state model and whether or not its possesses a viable constitution. And it was concluded that it would be quite difficult to graft this model.