ABSTRACT
A perennial feature of modern European politics is the problematic linkage of borders, political authority and national identity. For a time this was solved by the system of nation-states, in which territorial frontiers bounded a consistent set of identities and functional systems, although we know that the homogeneous nation-state was more aspiration than reality, and never applied across the entire continent. In recent years, the question has been transformed by the emergence of an overarching and multifaceted European order above both states and nations. Some optimists see in this a means of transcending the nationalities question as we move into an era of post-nationalism, a Europe of the Regions, or a new mediaevalism (Tamir 1993; Kearney 1997; Murphy 1999); yet states are still very much with us. Others have seen nationalism as the product of an era of modernity now coming to an end (Hobsbawm 1990); yet nationalisms seem to have proliferated in recent decades. The perspective adopted here is less stark. The rescaling of functional systems and political authority are changing the meaning and scope of both state and nation, and the relationship between the two.
