The critique of methodological nationalism : a debate in two waves -- A claim to universalism : breaking the equation between the nation-state and society apart -- Karl Marx (1818-1883) : the rise of capitalism and the historical elusiveness of the nation-state -- Max Weber (1864-1920) : politics and the sociological equivocations of the nation-state -- Emile Durkheim (1857-1917) : moral universalism and the normative ambiguity of the nation-state -- Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) : the totalitarian threat to the nation-state -- Raymond Aron (1905-1983) , Barrington Moore (1913-2005) and Reinhardt Bendix (1916-1991) : industrialism and the historicity of the nation-state -- Michael Mann (1942-present) and Eric Hobsbawm (1919-present) : classes, nations and different conceptions of the nation-state -- Manuel Castells (1942-present) and globalisation theorists : the 'definitive' decline of the nation-state -- Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) and Jürgen Habermas (1929-present) : world society, cosmopolitanism and the nation-state.