By most accounts Europe has had a difficult twenty-first century. Those who were of academic age in the 1990s can remember a vision of Europe marked by confidence in the future. The end of the Cold War, the reunification of Germany, and the relaunch of European integration offered the promise of unity and harmony in the new century that had eluded the continent in the previous one. Instead of history reaching its end, as some predicted, the past two decades have borne witness to a Europe locked in seemingly perpetual crisis. Observers tasked with selecting a single “biggest” issue facing the continent have a long list from which to choose: the slowing of economic growth, sovereign debt default, immigration, refugees, Russia and Ukraine, the fragmentation of national electoral politics and the rise of populism, a decaying transatlantic relationship, and Brexit, not to mention longer-term challenges such as climate and demographic change, could all qualify.

The biggest issue facing Europe today, however, is not economic, institutional, strategic, or environmental, but lies in the differences among Europeans regarding the purpose and meaning of the nation and the nature of their identification with the national community. Conceptions of the nation serve as the lenses through which leaders and publics interpret their interests, understand problems, and conceive of solutions. These “national” differences exist both within and across countries in Europe, straining politics and constraining policy at the domestic level and thwarting cooperation and joint decision-making at the European level. The net effect is government at both levels that frequently fails to address many of its most pressing problems and finds itself locked in a cycle in which perceived political incapacity feeds public discontent, which itself leads to a hardening of the different perspectives.

Varying visions of the nation in Europe are not new, but what has changed in the past few decades are conditions both within and outside the nation. The acceleration of interconnectedness brought forth by economic interdependence and free movement across borders, and the adoption of neoliberal economic policies, which tend to create winners and losers and lessen social protections, have dramatically elevated the salience of national differences and the challenge they pose for Europe.