ABSTRACT
In the second half of the twentieth century there has arisen one of the most paradoxical forms of nationalism of all; ‘neo-nationalism’, a new territorial politics in Western states. There are few in which it has not occurred: Scotland and Wales in the UK; Catalunya and Euskadi in Spain; Flanders in Belgium; Brittany and Occitanie in France; Quebec in Canada, and so on. ‘Neo’, that is ‘new’, forms of nationalism are paradoxical because they were largely unpredicted, and conventional theories of nationalism have found them difficult to accommodate. After all, was not nationalism in the West well and truly over? Had it not served its purpose in ushering in the modern state during the nineteenth century?
