Who is included in the nation–and why some are not, or only partially–is a crucial issue in an age when rights and status are determined by such inclusion for which people have been willing to fight and die. Included constituencies are acutely aware of this issue and seek to protect their privilege. Excluded groups are equally aware, with their very identity shaped by official or informal exclusion and their collective action often aimed at forcing inclusion. Indeed, the demand for inclusion in the nation, for citizenship and/or group rights against discrimination, has inspired many (though not all) modern social movements. This dynamic, framed by the issue of national inclusion, remains a central political issue of our time. The author addresses this issue, outlining a domination-based, coalition framework of nationalism in which exclusion is structural rather than fixed or tangential to nation-building. This discussion of exclusive nationalism begins to reclaim from essentialism, economics, or literary analogy the issue of nation-building as one in which politics is central. The article shows how instrumental and cultural approaches can be combined in explaining demarcations of nation inclusion, thereby moving beyond current methodological divisions.
