The People and the Nation: Populism and Ethno-Territorial Politics in Europe, edited by Reinhard Heinisch, Emanuele Massetti, and Oscar Mazzoleni. London and New York: Routledge, 2019. xii, 312 pp. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351265560.

Abstract

At the present stage of European integration, a comparative analysis of the various dimensions of peoples and nations, populism and ethno-territorial politics in Europe is of great importance. The future of European integration, scenarios and models of its development have always been in the focus of attention not only of politicians, but also of political scientists, sociologists and other scientists. The topic of populism has received fairly wide coverage in international and European political science in recent years, it is even appropriate to talk about the explosive nature of interest in this topic in connection with the events of the 2010s in the political party field of European countries and the United States. However, it is obvious that it is necessary to consider populism and right-wing populism in a complex perspective, both at the general theoretical level and at the more specific level of certain incidents. This is explained by the very uniqueness of the European project, which has no equal among regional integration associations in terms of the degree of integration of its member countries. At the same time, today the EU is faced with many problems that, according to some experts, are of an existential nature. The most striking evidence of this is the outcome of the referendum in the UK on leaving the EU. The growth of Euroscepticism and nationalist sentiments is expressed today in the EU countries in a truly triumphant procession of populist parties of the right and left (Heinisch and Mazzoleni 2016, 1-18; Heinisch and Mazzoleni 2017, 105-122). This phenomenon in modern Europe is due to several interconnected phenomena both in essence and in time.