Ethnicity and religion are European concepts used to describe social patterns in the world system. Historically, the Jewish and Greek traditions exemplify two models of the relation between religion and ethnicity. In sociological theory ethnicity and religion are two aspects in the multilayered systems of cultures in human society. Structurally most religions include many ethnic groups, but most ethnic groups have one majority religion. This relation often leads to the local misperception that identifies one ethnic group with one religion. Cultural (...) and structural features of religion and ethnicity show four mechanisms, which account for the particularizing effects of the interaction between religion and ethnicity: religion and ethnicity as meaning structures mutually enhance each other; religion and ethnicity fit together structurally on many levels; religion and ethnicity are highly efficient “mobilizing mechanisms”; and religion and ethnicity can serve as symbolic expressions of inequality. (shrink)

The evolution of the nation state is described as a process of bordernisation and de-bordernisation of macro-social units. The processes of political and cultural inclusion within the formation of the nation state lea to three paradoxes of implementation. These paradoxes are analysed with the dichotomies: universal - particularistic, affirmative - critical, and traditional - modern. These three kinds of self-description are reasons for both, the contradictions and the flexibility of the evolution of the nation state.