Nations are bounded by principle in a way universal religions were not.

Evidence

The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them, encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations. No nation imagines itself coterminous with mankind. The most messianic nationalists do not dream of a day when all the members of the human race will join their nation in the way that it was possible, in certain epochs, for, say, Christians to dream of a wholly Christian planet. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 39

Categorization

• DEFINE: The ‘limited’ axis of imagined community — the distinctive contrast with universal religion’s aspiration to totality.
• XREF: connects to: Jews served Europe as a non-national international element valued precisely for their unboundness.; Religion carries no necessary political meaning but is anchored in tendential historical formations; Shared language and culture do not constitute belonging to a nation. (+4 more)

Related

• The nation is an imagined, limited, sovereign political community (similarity 0.83)
• The early modern “nation” meant a status-group sharing custom, not a territorial state. (similarity 0.81)
• The nation’s sacred aura lets patriotism capture and tame universalist religions. (similarity 0.80)
• The nation-state cannot expand by conquest because its legitimacy rests on limited national consent (similarity 0.79)
• The nation-state’s drive to fill all space left no room for supranational groups. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Universalistic norms lose force without status-group exclusionary sanctions behind them. #corroborates (0.80) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 271
• The early modern “nation” meant a status-group sharing custom, not a territorial state. #expands (0.78) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 150
• Religion carries no necessary political meaning but is anchored in tendential historical formations #qualifies (0.75)
• National religion fusion silences religious critiques of the state #expands (0.75)
• Shared language and culture do not constitute belonging to a nation. #corroborates (0.72)