The Erosion of Nationalism in the West European Community

The West European countries achieved their national integration a long time ago. They find themselves today in a postnational istic phase, aspiring to supranational cooperation as a conse quence of their profound processes of economic, social, cultural, and political interpenetration. In each West European country, the nationalistic attitude toward other West European countries is in a phase of erosion in the sense that it no longer appears as a basic characteristic of the civic culture. Nationalism is still the most significant basic political value in the contemporary world, but not in Western Europe. I shall focus my analysis on the perception that each West European country has of other West European countries and on the decline of nationalistic tendencies within Western Europe, neglecting the attitudes that these nations may have toward other regions of the world except the United States and Japan. What can be said about the erosion of nationalism in Western Europe obviously cannot be extrapolated to Eastern Europe. Ethnicity and nationalism are obviously different notions, and I consequently exclude movements of ethnic regional identity from the analysis. The concept of nationalism is not the most appropriate for characterizing such movements. For instance, there is no incompatibility between the revival of regional identi ties in Spain and the decline of nationalistic attitudes of Spaniards toward other European nations. I also exclude from the analysis racist reactions against non European immigrants. Racism and nationalism are different phe 31