MULTICULTURAL NATIONALISM AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY : A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF BELGIUM AND SPAIN

This research investigates the strategies which the nation-states, faced with the rise of regional and sub-national identities, develop to reconstruct the national identity. It focuses on the strategy of 'multicultural nationalism', which tries to legitimise the nation-state as a constitutional framework allowing different cultures and ethnic groups to live together in harmony. The research tries to find out : (1) to what extent the Belgian and the Spanish state have adopted such a multi-cultural strategy in order to relegitimise the centre and create a renewed sense of national loyalty amongst its citizens ; (2) whether such a strategy has affected the relationship between multiculturalism and national identity at the mass level. This second component involves an analysis of the available survey-data in Belgium and Spain.