Ethno-nationalism

Over the last 40 years, the Western states have known no major conflict on their land. For the most part, they are powerful and sovereign and democratic. Their borders, drawn by previous centuries of wars, are now indisputable and their economies are so prosperous that they make this part of the continent a most enviable place for immigration.

However, Europe is troubled from time to time by remnants of violence that serve for a handful of states as a noisy reminder of the relative fragility of their territorial situation. Spain, Great Britain and France are thus confronted to ethno-nationalist movements that violently contest the claim of authority over the whole territory and its unification. But violent ethno-nationalism, if the most blatant, might not be the most efficient.

The European integration, the preponderant place of “Euro-regions”, the take-off of globalized economy come to shake the authority of nation-states, offering ethnic nationalism new possibilities for the future. Catalonian, Lombard or Scottish nationalisms obviously integrated this evolution into their perspective. To this extent, ethno-nationalism might not be the vestige of the past, figuring the road back to a “golden age”, nor is it a third world activism: it is part and parcel of modernity and expresses both its economic and political vivacity.

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