This article engages critically with the idea of state-centred nationhood, including its promises and limitations, as a foundation for state strategies of forging unity in (migration-related) diversity within nations. As states across Europe grapple with the management of migration-related diversity, in contexts of increasing polarization of public debate on nationhood, which conceptions of nationhood do they draw on? We build on data from Norway, including policy documents and parliamentary debates, and draw on ten interviews with eleven bureaucrats in senior positions. Our interviewees were tasked with different aspects of the state’s nation building work, such as immigration control, national minorities (including Sami populations), religious and life-stance communities, and the 200-year anniversary of the Constitution. When asking which conceptions of nationhood bureaucrats draw on, we acknowledge that someone is doing the state’s nation building work. We find that the bureaucrats draw on a range of conceptions of nationhood, where ethnic and civic, more open and more closed dimensions, are mobilized. However, we did not find a cohesive conception of a state-centred nationhood being promulgated. Instead, our interviewees expressed uncertainty about how and to what extent nationhood could or should be mobilized to forge unity among Norwegian citizens. We argue that future research should move beyond dichotomies such as ethnic/civic or elite/everyday nationhood to theorize the composite articulations of nationhood which emerge empirically. Who bureaucrats effectively see as the imagined community, we argue, remains central to understanding states nation-building efforts.

本文与以国家为中心的国家概念（包括其承诺和局限性）进行了批判性接触，以此作为在国家内部建立（与移民相关的）多样性统一的国家战略的基础。随着欧洲各州努力解决与移民相关的多样性的问题，在关于民族性的公开辩论日益加剧的背景下，它们借鉴了哪些民族概念？我们以挪威的数据为基础，包括政策文件和议会辩论，并与十一个高级职位的官僚进行了十次访谈。我们的受访者承担了国家建国工作的各个方面的任务，例如移民控制，少数民族（包括萨米族居民），宗教和生活社区以及《宪法》成立200周年。当询问采用哪种国家官僚概念时，我们承认有人在从事国家的国家建设工作。我们发现，官僚们借鉴了一系列的国家观念，其中动员了种族和公民，更开放和更封闭的维度。但是，我们没有发现要发布以国家为中心的民族主义的凝聚力概念。相反，我们的受访者对如何或应该动员国家以在挪威公民中建立团结表示不确定。我们认为，未来的研究应该超越种族/公民或精英/日常民族之类的二分法，以理论化从经验上出现的民族的综合表述。我们认为，谁能将官僚有效地视为想象中的社区，