Making a Modern Political Order: The Problem of the Nation State

Sheehan’s thoughtful book makes a convincing case that the modern political order arises out of people’s shared expectations and hopes, without which the nation state could not exist.

Every political order depends on a set of shared expectations about how the order does and should work. In Making a Modern Political Order, James Sheehan provides a sophisticated analysis of these expectations and shows how they are a source of both cohesion and conflict in the modern society of nation states. ...