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In the latest episode of The Wisdom of Crowds, we talk nationalism and whether it's inherently legitimate or inherently coercive—or, more likely, both soundcloud.com/the-wisdom-of-…
I do believe nationalism is inherently legitimate, insofar as nationalist preferences among at least a part of the electorate are a natural outcome of any democratic process. That's why I'm uncomfortable with attacking those ideas as anti-democratic or "bad" 1/x
Nationalism is inevitable (at least in the modern era). But part of me wishes it were otherwise. All nationalist projects involve violence, and most modern nation-states—to become what they became—went through periods of "sorting" 2/x
People often note that European democracies were relatively homogenous until recently (and often the argument is that this facilitated the trust and cohesion necessary for generous welfare states). But they became homogenous for a reason, and one of those reasons was violence 3/x
Sometimes coercion was negotiated between states. One example was the 1924 "population exchange" between Turkey and Greece after the Ottoman Empire's dissolution. 1.5 million had to leave their homes. Here is an abandoned Greek village in Turkey, which I recently visited 4/x 
