Do nothing for nation protecting a good name (8)
I believe the answer is:
stagnate
'do nothing' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'nation protecting a good name' is the wordplay.
'nation' becomes 'state' ('state' can be a synonym of 'nation'**).
'protecting' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'good' becomes 'g' (abbreviation).
'name' becomes 'n' (common abbreviation e.g. on forms).
'a'+'g'+'n'='agn'
'state' placed around 'agn' is 'STAGNATE'.
'for' is the link.
(Other definitions for stagnate that I've seen before include "Show little activity" , "Be idle" , "Make no move" , "Get stuck" , "turn foul" .)