Exploring Nations, Power, and Social Structures in Political Science

This essay delves into the multifaceted concepts of nation, power, and their interplay within modern society. It begins by examining the idea of nations as "imagined communities," exploring how these constructs raise questions about power relations and whose imaginings dominate. The essay then critiques the possibility of understanding the concept of a nation without considering dominant discourses of race, class, gender, and sexuality, emphasizing their impact on societal modernization. Furthermore, it investigates the relationship between slavery and the formation of nations, as well as the ongoing differential wealth distribution between first-world and majority-world nations, highlighting the negative economic and social impacts of slavery. Finally, the essay analyzes the complex nature of power, moving beyond the concept of "power over" to consider agency, discursive powers, relations of power, and symbolic power, offering insights into how power functions within a complex modern society. The essay draws on various sources to support its arguments and provides a comprehensive overview of these critical concepts in political science.

1. What does it mean to think about nations as “Imagined communities”? Does this raise
questions about power relations and whose imaginings dominate?
The present report based upon concept of Nation and helps to understand the meaning of
nation, power and difference. The nation is imagined as community because irrespective of
actual inequality and development that help each nation in order to grow and ultimately it is its
fraternity which makes it possible from last two centuries, not all the peoples of country are
killed but they will die as per their willingness. These deaths brings up suddenly problem related
to nationalism that force a nation to shaken history (Anderson, Benedict 1991). The concept is
introduced to analysed the meaning of nationalism and it is basically developed by Anderson
who focus a nation to deal with those social community and this is developed by those people
who realize that they are also a portion of that group only. The media also play an important role
in imagined communities as they target a mass audience and address citizen as the public and it
has critically evaluated that they also use imaged in order to imagine communities and this help
audience to choose best image they relate to further enhance the relationship to that community
which they are imagine (Bennett and et.al., 2005). Imagined communities are the demand of
these vast changes in the world and Anderson also states that the final outcome of developments
in the old socialist world remain cover in the inimportance while on the other hand pre-
occupation of imagined communities seems that they are still on margins of new scholarship on
nationalism.
This imagines communities definitely raise power relation and whose imaginings
dominate because power relation are exist on those society where there is an ability of single
individual/ group to lead a society in better way in order to grow themselves will become a major
part of a nation and as a result nation becomes imagined communities whose objective is to make
it modern.
2.It is possible to think about the concept of nation without understanding and critiquing
dominant discourses of race/class/gender/sexuality?
No, it is not possible to think the concept of nation without understanding discourse of
race, class and gender because these discourse are directly impact on modernization of society
and intersectionality consider whole social satisfaction like class, race, sexuality orientation. In
past times society discriminate peoples on the basis of class, race and gender but those different
types of people comprises the whole nation (Griffin, 1998). In Australia, people have different

class, colour and these all presents the concept of nation. Apart from this, if the people live with
same status or race than it will not define a concept of nation. Because nation itself means where
people live in a country who belongs to different class, religion. But on the other hand, if these
things will not in the country then it is difficult to present a concept of nation.
From last so many years, discrimination are done on the basis of class, race, gender but in
present scenario it has been evaluated that there are still some global inequalities and as a result
countries are still facing discrimination specially on the basis of gender (Yuval-Davis, 2006). By
using variety of theoretical approaches in the nation and to maintaining or continuing the
violence A inflection shift is intended to change the structure of society.
3. What does slavery have to do with the formation of nations, and ongoing differential wealth
distribution across first world and majority world nations
Slavery is the biggest factor that affect nation's income and it also creates negative impact
on nation economy as well as first world because basically slavery begins with civilization and it
has been analyses that salves did not earn good amount of money for their families and as a
result they cannot even afford for the luxuries and food to feed their families This shows that it
creates negative image of a nation in world. Slavery slowly decreases the process of a formation
of a nation and as a result the nation is not developed as per imagine by the peoples. But in other
developed nation, such as US there are peoples who are slave and do work as per others need
which is consider one of the biggest problem in the developing nations. On the other side,
slavery also create vast impact upon modern society too because it does not assist to raise the
overall economy of a country and as the result comes, the performance of a country decline as
compared to others countries where slavery does not affect the entire process. Slavery is present
everywhere such that in Africa, country's economy goes fall because of increasing slavery (Hall,
1990). There are many developed and under- developing countries who are trying to solve the
problem of slavery because it direct affect country image as well as its economic system.
Overall, the author presents all negative points, that slavery do affect the formation of a
country and it also creates huge impact on the wealth distribution across develop countries as
well as majority of world nations.
4. Power is a difficult concept to grasp once we move away from the concept of “power over”
and think about agency, discursive powers, relations of power, symbolic power, and so on.

Based on the readings what are your ideas about power and how it functions in a complex
modern society.
The concept of power is the skill that helps to influence or to control the behaviour of
people. It is a term that is mostly used by philosophers, scholars and social theorist and it is a
term of popular wisdom and sermon that is basically found in unnecessary. The use of power
need not to involve force or threat of force but it closely resembles what democratic nations used
in order to be successful in this world. There are so many types of powers but it has been
critically evaluated that it is quite difficult to describe the concept of Power in the terms of
modern society (Storey, 2012). On the basis of logical power it will help to raise modern society
into forward direction while on the other side power can be classified on the basis of structure as
well as agency. Because of power only, an individual or a group can be pursue their goals in
order to convert society into modern one. It has been examined that power is quite difficult
concept of appreciation and on the other side it is an effective instrument that help in social
control of whole nation and further to lead a country in better way. Without power no one can
help to become a nation into developed nation.
However, it has been critically evaluated that relation of power creates negative impact
upon complex modern society such that excessive use of power will sometimes exploit resources
which affect internal environment of a nation. While symbolic power also known as soft power
that includes those actions that have gender dominance as well as racism. Symbolic power also
includes those soft powers which have their discriminatory of hard meaning and it also requires a
dominator to accept their position in order to exchange social values that creates differences
between modern societies (St. Pierre, 2000).

REFERENCES
Anderson, Benedict 1991, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of
nationalism, Revised Ed, Verso/New Left Books. (Also available in full via google search)
Bennett, Tony, Grossberg, Lawrence, Morris, Meaghan, (Eds) 2005, New Keywords: A revised
vocabulary of culture and society, Blackwell Publishers, Malden, MA. (Read the entries
for each of the terms nation, power, difference and reference appropriately.)
Griffin, M M 1998, 'As a woman I have no country', Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice,
vol. 10. no. 2, pp. 255-9.
Hall, S 1990, ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’ in J. Rutherford (Ed.) Identity, community, culture,
difference, Lawrence and Wishart, London, pp. 222-237.
St. Pierre, E 2000, 'Poststructural Feminism in Education: An overview', Studies in Education,
vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 477-515.
Storey, J 2012, 'Structuralism and post-structuralism', in Cultural theory and popular culture: an
introduction, 6th edn, Pearson, Harlow, pp. 113-36.
Yuval-Davis, N 2006, 'Belonging and the politics of belonging', Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 40,
no. 3. pp. 197-214.