Nation state, social cohesion and cultural diversity

[Extract] The nation state is a construct that emerged in the era of the industriar revolution. The state defmes the meaning of citizenship and promotes systems which define the lives of the people living within its borders. The modem state rests on the notion of citizenship in both a legal and a nonnative sense. Marshall (1992) identifies that citizenship rights include civil, political and social rights. The detennlnation of these rights, particularly social rights, is the result of historical struggles among different groups in society. The adequacy or otherwise of these rights are hotly debated topics (Babacan and Babacan, 2007)