On nations and international boundaries – the case of the Mediterranean region

Abstract

The world seems mainly to comprise nation states that are independent and based on one nation, if sometimes with certain minorities within it. Thus, at first glance the model seems to be of ‘a nation establishing its boundaries’. However, a ‘boundaries that made a nation’ model also in fact exists – in which nations were created after boundaries were laid down. The independent states in the Mediterranean region forming the main subject of study here are found to belong to both of the above models, with the result that they place overall between the European model of ‘nation states’ and the African and Middle Eastern model by which ‘boundaries make nations’.