ABSTRACT
The rise of identity politics has been surprising in two countries that have benefitted extensively from EU membership. To address the puzzle, the paper suggests that the EU vision of common and inclusive identity, grounded in a formal set of rules, had its strongest effect before and immediately after accession. Yet, its intensity was short-lived and mistaken for a popular embrace of multiculturalism. To understand this dynamic, the paper traces the interactions between citizens and elites, as well as the tradeoffs and complementarities between democracy and legitimacy in the two countries.
