Lesson 2 — Activity 2: A Civic Nation
Completion requirements
Lesson 2 — Activity 2: A Civic
Nation
Warm Up
You learned that nation has several meanings, and you learned about the elements that are important to the identity of a nation.
You learned as well that Canada is a country and a nation. Canada is also something called a civic nation.
In this activity, you will learn what a civic nation is.
A civic nation has been defined as "a community of equal, rights-bearing citizens, united in patriotic attachment to a shared set of political practices and values." This means that people of a civic nation, despite being of different races, colours, creeds, genders, ethnicities, and speaking different languages, all share certain values and beliefs.
Civic nations are based on shared values and beliefs. Most civic nations in the world have a constitution that contains the laws that define the nation and state how it will be governed. In Canada, our Constitution contains the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which sets out the basic rights and freedoms of Canadians. Below, you will see just three of these rights and freedoms.
freedom of peaceful assembly
support for social programs
the right to vote
A constitution is valued and upheld by the people who live in a civic nation because it lays out the kind of society they want to live in. It expresses the values and beliefs shared by the citizens of that country.
Two more terms that are important for your understanding of nation are state and nation-state.
1. A state is a body of government, the rules and the laws, and the government officials. The state is what makes the country run.
2. A nation-state is a political group in which the people are predominantly of the same culture.
Here is an example of a nation-state:
In the early 1800s in Europe, people who spoke German lived in a number of small states of different kinds. Many of those people liked the idea of a single German nation-state. They believed that a German nation would consist of everyone of German descent. In 1871, people of the many small states united to form one nation-state and called it Germany.
Another examples of a nation-state is Japan. Japan is considered to be the world's largest nation-state with over 120 million Japanese, roughly 95 percent of its total population.
