The Logic of the State in (Re)Building a Nation: When Do States Change Their Policies Toward Ethnicity and Nationhood? Review by Serhun Al Department of Political Science, University of Utah The Politics of Nation-Building: Making Co-Nationals, Refugees, and Minorities. By Harris Mylo- nas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 248 pp., $29.99 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-1-107-66199-8). The formation of nation-states and the process of nation-building in different cultural and historical settings have received considerable attention within stud- ies of nationalism. However, while macro-historical accounts explain the emer- gence and spread of nation-building projects across different cases, variations and shifts in nation-building policies within and across different cases need fur- ther theorization. In other words, the question of why some political elites pur- sue policies of assimilation while others choose accommodation or exclusion (and under what conditions the same political elites would change from one pol- icy option to another) has been understudied. In The Politics of Nation-Building, Harris Mylonas attempts to build a new and insightful theoretical framework that explains such questions by studying the post-Ottoman Balkan States after World War I. In his theoretical approach, Mylonas builds upon the existing literature on nation-building by combining insights from comparative politics and interna- tional relations. His causal mechanism focuses on the interstate relations and foreign policy goals of the political elites, which explain the variation of nation- building policies in domestic politics. In the preface of the book, after explaining his motivation for the study of nation-building policies and defining key concepts such as “non-core group” (instead of “minorities”), the “host state,” and the “external power,” Mylonas introduces his framework under three nation-building policies: assimilation, accommodation, and exclusion. In the introduction, he argues that while most nation-building studies focus on domestic factors such as modernization, ancient hatred among ethnic groups, and political ideologies of the elites, The Politics of Nation-Building adopts a security-oriented perspective within the geostrategic rela- tions of states in the international arena. Thereafter, Mylonas justifies his selec- tion of case studies from the post-World War I Balkan states, many of which were multiethnic with various unassimilated ethnic groups, while their political elites had a clear understanding of what nationhood referred to. In Chapter 2, Mylonas introduces four configurations of his key argument: If the non-core group is not supported by an external power, the host state is more likely to assimilate its members to prevent further penetration of external power. If the non-core group is supported by an allied power of the host state, accommoda- tion is more likely since the security perception of the state will be lower. If the host state has a revisionist foreign policy and the non-core group is supported by an external enemy, exclusion is more likely. However, if the host state has a sta- tus quo foreign policy, the non-core group is more likely to be assimilated than excluded. Al, Serhun. (2014) The Logic of the State in (Re)Building a Nation: When Do States Change Their Policies Toward Ethnicity and Nationhood? International Studies Review, doi: 10.1111/misr.12123 © 2014 International Studies Association International Studies Review (2014) 16, 323–324