The Relationship Between National Identity and State Borders

Nations, states, and borders are constructs. They are imagined where they do not truly exist. What a nation is fluctuates as much as the membership of people in said nation. Yet, the nation is the culmination of the culture and beliefs of a people. States and their borders are fluid, not permanent. Yet, the state is the essential building block of international politics and state borders provide the structure for the state. Is the fluctuation in national identity responsible for the change to the location of state borders? This question is answered by conducting a comparison of two case studies using the countries Eritrea and South Sudan. Each case is compared to a model of nation-state creation exhibited by Germany to see if the creation of a new national identity was responsible for a new state and its new borders. The German model is a classic model of the influence of national identity on state borders. It is expected that the German model is true for new states where national identity is created and then dictates border placement