1 Methodological Nationalism: Theory and History Daniel Chernilo * Annual Conference of the International Association of Critical Realism King’s College, London, July 2008 Abstract This article seeks to contribute to furthering our understanding of what methodological nationalism actually is and offer some insights that point towards its possible overcoming. The critical side of its argument unravels the paradoxical constitution of the current debate on methodological nationalism; namely, the fact that methodological nationalism is simultaneously regarded as wholly negative and all-pervasive. I shall substantiate this by revisiting some of the most successful attempts at the conceptualisation of the nation-state that have sought to transcend methodological nationalism in five disciplines: sociology, nationalism studies, anthropology, social psychology and international relations. The positive side of the article’s argument introduces a distinction between a theoretical and an historical form of methodological nationalism with the help of which it tries to address some of the problems most commonly found in the literature. Theoretically, methodological nationalism is associated with an explanatory reductionism as the rise and main features of the nation-state are used to explicate the rise and main features of modernity itself. Historically, it introduces the historical problem of its prevalence, that is, whether methodological nationalism a key if not the key feature of the history of the social sciences at large. Keywords Anthropology, International Relations, Methodological Nationalism, Nationalism Studies, Social Psychology, Social Theory, Sociology. Last revision: 20 June 2008. Word count: 10,750 * Associate Professor of Sociology the University Alberto Hurtado in Santiago - Chile. Email: dchernil@uahurtado.cl .