Democratic Inclusion for the One and the Many

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century members of most European national groups assumed that one day their languages and cultures would be nourished within an international political system which appeared to be reconfiguring itself as a result of the rise of the nation-state and the dissolution of the old imperial order. By the mid-twentieth century such hopes seemed impossible because they were inconceivable. At the beginning of the twenty first century similar aspirations now seem partly realisable in a continent which is reshaping itself to contend with forces which challenge so many of the rules and patterns of our interaction as citizens.