Multiplicity of Nationalism in Contemporary Europe

Nationalism remains one of the key political, societal, and sociopsychological phenomena in contemporary Europe. Its significance for the justification of state policies and the stability of political systems, particularly in the context of advanced democracies, and its significance for people’s basic needs for a political and cultural identity and a sense of national pride continue to challenge scholars. The international scholars assembled in this edited collection suggest that the use of three perspectives-supranationalism, boundary-making nationalism, and regional nationalism-may be promising as an explanatory framework for the analysis of nationalism in Europe. The book’s contributors distance themselves from older dichotomies such as civic and ethnic nationalism and questions the one-sided normativity of nationalism, in particular in the concept of liberal nationalism. It argues that a promising approach to contemporary nationalism should reflect the multiplicity of nationalism. The volume is a collection of studies by a multinational group of authors with backgrounds in Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Ukraine and the United States.