ABSTRACT
Nationalism and democracy represent two of the most important processes and powerful ideas of contemporary politics.2 Both as ideological forces and institutional programmes, nationalism and democracy have not always pulled in the same direction, although they both feature common claims to individuals and people. Nationalism sometimes appears to be fully congruent with democracy as it speaks of freedom, equality and progress, and galvanizes the positive energy of whole societies. At other times, nationalism and democracy seem almost antithetical, with the former producing mechanisms of exclusion and sentiments of intolerance, and the latter constraining its definition to instrumental mechanisms of a majoritarian representation. The relationship between nationalism and democracy is therefore not only multifaceted but also full of tensions and paradoxes. Academic contributions dealing with the interaction between nationalism and democracy are as varied as the relationship between these two phenomena. Not only theoretical social scientists, but also political comparativists and experts on international relations have engaged in furthering our understanding of specific aspects of that relationship. Indeed both nationalism and democracy are packages of multiple components rather than discrete monolithic phenomena. Nationalism involves notions of collective identity, territorial mobilization and, very often, political and constitutional change. Democracy features, among others, notions of popular sovereignty and political participation. As a result of this multiplicity of foci and interests a doctrinal comprehensive coherence is unusual, although a number of academics have examined such a relationship as a unit of observation.3 Analysed from such an interrelated perspective, nationalism and democracy are processes which mutually reinforce themselves. Both are anchored in ideas of sovereignty and representative government. In their normative foundations nationalism and democracy challenge forms of political organization which are not legitimized by the people. From an historical standpoint, the apparently close and symbiotic relationship between nationalism and democracy has manifested itself in the development of state nationalism (or majority nationalism) in modern Europe, a process which is associated mainly with the outcomes of the English, American and French Revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
