ABSTRACT
A model of international relations built on overlapping polities interacting on many levels most correctly describes the history of the Eastern Mediterranean, where peoples' loyalty is split among a variety of networks of political power. The discrepancy between the political dictum of sovereignty and the persisting mixture of religious identities is an important factor in the problem of religious minorities. The sense of common origins in a long term perspective and each group's capital of myths determine the formation of modern nations. Many nation states in the post-Ottoman space, especially in the Middle East and in the Ottoman frontier provinces, lack a fundamental element: a distinctive national experience. Both the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean fail to measure up to the definition of regionalism as integration within a subset of nations, based on common historical, economic, and social features.
