Liberal political changes in the Habsburg monarchy during the 1860s and 1870s, especially those caused by the December Constitution of 1867 and the ensuing schooling laws, created the necessary legal framework for German and Czech school associations to establish national monolingual schools in Bohemia—the so-called minority schools. These local organizations, however, were soon superseded by central school associations, namely the German association in Vienna (Deutscher Schulverein) and the Czech one in Prague (Ústřední Matice Školská). Founded in 1880, these associations were aimed at schools in the linguistically, and therefore nationally, contested regions along the “language frontier.” This study focuses on the dynamics of the national contestation over schooling prior to World War I and compares the activities of these two associations against the background of political democratization, mass mobilization, and the social questions of the fin de siècle. The comparative analysis of the proclamations, activities, and political contacts of the competing central school associations aims at revising theses about the position and meaning of these organizations and shows their very close interdependence upon political processes, especially on the unsuccessful Czech-German negotiations on a national compromise for Bohemia.

National identities are often conceived of as factors that lend structure and stability to citizens’ political opinions on issues such as immigration. While citizens who define national membership in ethno-cultural terms are less likely to support immigration, those with a civic conception are more likely to do so. The authors propose that defining national identity along both ethno-cultural and civic lines may give rise to conflicting considerations, leading people to experience ambivalence, implying that national identities may serve less as a stabilizing force than suggested by previous research. Findings from heterogeneous choice models and a unique survey experiment show that German citizens with mixed conceptions of national identity had more variable and more malleable opinions than individuals with ideal-type conceptions during the 2015/2016 European refugee crisis. The findings point to an identity-based source of ambivalence and extend current understandings of how people form attitudes towards immigration.

This article investigates the politics of national identity implemented in Rijeka after World War II, when the city was integrated into socialist Yugoslavia. These national and political transitions posed various challenges to the consolidation of the Yugoslav Communists' power. The nationalities policy embedded in the slogan “Brotherhood and Unity” was the official answer to the national question, promoting collaboration among the Croatian majority, the Italian minority, and other national communities in the city. This article focuses on the definition of postwar Rijeka's image, investigating the relationship between Yugoslav socialism and national identities in everyday political practice. The negotiation of the representation of national identities in a socialist society led to ambivalences, contradictions, and contentions expressed in and through Rijeka's public spaces, highlighting the different orientations of cultural and political actors. The process of building socialist Yugoslavia in this specific borderland context reveals the balance and tension between the multinational framework and the integrative tendencies pertaining to the legitimization and consolidation of the socialist system.

Conseil constitutionnel and Conseil d'Etat now both hold that Article 88-1 of the French Constitution contains the duty to implement Community law – The Conseil constitutionnel tests whether acts of parliament manifestly contravene unconditional and precisely phrased provisions of Community law – Duty to implement Community law limited by France's constitutional identity for the Conseil constitutionnel, by the absence of equivalent protection on the Community level for the Conseil d'Etat – Supremacy of the Constitution not affected

The Conseil constitutionnel has spoken again. In a decision of 27 July 2006, no. 2006-540 DC, the French constitutional court has further and significantly elaborated on earlier rulings on the status of Community directives in the French legal order. In the summer of 2004, it had ruled, in cases in which it was asked to declare unconstitutional an act of parliament implementing Community directives, that ‘the transposing of a Community directive results from a constitutional requirement with which non-compliance is only possible by reason of an express contrary provision of the Constitution’ (decisions of, inter alia, 10 June 2004, no. 2004-496 DC and 29 July 2004, no. 2004-498 DC). Very recently, the Conseil d'Etat, France's highest administrative court, took a similar stance in a case in which the constitutionality of a government decree implementing a directive was at stake (Decision of 8 February 2007, Société Arcelor Atlantique et Lorraine et autres).