A stateless nation is an

ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

nation A nation is a type of social organization where a collective Identity (social science), identity, a national identity, has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, t ...

that does not possess its own

sovereign state A sovereign state is a State (polity), state that has the highest authority over a territory. It is commonly understood that Sovereignty#Sovereignty and independence, a sovereign state is independent. When referring to a specific polity, the ter ...

.''Dictionary Of Public Administration'', U.C. Mandal, Sarup & Sons 2007, 505 p. Use of the term implies that such ethnic groups have the right to self-determination, to establish an independent

nation-state A nation state, or nation-state, is a political entity in which the state (a centralized political organization ruling over a population within a territory) and the nation (a community based on a common identity) are (broadly or ideally) con ...

with its own government. Members of stateless nations may be citizens of the country in which they live, or they may be denied

citizenship Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationalit ...

by that country. Stateless nations are usually not represented in international sports or in international organisations such as the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

. Nations without a state are classified as fourth-world nations. Some stateless nations have a history of statehood, while some were always stateless.

History

The term was coined in 1983 by political scientist Jacques Leruez in his book ''L'Écosse, une nation sans État'' about the position of Scotland within the United Kingdom. It was later adopted and popularized by Scottish scholars such as

David McCrone David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Damas ...

, Michael Keating and T. M. Devine. Ethnicities described as stateless nations can be dispersed across a number of states (for example, the

Yoruba people The Yoruba people ( ; , , ) are a West African ethnic group who inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo, which are collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute more than 50 million people in Africa, are over a million outsid ...

found in the African states of

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

Benin Benin, officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It was formerly known as Dahomey. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north-west, and Niger to the north-east. The majority of its po ...

and

Togo Togo, officially the Togolese Republic, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to Ghana–Togo border, the west, Benin to Benin–Togo border, the east and Burkina Faso to Burkina Faso–Togo border, the north. It is one of the le ...

) or form the native population of a

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

within a larger state (such as the Uyghur people in the

Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC: previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest of the country at the crossroads ...

within the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

). Some stateless nations historically had a state, which was absorbed by another; for example, Tibet's declaration of independence in 1913 was not recognized, and it was reunited in 1951 by the

- which claims that

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

is an integral part of China, while the

Tibetan government-in-exile The Central Tibetan Administration (, , ) is the government-in-exile of Tibet, based in Dharamshala, India. It comprises a judiciary branch, a legislative branch, and an executive branch, and offers support and services to the Tibetan exile ...

maintains that Tibet is an independent state under an unlawful occupation. Stateless nations can have large populations; for example, the

Kurds Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

have an estimated population of over 30 million people, which makes them one of the largest stateless nations.

Nation-states and nations without states

The symbiotic relationship between nations and states arose in

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's extent varies depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean ...

during the 18th century, and it was exported to the rest of the world through colonial rule. Whereas the Western European nation-states are at present relinquishing some of their powers to the European Union, many of the former colonies are now the zealous defenders of the concept of national statehood. However, not all peoples within multi-cultural states consider themselves stateless nations. As not all states are nation states, there are ethnic groups who live in

multinational state A multinational state or a multinational union is a sovereign entity that comprises two or more nations or states. This contrasts with a nation state, where a single nation accounts for the bulk of the population. Depending on the definition of ...

s that are not considered "stateless nations". Only a small fraction of the world's national groups have associated nation states; the rest are distributed in one or more states. While there are over 3000 estimated nations in the world, there were only 193 member states of the

as of 2011, of which fewer than 20 are considered to be ethnically homogeneous nation states. Thus nation states are not as common as often assumed, and stateless nations are the overwhelming majority of nations in the world.

Consequences of colonialism and imperialism

During the imperial and

colonial era Colonial period (a period in a country's history where it was subject to management by a colonial power) may refer to: Continents *European colonization of the Americas * Colonisation of Africa * Western imperialism in Asia Countries * Col ...

, powerful nations extended their influence outside their homeland; resulting in many colonized nations ceasing to be

self-governing Self-governance, self-government, self-sovereignty or self-rule is the ability of a person or group to exercise all necessary functions of regulation without intervention from an external authority. It may refer to personal conduct or to any ...

and being described as stateless nations thereafter. Some nations have been victims of "carve-outs" that left their homeland divided among several countries. Even today, the colonial boundaries form modern national boundaries. These boundaries often differ from cultural boundaries which results in situations wherein people who speak the same language or have the same culture are divided by national borders; for example,

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

is split into the regions of West Papua (a former Dutch colony) and

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

(a former Australian colony). During

decolonization Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby Imperialism, imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. The meanings and applications of the term are disputed. Some scholar ...

, the colonial powers imposed a unified state structure irrespective of the ethnic differences and granted independence to their

colonies A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their '' metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often or ...

as a

. This led to

successor states Succession of states is a concept in international relations regarding a successor state that has become a sovereign state over a territory (and populace) that was previously under the sovereignty of another state. The theory has its roots in 19th ...

with many minority ethnic groups in them, which increased the potential for

ethnic conflict An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's position within so ...

s. Some of these minority groups campaigned for

self-determination Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage. Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...

. Stateless nations were not protected in all countries and as a result, they became victims of atrocities such as

discrimination Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, such as race, gender, age, class, religion, or sex ...

ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it ...

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

forced assimilation Forced assimilation is the involuntary cultural assimilation of religious or ethnic minority groups, during which they are forced by a government to adopt the language, national identity, norms, mores, customs, traditions, values, mentality ...

, and the exploitation of labor and

natural resources Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest, and cultural value. ...

Nationalism and stateless nations

People with a common origin, history, language, culture, customs, or religion can turn into a

through the awakening of national consciousness. A nation can exist without a state, as is exemplified by the stateless nations. Citizenship is not always the nationality of a person. In a multinational state different national identities can coexist or compete: for example, in

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

English nationalism,

Scottish nationalism Scottish nationalism promotes the idea that the Scottish people form a cohesive nation and Scottish national identity, national identity. Scottish nationalism began to shape from 1853 with the National Association for the Vindication of Scottis ...

, and Welsh nationalism exist and are held together by

British nationalism British nationalism asserts that the British people, British are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of Britons,Guntram H. Herb, David H. Kaplan. Nations and Nationalism: A Global Historical Overview: A Global Historical Overview. Santa Ba ...

. Nationalism is often connected to

separatism Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, regional, governmental, or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seekin ...

because a nation is considered to achieve completeness through its independence. Throughout history, numerous nations declared their independence, but not all succeeded in establishing a state. Even today, there are active autonomy and independence movements around the world. The claim of the stateless nations to

is often denied due to

geopolitical Geopolitics () is the study of the effects of Earth's geography on politics and international relations. Geopolitics usually refers to countries and relations between them, it may also focus on two other kinds of states: ''de facto'' independen ...

interests and increasing

globalization Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

of the world. Stateless nations sometimes show solidarity with other stateless nations and maintain diplomatic relations.The Catalan President and the Head of the Corsican government meet in Barcelona. The meeting lasted more than two hours and focused on enhancing the cooperation between the two nations in a regional and European level.

List of stateless nations

The following is a list of ethnic and national groups where there exist notable

independence movement Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of a ...

s as evidenced by standalone Wikipedia articles. States made bold under the "homeland" column are countries of the respective ethnic groups which are native to them and still host the majority (more than half) of their population.

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * *

External links

Map of European Stateless Nations
published by the

advocacy group Advocacy groups, also known as lobby groups, interest groups, special interest groups, pressure groups, or public associations, use various forms of advocacy or lobbying to influence public opinion and ultimately public policy. They play an impor ...

Eurominority
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities
{{Autonomous types of first-tier administration Autonomy Cultural geography Human rights by issue Independence movements

State State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

Political science terminology Secession Sovereignty