The tension between citizens and populations is central to the book. The former are subject of the nation-state, while the latter are objects of the welfare state. However this distinction though conceptually neat plays out very differently on the ground. Chatterjee goes into the logic of its conceptual segregation and the sociobiology of their overlapping in the real world. Moreover, the first point that Chatterjee strives to make, is that the nation-state creates both these categories. It does for its own proliferation and the resulting reality often feeds into the logic of the state. The extent of this point clashed with the neatly segregated notion. Both notions do agree that nation-state creates the two categories. However, the idea of segregation gives the implication that populations only exist within the parameters of welfare, and that such a category does not play out in the day to day functioning of the nation-state where civil society, as in citizens, functions. The shift in Chatterjee's argument is to move away from notions of welfare and citizenship and focus on linking the nation-state and governmentality
Governmentality is shown to be a legitimate aspect of the state functioning simply because it addresses two specific limitations built into the condition of a nation. The first is that the state must find a menses to address those identities that marginal to dominate framework. The key word here is mobilization. To treat all such identities as individual citizens are to lose sight of the fundamental contractions between the dominant and the marginal. Thus the social mobilization incorporates the identities as a population group into the national structure while also keeping the contradiction in focus. The second reason has to to do with limited resources.
Political society is thus an acknowledgment of the governmental tendencies nation-state. It is also a means of incorporating population groups into proper political thought and consideration.
