Yes, there is more to culture and nationhood than just the piece of paper with the written rules of governance upon it. The denial of property rights is the main cause of all the problems many of the more southern countries have. If you have no property rights in yourself and your labor, you cannot do much of anything with certainty. This lack of property rights is one reason why, Brazil, for instance, has favelas, people cannot build for permanence because they lack rights to the land they are using. In an instance where there are property rights, in Japan, people do not always own the land that they build on, but they have property rights through a very long term contract to lease the land, therefore, they build homes there. It is the culture of widespread property ownership that allows any progress in economic and political affairs.