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This chapter puts forth the book’s analytical framework in two parts. The first part engages critically with Ernest Gellner’s theory of nationalism and particularly his theorisation of cultural homogeneity and nation/state congruency. This part demonstrates the problems with Gellner’s thought, namely his functionalist approach and his ‘presentist’ and totalising reading of modern history that renders nationalism as inevitable and necessary for the project of modernity. The second part stipulates this book’s Lacanian psychoanalytical framework as it articulates the concepts of lack/void, the split subject and fantasy. This part demonstrates the utility of the Lacanian architecture to understand better how the ideal of congruent societies has become a leitmotiv in modern political thought and IR theory.