Nations Identity Power

In this book, the author analyses the contradictions inherent in the general understanding of nationalism in order to fashion s new intellectual synthesis. In particular he questions why states in the West are able to live with the nation as the legitimate space for democratic institutions, whereas in the post-communist world, especially in Eastern Europe, eythnicity is pre-eminent. Schöpflin argues that the nation is simultaneously ethnic, civic and structured by the state.