The nation-state is seen by many today as the key unit of analysis for international organization and cooperation in the modern age, but not all groups that want to make up and control their own nation-state are able to do so: historical factors, domestic politics, and international relations often prevent them from obtaining sovereign power. Groups that have tried to create a nation-state and failed to do so can be referred to as being "frustrated." Frustrated Nationalism offers case studies by an international collection of scholars who describe the efforts of many of those groups to achieve sovereign status, or at least to obtain greater control over the policies that affect them, their strategies, and their outcomes.

Gregory S. Mahler is Academic Dean Emeritus and Research Professor of Politics at Earlham College. He is the author or editor of many books, including Foreign Perceptions of the United States Under Donald Trump and Comparative Politics: Exploring Concepts and Institutions Across Nations.