Building on Sand: Nation, Borders, Myth and History

The Role of History, Historiography and Historian in Nation Building

Some scholars outside historical scholarship view history as a past, that only has relevance when it is needed or ‘past’ that should totally be forgotten. Such people see these academic disciplines as archaic if not completely useless. Others hold it in low esteem. This may not only be seen as misconception of history, as a process and discipline, it has as well affected the unity, progress, pe...

Nation - building

Nations stay together when citizens share enough values and preferences. Homogeneity amongst people can be built with education, teaching a common language to facilitate communication, but also by brute force such as prohibiting local cultures. Democracies and dictators have different incentives when it comes to choosing how much and by what means to homogenize the population. We study and we c...

Modernism and Nation Building

Health centres: building on sand?

Nation-Building, Nationalism, and Wars∗

This paper explores how the increase in army size observed in early modern times changed the way states conducted wars. Starting in the late 18th century, states switched from mercenaries to a mass army by conscription. We model the incentives of soldiers to exert effort in war and show that as army size increases paying mercenaries is no longer optimal. In order for the population to accept fi...