They require a great deal of their members, demanding much greater solidarity towards compatriots than towards humanity in general. We cannot make a success of these enterprises without strong common identification. And considering the alternatives to democracy in our world, it is not in the interest of humanity that we fail in these enterprises. We can look at this from another angle. Modern states in general, not just democratic states, having broken away from the traditional hierarchical models, require a high degree of mobilization of their members.
Mobilization occurs around common identities.
Some of these will be wider than others, some more open and hospitable to cosmopolitan solidarities. Take the example of India that Martha Nussbaum raises. The present drive towards Hindu chauvinism of the BJP comes as an alternative definition of Indian national identity to the Nehru-Gandhi secular definition of India. I shudder to think of the consequences of abandoning the issue of Indian identity altogether to the perpetrators of the Ayodhya disaster. I don't really know if I'm disagreeing with Martha Nussbaum on this, just putting her profound and moving plea in a somewhat different context.