{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02023608768971332, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0016863406408094434, 'mean_word_length': 5.131782945736434, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Exit Strategies and State Building

By the eighteenth century, conspicuous expenditure on palaces, fêtes, urban renewal and the like demanded even more revenue and centralisation. Treating nationalism as a rational response to modernisation offers at best a partial explanation for the profound psychological reorientation of identities. It is not evident that nationalism was a rational response or an inevitable one. Karl Deutsch demonstrated, back in 1953, that the emergence and growth of nationalist movements depended on the degree of responsiveness by leaders to the needs of minority or low-status groups in their societies. Wimmer acknowledges this condition. If state-building and competition among states was the key driver, it would have made responsiveness far and away the most rational response by leaders, but it was not that common. We accordingly end up with a theory, or set of linked propositions, that relies on rational behaviour only when it suits its theoretical needs. Another issue is the relationship between alliances and ethnic groups. Wimmer maintains that alliances create co-operation and feelings of similarity among participants. This is undeniably true, but feelings of common ethnicity also create a predisposition to co-operate. It is a classic chicken-andegg problem, andWimmer unreasonably bases his theory on the priority of the eggs (alliances) over chickens (ethnic groups). No doubt, we can find examples of both, but their relative importance is an unanswered empirical question. Like many social scientists, Wimmer believes that grand developments like the emergence of the state and nationalism and the frequency of war can be explained by parsimonious rational models. This reviewer is unconvinced. History and social science alike demonstrate the opacity of the social world, in large part because outcomes are the result of the interactions of multiple actors. As often as not, policies have outcomes that are unanticipated by actors, and sometimes the opposite of those intended. Even if the world were filled with rational and perceptive actors – which it certainly is not – there is a great problem in going from the choices to outcomes or assuming that context dictates choice. Nevertheless, this book is a worthwhile read as its arguments are worth considering as partial answers to the problems the author addresses.