“We should not ask ‘what is a nation’ but rather: how is nationhood as a political and cultural form institutionalized within and among states?”23 Brubaker’s institutionalist constructionism provides an important corrective to those views (typically held above all by nationalists themselves) that suggest that “the nation” is a real, enduring historical entity. Failing their institutionalization, “nations” must remain ephemeral and fuzzy.
