Methodological_nationalism
Methodological nationalism
Use of nation-states as the basis of analysis in social science
In social science, methodological nationalism is an intellectual orientation and pattern in scholarly research that conceives of the nation-state as the sole unit of analysis or as a container for social processes. This concept has largely been developed by Andreas Wimmer and Nina Glick Schiller, who specifically define it as "the assumption that the nation/state/society is the natural social and political form of the modern world".[1] Methodological nationalism has been identified in many social science subfields, such as anthropology, sociology, and the interdisciplinary field of migration studies.[2] Methodological Nationalism, as a practice within Social Science, has been further critiqued by scholars such as Saskia Sassen, who contends that the nation-state and its borders are an insufficient unit of analysis and that the national is at times the "terrains of the global".[3]